Add message redaction (#524)

Author: progval

extensions/message-redaction.md

@@ -0,0 +1,206 @@
+---
+title: Message redaction
+layout: spec
+work-in-progress: true
+copyrights:
+  -
+    name: "James Wheare"
+    email: "[email protected]"
+    period: "2020"
+  -
+    name: "Val Lorentz"
+    email: "[email protected]"
+    period: "2023"
+---
+
+## Notes for implementing work-in-progress version
+
+This is a work-in-progress specification.
+
+Software implementing this work-in-progress specification MUST NOT use the
+unprefixed `message-redaction` capability name.
+Instead, implementations SHOULD use the `draft/message-redaction` capability
+name to be interoperable with other software implementing a compatible
+work-in-progress version.
+
+The final version of the specification will use an unprefixed capability name.
+
+## Introduction
+
+This specification enables messages to be deleted.
+Use cases include retracting accidentally sent messages, moderation,
+and removing a [`+draft/react` client tag][], amongst others.
+These are cosmetic use cases and do not provide any operational security
+guarantees.
+
+## Architecture
+
+### Dependencies
+
+Clients wishing to use this capability MUST negotiate the [`message-tags`][]
+capability with the server.
+Clients SHOULD negotiate the [`echo-message`][] capability in order to receive
+message IDs for their own messages, so they can be redacted.
+
+
+### Capability
+
+This specification adds the `draft/message-redaction` capability.
+Clients MUST ignore this capability's value, if any.
+
+Implementations that negotiate this capability indicate that they are
+capable of handling the command described below.
+
+
+### Command
+
+To redact a message, a client MUST negotiate the `draft/message-redaction`
+capability and send a `REDACT` command to a target nickname or channel.
+The command is defined as follows:
+
+    REDACT <target> <msgid> [<reason>]
+
+Where `<msgid>` is the id of the message to be redacted, which MUST be a
+`PRIVMSG`, `NOTICE`, or `TAGMSG`.
+
+An optional `<reason>` MAY be provided. As the last parameter, it MAY contain spaces.
+If the client is authorised to delete the message, the server:
+
+* SHOULD forward this `REDACT`, with an appropriate prefix, to the target
+  recipients that have negotiated the `draft/message-redaction` capability, in the
+  same way as PRIVMSG messages.
+* MUST not forward this `REDACT` to target recipients that have not negotiated
+  this capability (see "Fallback" below)
+
+### Chat history
+
+After a message is redacted, [`chathistory`][] responses SHOULD either:
+
+* exclude it entirely
+* replace its content and/or tags with a placeholder and
+  add the `REDACT` message to the response (not counting toward message limits)
+  after the redacted message
+* add the `REDACT` message to the response (not counting toward message limits)
+  after the redacted message
+
+### Errors
+
+This specification defines `FAIL` messages using the [standard replies][]
+framework for notifying clients of errors with message editing and deletion.
+The following codes are defined, with sample plain text descriptions.
+
+* `FAIL REDACT INVALID_TARGET <target> :You cannot delete messages from <target>`
+* `FAIL REDACT REDACT_FORBIDDEN <target> <target-msgid> :You are not authorised to delete this message`
+* `FAIL REDACT REDACT_WINDOW_EXPIRED <target> <target-msgid> <window> :You can no longer edit this message`
+* `FAIL REDACT UNKNOWN_MSGID <target> <target-msgid> :This message does not exist or is too old`
+
+## Client implementation considerations
+
+It is strongly RECOMMENDED that clients provide visible redaction history to users.
+This helps ensure accountability, and mitigates abuse through malicious or
+surreptitious redaction. This could be done via a tool tip, or a separate log.
+Redacted messages MAY be hidden entirely from the primary message log,
+but a deletion log SHOULD be made available.
+
+For the purposes of user interface, clients MAY assume that their own messages
+are redactable.
+However, this will not always be the case, and there could be other messages
+that they have permission to act on.
