[Foundation-l] and what if...

Fri Dec 12 12:26:17 UTC 2008

2008/12/12 Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 6:33 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, the story with IWF have shown that the current system of
>> blocking vandals by their IP has to be changed ASAP. In fact it is
>> causing a lot of problems even without action of IWF and other similar
>> wachdogs. There are more and more ISPs which uses single IP for all
>> their customers. Do you rember the story of blocking Quatar? Actually,
>> vast majority of ISPs use dynamic IP numbers, which also causes
>> serious problems with effective blocking vandals.My current ISP is
>> using dynamic IP. In my office there are around 200 people using
>> single IP. I guess all OTRS volunteers and checkusers knows the issue
>> very well. The IP blocking is terribly old fashioned - it has been
>> implemented at the time where most of the IP's represented single
>> PC's. Actually very few IP numbers are "personal".
>
> Do you have a suggestion? Not everyone uses XFF, certainly not ISPs
> with dynamic IPs, how would you suggest we block anonymous users?

Indeed, I don't see any alternative way to block anonymous users. Even
forcing people to register wouldn't help since, without IP addresses,
we can't block account creation by people creating new accounts every
time one gets block. What we need to do is put pressure on ISPs to use
XFF whenever they are using proxies. The fact that people couldn't
edit during the block has nothing to do with censorship, it's just a
technical issue that can and must be fixed by ISPs.

The censorship issue isn't really an issue - if an image (or content
or whatever) is genuinely illegal in a given country then of course
that country has every right to block it. If countries block legal
images (as in this case), or block more than just the infringing image
(again, as in this case) then we can appeal by whatever means are
appropriate (the court of public opinion works pretty well as an
appeals court if there isn't a more formal method). We can also
campaign to have laws changed if we want to, but that's a decision to
be taken with great care - getting into political lobbying is a big
deal and maybe not something we want to get involved with (if we do,
it should be something done by the local chapter, I expect).