On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 3:21 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:

It would be nearly trivial to feed the IP through a 32bit block cipher, convert that to base 36 (or just an integer), and use that as the user_text. I'm pretty confident that a reasonably clean solution wouldn't be hard. ::shrugs:: But does anyone anywhere want that behavior in mediawiki?

If it meshed well with edits that have already been made while logged out (very important), allowed administrators to issue effective range blocks (something that would allow them to issue /28 and /30 blocks, not just /24), worked with the CheckUser tool easily, etc., it could work.

However, there are also some cultural issuesat play, even outside the communities. There's certainly the issue of what happens when a large Wikipedia blocks a governmental agency (on the English Wikipedia, administrators are cautioned to contact ComCom immediately when they block the IP range of various world governmental agencies, whose IP ranges are shown on the block page).

To me, the most worrisome possibility is that it will be seen by people using WikiScanner, and by the press, as an attempt to cover up malicious behavior by certain companies or agencies. And while the IPs probably should be private, I can't say I don't personally like the transparency that the current system brings for those who fail to create an account, particularly when it comes to business and government. I can see a significant amount of backlash from those who don't understand what we're actually doing, and that it's a matter of privacy, not whitewashing.