A security fix -- posts are now cleaned as they're saved -- and the first update note of a new kind: how to bring a server you already run up to date
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A post's text is written by its author and then shown to everyone who reads the timeline, which means anything hidden inside it runs in every reader's browser. Until today the server stored a post's text exactly as it arrived, so a post could carry markup that did more than format words. As of server v0.6.3, every post passes through a cleaner on its way into the database. Ordinary writing comes through untouched -- links, bold and italic, quotes, lists, and pasted images are all kept -- but anything that could run code is removed before the post is ever stored. Because the cleaning happens as the post is written, it protects every reader of every feed and timeline at once, and no old or unusual browser can slip past it. Both public servers, rss.chat and demo.rss.chat, are already running it. Thanks to the reader who reported this privately.