Vegard Skjefstad

Is Mastodon the silver bullet, or yet another social media dud?

First of all, we’ll have to clarify one thing. This post isn’t about the American heavy metal band Mastodon. It’s about the social network Mastodon. You’d think that the creator of Mastodon (the social network) would to at least a little research before picking a name, but apparently not.

With that out of the way, let’s get on with it.

The internet is great. It makes it incredibly easy to for us to connect, share, and educate ourselves. It’s also a place where trolls breed and feed, and hate is amplified. The anonymous nature of the series of tubes that is the internet often brings out the worst in people. There are few things that will make you lose faith in humanity faster than reading comments on a random, high-traffic site on the internet.

Historically, any lack of anonymity has restrained the trolls to a certain degree. And life was good. But with the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, we’ve seen that some people really don’t need anonymity to go absolutely nuts. They’ll write and share whatever they think about race, sexual orientation, global warming, and other heated topics. This has turned many social media sites into very hostile environments, and people are looking for alternatives.

So wouldn’t it be great if there was a Twitter, but without all the hate and hostility? Mastodon tries to be just that, but can it succeed?

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Late last year, a neat little device called PoisonTap surfaced. With it, anyone can easily steal passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive data from any computer – even when it’s locked. But hot on the heels of PoisonTap came its antidote: Beamgun.

PoisonTap takes advantage of Windows’ and OS X’ inherit trust in devices connecting to USB and Thunderbolt ports. A lot of different devices can be connected to these ports. Keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, storage devices, and network cards. Just to name a few. Both Windows and OS X will happily activate whatever device is connected without asking the user if it’s OK. Even if the computer is locked. Because if someone has physical access to the computer, they always have good intentions. Right? Wrong. It’s a terrible assumption to make, and one PosionTap takes advantage of. A better assumption is that everyone who has access to a computer has malicious intentions.

When connected to a USB or Thunderbolt port, PoisonTap quickly registers itself as a network card, and effectively becomes a man-in-the-middle (MitM) on the computer. As a MitM, PosionTap can intercept all inbound and outbound network traffic.

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