An exploration of Bluesky’s wider AT Protocol ecosystem finds that information stored by third-party apps can be publicly visible and easy to inspect, even when users may not expect that. AT Protocol accounts can store data on personal data servers, or PDSs, which can be browsed with tools such as PDSls.dev. While investigating feed readers, the author examined Skyreader users’ public records and discovered that each subscribed RSS feed is saved with its full URL in an openly accessible data record. That means a person’s account can reveal which feeds they follow, including feeds they might prefer not to associate with their name.
The exposure goes beyond individual browsing: by searching a Bluesky relay for Skyreader subscription records and then querying users’ PDSs, the author collected more than 1,300 feed URLs without authentication or meaningful restrictions. Among them were a private Club MacStories feed that provided access to its content, paywalled 404 Media feeds, Patreon backer feeds, and private GitLab feeds. The author also found Discord-like apps that publish messages and a Twitch-style service whose chats can be watched and searched. The central concern is that public-by-design infrastructure does not ensure users understand what they are disclosing: data can be aggregated and searched at a scale that makes otherwise obscure activity and private content easy to expose.
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