[WikiEN-l] Proxies aren't againts the rules, they are just blocked. Was: Wikipaedia is an attack site, too. (was Re: There are no...)

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 9/27/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> The nym software has already been developed and tested.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lunkwill/nym  The problem isn't
> developing the software, it's 1) getting a developer to accept the
> patch, and 2) getting someone to turn it on.
>
> The fact that you know about nym makes me surprised you didn't already
> know that.

I knew it was mostly done, I didn't realize it had actually been
proposed on WP before.  Though it still needs some development work,
since the current version of the software breaks SSL support for users
without client certs, and it needs updated against the current
codebase.

There are also some little security gotchas with the current approach
like the client must "Wait a random interval sufficient to foil
transaction time correlations". ... which no one is going to do
because given the expect account creation rates that time required
might be days. :)


The proposal needs a few other features: for example, the NYM server
should probably download the enwiki block list and refuse to issue a
token for IP addresses which are already blocked. I think that it
should also be made possible to log in when using one of the NYM certs
so the people could continue to use named psedonyms they already have
established (and storing the NYM ID as the users IP).

And there a lot of open questions.. how often should the nym server
reissue tokens for an IP (ever? if not what about IPs changing?
yearly?) should NYM certs only be allowed for tor users?  How do you
prevent your client from sending your nym cert when you've turned off
tor? (thus compromising your IP).