[Labs-l] Full Text Reference Tool: Approved exposing of ip addresses to an external API

Thu May 29 16:07:16 UTC 2014

Marc-André Pelletier <mpelletier at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>> I'm interested in learning why the IP is needed at all though. It
>> seems to me that doing it client-side may negate the original purpose
>> of sending it? i.e. it can now be spoofed trivially

> If I understood correctly, the point is to provide libraries local to
> the asking user as the default search basis.

IIRC it wasn't about location, but that some resources are
only accessible to some universities & Co., the providers of
those resources determine by IP whether the client can ac-
cess or not, and so for the tool to determine if a user
would have access to some resource, it needs the client's
IP.

Tim