BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
The solution to the problem of exposing IP:s is to proxy them via an proxy-to-IP mapping which looks something like this: "anon1" => "34.19.215.33" "anon2" => "179.55.66.77" "anon3" => "215.108.3.2" Checkuser would still work, but instead of returning an IP as a result could return "user: [[foobar]], [[barfoo]] and [[anon9512]] shares an IP address." Etc. There are technical solutions.
I can see this will have to be a FAQ too. You're the third or fourth person to suggest this one.
Q. Why don't you write some software to tell someone if there is a match, without revealing the IPs?
A. Because detecting sockpuppets knowing only the IPs and the edit and its time is an art, not a process susceptible to [[Taylorisation]]. If you think otherwise, write the code and show it works reliably in the cases we're interested in, including dynamic IPs assigned from a /12. So far, the only process we've found is to find people who are trustworthy and then trust them all the way. Much as we do with developers.
- d.