I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
One of the messages this person left was:
"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3 proxies ;)"
I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs are not violated.
I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back again.
Any suggestions?
Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think?
--mav
On 7/28/02 12:14 AM, "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
One of the messages this person left was:
"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3 proxies ;)"
This is the problem with armsraces. SoftSecurity is usually better than HardSecurity. (Though I don't know anything about this particular case.) Usually "vandals" are in it for the amusement. And contributing to Wikipedia can often be a more satisfying feeling, if it can be made to seem worth it.
What are the articles this person has been changing?
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
One of the messages this person left was:
"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3 proxies ;)"
I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs are not violated.
I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back again.
Any suggestions?
Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think?
--mav
Well, we can use the old fashion UseModWiki way of dealing with vandalism: seven to ten people watching Recent Changes and undoing things faster than the vandal can do them. They tend to go away when their masterpieces don't last 30 seconds.
The problem with IP banning is not only that people have dynamic IP numbers. It is trival to use a list of anonymous proxy servers to change your IP after every edit. There are even programs that will rotate through your proxy list every thirty seconds. In this case, banning becomes as much work as simply dogging the person and reverting the pages.
Stephen G.
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At 09:14 PM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual.
Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
One of the messages this person left was:
"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3 proxies ;)"
I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not
act
on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs are not violated.
I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back
again.
Any suggestions?
Good chance he's bluffing. Most folks only have a limited number of choices as to ISPs and when vandalism starts costing money they give up. ISPs may ignore complaints but we could all complain and maybe that would not be ignored if this turns out to be a persistant guy.
Fred Bauder
Alternatively, we are now sufficiently established and have enough gravitas that we could //persuade// the ISP in question that it would be in their best interests to block malefactors. I leave it to your collective imaginations what our response could be, but we could certainly do a full-featured article on uncooperative and problematic ISPs for example.... Or we could block them entirely.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@ctelco.net To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 10:45 AM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS
At 09:14 PM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:
I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the
previous
one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single
individual.
Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist
One of the messages this person left was:
"ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;)
<3
proxies ;)"
I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is
a
tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not
act
on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be
so
ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as
EULAs
are not violated.
I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back
again.
Any suggestions?
Good chance he's bluffing. Most folks only have a limited number of
choices
as to ISPs and when vandalism starts costing money they give up. ISPs may ignore complaints but we could all complain and maybe that would not be ignored if this turns out to be a persistant guy.
Fred Bauder
[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
correct me if I'm worng, but I seem to recall a feature in the UseMod software where one could revert all changes done by one user or IP. it would seem quite usefull in this case.
regards, WojPob
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 6:14 AM Subject: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS
| I just blocked 3 IPs of a vandal similar to if not the same as the previous | one. Both events involved more than one IP being used by a single individual. | | Please see http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist | | One of the messages this person left was: | | "ADMIN, you gunna block every IP im on? ROFL.. don't waste your time ;) <3 | proxies ;)" | | I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a | tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act | on these types of complaints. I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so | ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs | are not violated. | | I'm not sure what to do -- this person will almost certainly come back again. | | Any suggestions? | | Jimbo you are an ISP owner, what do you think? | | --mav | | | [Wikipedia-l] | To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: | http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l | |
On 27 Jul 2002, at 21:14, Daniel Mayer wrote:
I know, we could whois the IPs and complain to the ISP but my partner is a tech support supervisor for Earthlink and he says that Earthlink does not act on these types of complaints.
It varies a lot from ISP to ISP, and also the issue involved.
I don't know if this vandal's ISP will be so ambivalent. Most ISPs seem to not care what their users do so long as EULAs are not violated.
Most EULAs are so broad that it's hard not to violate them, bring to the ISP the exact sections of their AUP that has been violated, include all IPs involved with timestamps of access.
Also follow up with a phone call if neccassary.
If that fails we should set up a mechanism such that anyone accessing the webpage from that ISP has a note attached to the top saying "Due to a failure by $ISPName$ to take action against an attack against wikipedia we are considering removing write access from user coming from this ISP. Please help us to avoid doing this by contacting your ISPs abuse department and making your views on the matter felt to them".
When an ISPs users start complaing most ISPs buck up, I know a few service sites which have used this technique succesfully.
Imran
Imran Ghory wrote:
Most EULAs are so broad that it's hard not to violate them, bring to the ISP the exact sections of their AUP that has been violated, include all IPs involved with timestamps of access.
Also follow up with a phone call if neccassary.
If that fails we should set up a mechanism such that anyone accessing the webpage from that ISP has a note attached to the top saying "Due to a failure by $ISPName$ to take action against an attack against wikipedia we are considering removing write access from user coming from this ISP. Please help us to avoid doing this by contacting your ISPs abuse department and making your views on the matter felt to them".
When an ISPs users start complaing most ISPs buck up, I know a few service sites which have used this technique succesfully.
Imran
Yes. Reverse DNS lookup could be used, assuming that the ISP has a clue.
Thinks: It would be interesting to know what fraction of Wikipedia users come from ISPs with/without valid reverse DNS lookup set up for their IP addresses. If the fraction from clueless ISPs is small (and it should be), then we could
* ban customers of crap no-reverse-delegation ISPs from editing by default (which will capture a lot of "grey" IP addresses, too), and * offer suitably privileged users the option to issue the appropriate warning (as above) on a per-ISP basis, based on the reverse lookup domain.
Of course, things should never get this far in the first place, but having the tools in reserve would be nice.
Neil
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