Talk:Proxy blocking
I think having some sort of hashcash like system, would help the issue with proxies. Allow users to register from open proxies, but require some type of work to be done. Users that are not logged in won't be able to edit pages. This should atleast slow down abuse from proxies, while allowing legimate users to edit. Also, to make it easier to use, a java applet could be made.
Why not edit
- By blocking open proxies we are blocking millions of potential editors from around the world (at least 500.000 in Thailand alone) only to combat a few persistent vandals. It is like killing a mosquito with a flamethrower.
- Umm.... what open proxy users don't have the choice of not using an open proxy? If there are any, their ISPs are broken and easily fixed; why should we accomodate their broken setups?
- I oppose blocking Open proxy, it's really not a good idea. --Moses 07:23, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
- I have a user that is 'blocked' by this. How can I manually get around this?-scratch that I found the 'whitelist' in DefaultSettings.php...I'm guessing maybe I should have added it in localsettings.php. This feature in incomplete until there is a little UI to update the whitelist and the whitelist is populated from the database.
- This is most interesting, although I don't understand anything to it. If I get it more or less right, this means that if you want anonymity, you must log in. However, log in gives you anonymity from basic other users; it seems that admins may know your real IP (which is like your passport or your fingerprints if I get it right). So, proxy blocking is meant to stop people from making fake IPs through proxies, which allow them to escape detection from other users and/or suspicious authorities. But Wikipedia voted to forbide this. Without subscribing to the mail list, can these two questions be then asked:
- why does Wikipedia wants to know who exactly is editing? To impede vandals is the reason alleged, but it is afterward said that it is like "blocking mosquitoes with a flamethrower, and that vandal-attacks are anyway quickly repaired". The US government apparently asked recently for Google to give it the worth of a week of "google searches"; would Wikipedia do this (not necessarily an individual summary of edits, but a simple "traffic analysis" of edits)? At which conditions? (Or at which "legal conditions", although this would mean that there is, in one country at least, legislation governing this; is it the case?) - the other question is more about the "French law expert translation" of "frauduleusement": the Wikipedia answer concentrates on the "illegal" aspect (if no illegal intention is meant, and no illegal means were used, than it's legal, basically goes the argument). I'm not a lawyer (but no reference were given either for this "French law expert" which explains my question), but I believe that "frauduleusement" does not necessarily entails illegality; it may also means "against someone's will" (which is not, in itself, an "illegal" act, since it rathers belongs before the distinction of legality and illegality, concerning "will" and therefore power and domination). If my questions are not simple signs of complete lack of understanding, than another last one has to jump to mind: how come so many people, in particular on the internet and in the US (which is, to date, the country were internet has really became a "daily technology", even compared to other industrialized countries), insist on "privacy", and the first amendment of "right of free speech", but have agreed on impeding privacy techniques on Wikipedia, on the sole argument of "vandal bashing"? If this "strange decision" (when compared to US and internet's awareness of the use of privacy to insure liberty) was the result of a "democratic vote" (always a complicated matter when it is not the vote of all the people, but only of a part of it), what are the conditions for another vote or a change of policy? Put in another way: is this policy reversable? If not, how "democratic" is it? Does all of this relate in any way to the dilemma "security vs. liberty" in the "age of terrorism"? In this last case, how come we forgot Benjamin Franklin's saying: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." ? 137.148.5.13 01:34, 18 March 2006 (UTC)