Hide ignored invites #9255

Yoric · 2022-09-07T10:42:32Z

This code is part of an early Proof of Concept for hiding invite spam. The general idea is that rejecting invites doesn't work, because spam bots simply use that rejection to send more invite spam.

The general idea is:

MSC3847 provides a spec for ignoring invites.
matrix-js-sdk PR 2626 implements a filter that determines whether an invite should be ignored.
With this PR, matrix-react-sdk makes use of the filter to hide ignored invites. At this stage, it is possible to ignore invites by modifying state manually, but that's not how it's meant to be used.
A followup PR will add slash commands to semi-easily add/remove/inspect the list of ignored invites, letting power users actually try out the feature.
If that tryout works, the missing bricks will be:
- a convenient UX to ignore one/many invites;
- a convenient UX to inspect/un-ignore ignored invites;
- a mechanism to automatically cleanup ignored invites (and turn them into rejections) after a time;
- extending this to other clients.

Checklist

Tests written for new code (and old code if feasible)
Linter and other CI checks pass
Sign-off given on the changes (see CONTRIBUTING.md)

Here's what your changelog entry will look like:

✨ Features

Hide ignored invites (#9255). Contributed by @Yoric.

Yoric · 2022-09-07T10:43:04Z

Opening a PR to gather early feedback, but tests haven't been written yet.

weeman1337 · 2022-09-07T11:07:50Z

Hey @Yoric 👋 Does this relate to any issue? If so, can you please link it? If not can you describe your changes (from user point of view)?

Yoric · 2022-09-07T11:15:01Z

Hey @Yoric wave Does this relate to any issue? If so, can you please link it? If not can you describe your changes (from user point of view)?

Oh, right. I've just expanded the description.

With this PR, invites that are specified by MSC3847 to be ignored are hidden.

Yoric · 2022-09-07T14:35:21Z

Opening a PR to gather early feedback, but tests haven't been written yet.

Now with tests.

Yoric · 2022-09-07T14:38:08Z

Not sure what's wrong with Static Analysis. All the errors it shows me are in parts of the code that I'm not hitting. Furthermore, yarn lint doesn't show any error for me when run locally.

Same for yarn test --coverage.

t3chguy · 2022-09-07T14:38:56Z

src/stores/room-list/algorithms/Algorithm.ts

+    private async updateStickyRoom(val: Room) {
+        await this.doUpdateStickyRoom(val);
        this._lastStickyRoom = null; // clear to indicate we're done changing
    }

-    private doUpdateStickyRoom(val: Room) {
+    private async doUpdateStickyRoom(val: Room) {


These cannot be async, this causes race conditions, please see git history around this file. You would need to introduce a semaphore to prevent updates racing with each other.

Ouch. Will do, thanks!

t3chguy · 2022-09-07T14:39:24Z

src/stores/room-list/filters/VisibilityProvider.ts

@@ -38,7 +39,7 @@ export class VisibilityProvider {
        await VoipUserMapper.sharedInstance().onNewInvitedRoom(room);
    }

-    public isRoomVisible(room?: Room): boolean {
+    public async isRoomVisible(room?: Room): Promise<boolean> {


This is a breaking change, existing customisations will fail to compile with this change due to the return type changing.

What would you suggest?

Move it into the js-sdk as a background operation, so consumers don't have to make all their APIs async. Feels a bit strange for getRuleForInvite to be an async function which actually creates rooms, it seems like that one should be read-only, and something else should create and uphold the policy rooms, emitting "PolicyUpdated" or similar events for consumers to subscribe and react to.

It also looks like getOrCreateTargetRoom is flawed if called multiple times whilst the room is being created, it'll stack multiple creations instead of being idempotent. This could also occur with this PR where multiple operations overlap and call isRoomVisible causing overlapping calls to getOrCreateTargetRoom

It also looks like getOrCreateTargetRoom is flawed if called multiple times whilst the room is being created, it'll stack multiple creations instead of being idempotent. This could also occur with this PR where multiple operations overlap and call isRoomVisible causing overlapping calls to getOrCreateTargetRoom

You're right, I should at least lock it to avoid that.

Move it into the js-sdk as a background operation, so consumers don't have to make all their APIs async. Feels a bit strange for getRuleForInvite to be an async function which actually creates rooms, it seems like that one should be read-only, and something else should create and uphold the policy rooms, emitting "PolicyUpdated" or similar events for consumers to subscribe and react to.

That was the design at some point but I dropped it because it felt like I would be reimplementing a non-trivial subset of the state event store. On the other hand, it is probably needed to achieve any kind of performance anyway, so now might be the right time to revisit this.

I'll think this over.

In case someone else reads this, this conversation has spawned a patch in matrix-js-sdk: matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk#2653 .

@t3chguy

Experience and feedback from matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#9255 indicates that we cannot integrate an async `IgnoredInvites.getRuleForInvite`. This PR: - rewrites `getRuleForInvite` to be sync; - adds some locking within `IgnoredInvites` to avoid race conditions noticed by @t3chguy.

@t3chguy

Experience and feedback from matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#9255 indicates that we cannot integrate an async `IgnoredInvites.getRuleForInvite`. This PR: - rewrites `getRuleForInvite` to be sync; - adds some locking within `IgnoredInvites` to avoid race conditions noticed by @t3chguy.

Yoric requested a review from a team as a code owner September 7, 2022 10:42

Yoric requested review from kerryarchibald, justjanne and weeman1337 September 7, 2022 10:42

Yoric marked this pull request as draft September 7, 2022 10:42

github-actions bot deployed to Netlify September 7, 2022 10:47 View deployment

weeman1337 added the T-Enhancement New features, changes in functionality, performance boosts, user-facing improvements label Sep 7, 2022

Yoric mentioned this pull request Sep 7, 2022

don't show rooms when they're ignored #8988

Closed

Yoric force-pushed the yoric/ignore-invites branch from 56b6847 to 5ba6949 Compare September 7, 2022 14:34

Yoric marked this pull request as ready for review September 7, 2022 14:34

Hide ignored invites

f73c431

With this PR, invites that are specified by MSC3847 to be ignored are hidden.

Yoric force-pushed the yoric/ignore-invites branch from 5ba6949 to f73c431 Compare September 7, 2022 14:35

t3chguy suggested changes Sep 7, 2022

View reviewed changes

github-actions bot deployed to Netlify September 7, 2022 14:42 View deployment

Yoric marked this pull request as draft September 7, 2022 14:49

Yoric mentioned this pull request Sep 8, 2022

Making IgnoredInvites mostly sync. matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk#2653

Closed

3 tasks

bb010g mentioned this pull request Jul 25, 2024

Invite spam harassment counter measures element-hq/element-meta#2486

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langleyd closed this Sep 11, 2024

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Hide ignored invites #9255

Hide ignored invites #9255

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Hide ignored invites #9255

Hide ignored invites #9255

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Checklist

✨ Features

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