+Pending a mechanism for discovering redaction permissions, clients SHOULD
+allow users to attempt to delete any message via some mechanism.
+
+Clients SHOULD NOT provide a default reason if users do not provide one.
+
+When a `REDACT` command's `msgid` parameter references a known message not in
+the `target`'s history, clients MUST ignore it.
+This allows servers to safely relay `REDACT` commands targeting messages which they
+did not keep in their history.
+
+## Server implementation considerations
+
+This section is non-normative.
+
+A key motivation for specifying this capability as a server tag, rather than
+a client-only message tag, is to enable more granular redaction permissions.
+Clients might be able to determine which messages are their own, but other
+use cases would not be feasible without server validation.
+
+Such use cases might include:
+
+* Allowing channel moderators or server admins to delete unwelcome messages from others
+* Specifying a cut-off time after which message edits are no longer allowed
+
+If a message is redacted while a client is not present in a channel, servers may send the `REDACT` command in a `chathistory` batch when it re-joins the channel.
+
+If servers use predictable or guessable `msgid`s, they should consider whether errors
+returned on `REDACT` may leak a message's existence to users who did not receive it
+(in a channel they are/were not in or in private messages).
+
+### Message validation
+
+To implement validation, servers require a mechanism for determining the permissions of
+a particular edit or delete action.
+The user requesting the action would need to be compared against properties of
+the message, given only the message ID and target.
+
+Servers with message history storage could look up the message properties from the ID,
+but this might not be possible or desirable in all cases.
+Another mechanism could involve encoding any required properties within the message ID
+itself, e.g. the account ID, timestamp, etc. Servers might choose to encrypt this
+information if it isn't usually public facing. Any information encoded in a message ID
+is still opaque and not intended to be parsed by clients.
+
+### Fallback
+
+Server implementations might choose to inform clients that haven't negotiated
+the capability that a deletion has taken place.
+The fallback method used (if any) is left up to server implementations, but
+could take the form of a standard NOTICE or PRIVMSG with information about the
+action.
+It might be preferable to use relative time descriptions if referring to
+messages in the past, for example:
+
+    :irc.example.com NOTICE #channel :nickname redacted a message from othernick from 5 seconds ago: spam
+
+Implementations might also choose not to send a fallback, if this behaviour
+is considered too noisy for users.
+
+## Security considerations
+
+The ability to delete messages does not offer any information or operational
+security guarantees.
+Once a message has been sent, assume that it will remain visible to any
+recipients or servers, whether or not it is subsequently redacted.
+Above all else, clients that do not support this specification will not see
+any changes to the original message.
+
+## Examples
+
+Deleting a PRIVMSG:
+
+    C: PRIVMSG #channel :an example
+    S: @msgid=123 :nick!u@h PRIVMSG #channel :an example
+    C: REDACT #channel 123 :bad example
+    S: :nick!u@h REDACT #channel 123 :bad example
+
+Deleting a TAGMSG:
+
+    C: @draft/react=🤞TAGMSG #channel
+    S: @msgid=123;draft/react=🤞TAGMSG #channel
+    C: REDACT #channel 123
+    S: :nick@u@h REDACT #channel 123
+
+Deleting someone else's PRIVMSG:
+
+    C1: PRIVMSG #channel :join my network for cold hard chats
+    S:  @msgid=123 :nick!u@h PRIVMSG #channel :join my network for cold hard chats
+    C2: REDACT #channel 123 spam
+    S:  :chanop!u@h REDACT #channel 123 spam
+
+
+[`echo-message`]: ../extensions/echo-message.html
+[`+draft/react` client tag]: ../client-tags/react.html
+[standard replies]: ../extensions/standard-replies.html
+[`message-tags`]: ../extensions/message-tags.html
+[`msgid`]: ../extensions/message-ids.html
+[`chathistory`]: ../extensions/chathistory.html