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Blocked yet AGAIN!

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Is Aphaia around again?!

Walter van Kalken

1 Jul 2005 1 Jul '05

5:37 p.m.

Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the [http://www.sorbs.net SORBS] DNSBL. You cannot create an account It is nice that I cannot create accounts anymore ...... it is neat that I am considered a vandal. Can we please stop the nonsense it becomes extremely irritating. Walter/Waerth

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fun＠thingy.apana.org.au

1 Jul 1 Jul

6:16 p.m.

Walter van Kalken (walter(a)vankalken.net) [050702 01:37]:

Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the [http://www.sorbs.net SORBS] DNSBL. You cannot create an account It is nice that I cannot create accounts anymore ...... it is neat that I am considered a vandal. Can we please stop the nonsense it becomes extremely irritating.

Writing suitable code for bug 550 will probably work. - d.

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Wouter Steenbeek

10:41 p.m.

Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the [http://www.sorbs.net SORBS] DNSBL. You cannot create an account It is nice that I cannot create accounts anymore ...... it is neat that I am considered a vandal. Can we please stop the nonsense it becomes extremely irritating. Walter/Waerth

Walter, perhaps it sounds rude, but else do you want? There will surely be something serious (a vandal bot with open proxies, for instance), otherwise they will not take such a rigorous step. And to be quite frank: I prefer excluding some good-willing people from editing Wikipedia to letting a maniacal nerd ravage the whole project. I quite clearly remember such an attack on li:, some time ago. Wouter _________________________________________________________________ Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/

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Gregory Maxwell

11:02 p.m.

On 7/1/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

Walter, perhaps it sounds rude, but else do you want? There will surely be something serious (a vandal bot with open proxies, for instance), otherwise they will not take such a rigorous step. And to be quite frank: I prefer excluding some good-willing people from editing Wikipedia to letting a maniacal nerd ravage the whole project. I quite clearly remember such an attack on li:, some time ago.

Actually SORBS is pretty frequently wrong. The IP address we had a home a while back (before wikipedia used sorbs) was marked as having an open proxy... Which is had... a year ago. SORBS ignored all emails from me, because they require the provider to take action. My provider ignored my emails because they know I don't have any other choices (other than paying for a real t1)... Eventually I changed IP addresses.. now someone else is being goofed.

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Timwi

2 Jul 2 Jul

5:07 p.m.

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

Actually SORBS is pretty frequently wrong. The IP address we had a home a while back (before wikipedia used sorbs) was marked as having an open proxy... Which is had... a year ago. SORBS ignored all emails from me, because they require the provider to take action. My provider ignored my emails because they know I don't have any other choices (other than paying for a real t1)...

Why are we blindly using this SORBS list if it is that bad? It is trivial to check if a certain IP-address/port combination is still an open proxy, so when someone edits from that IP, just check it and unban it if it isn't...?

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Gregory Maxwell

7:21 p.m.

On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:

Why are we blindly using this SORBS list if it is that bad? It is trivial to check if a certain IP-address/port combination is still an open proxy, so when someone edits from that IP, just check it and unban it if it isn't...?

Well my impression was that SORBS was designed to be used by email servers... where it really isn't acceptable to stall the pipeline to make a test... and in that role it is fairly acceptable: I'd use it to add some spam assassin points but not block outright. It's not like testing is all love and flowers.. generally if you run your own tester you can expect a fair number of angry emails as your probes trigger off peoples stupid personal firewalls. Perhaps that would be mitigated if we only executed that test if someone failed the SORBS list... a quick freshmeat search yields a half dozen proxy testers that we could use. If we added the proxy tester for sorbs we could also address another problem. Right now when an admin believes (i.e. not necessarily backed up with anything measured beyond editing pattern) that an IP address is an open proxy, we are implementing indefinite blocks in many cases. We could provide our users with the proxy check tool to have a lot more confidence that it really is an open proxy and It would be nice if rather than blocking the user we placed them on our own 'sorbs list'... where they would be tested when they try to edit. As it stands right now, there are addresses blocked from open proxies.. but eventually those addresses will belong to someone else, and when they try to edit wikipedia they will be told to contact an admin who might not even be active in our community a year from now.

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Timwi

11:37 p.m.

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

It's not like testing is all love and flowers.. generally if you run your own tester you can expect a fair number of angry emails as your probes trigger off peoples stupid personal firewalls. Perhaps that would be mitigated if we only executed that test if someone failed the SORBS list... a quick freshmeat search yields a half dozen proxy testers that we could use.

I expect the SORBS list to have IP numbers along with port numbers. To test if such a combination is still an open proxy, you need only one probe. Given that the combination is on the SORBS list, nobody should have grounds to complain. But to test if an IP is an open proxy, you need to try all sorts of possible port numbers; *this* is often construed as "port-scanning" and regarded as condemnable. We already have a proxy tester that does the latter. It is disabled for exactly this reason. Timwi

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Walter van Kalken

4:10 a.m.

Walter, perhaps it sounds rude, but else do you want? There will surely be something serious (a vandal bot with open proxies, for instance), otherwise they will not take such a rigorous step. And to be quite frank: I prefer excluding some good-willing people from editing Wikipedia to letting a maniacal nerd ravage the whole project. I quite clearly remember such an attack on li:, some time ago.

Yes Wouter I am extremely offended and disappointed by your answer and also by the lack of reactions by boardmembers such as Anthere, Angela and Jimbo. It is very simple it is the fourth time this is happening to me. And I am sick and tired of it especially because everybody is ignorong the problem. Because they have selfish reasons like yours: "I can edit wikipedia why should I care about others?" How about me putting a vandalwarning on your account in nl.wikipedia Wouter? Wouldn't you be offended? Yes you would. And it is exactly this what I read when I try to create a new account in a wiki. And ironically enough I am creating an account to get rid of vandalism. How many vandalbotoperators are there? Maybe 30 - 40 around the world? How many people do we block from editing wikimedia projects? Well at least 500.000 in Thailand. And that is just a very small set of the IP adresses we block. We are blocking currently probably over 10 million people from potentially editing wikimedia projects. Isn't that like using a flamethrower to kill a mosquito? It is not as if li: is the only vandalized project. So far all damage has always been able to be restored manually usually within a short space of time. Actually even though we are smuck about the closure of the LA Times wiki, we have lost already just as much as they did. Wikimedia is not open anymore, nor does it care about the "right" we actually state everybody has to edit. And why? Because a couple of handfull have dictated that. So we should actually take the free editable for all out of our mission statement as it is a lie. Walter/Waerth

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Angela

5:20 a.m.

The problem is not being ignored. The developers have already worked out a way to whitelist certain users, at least for editing if not yet for account creation. Better solutions and alternative approaches are being discussed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proxy_blocking If anyone does have any real solution to this issue - one that doesn't involve allowing vandals to edit freely - I see no reason why the Foundation couldn't fund the development of such a solution. Perhaps looking into this might be something the new Research Network (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network>) could do? If there is a problem with the information given to blocked users, which as far as I can tell makes no such suggestion that the user is a vandal, then this can be edited by any admin at [[MediaWiki:Sorbsreason]] and [[MediaWiki:Sorbs create account reason]]. As I wrote at [[m:Proxy blocking]], it may be better for that message to direct users somewhere they can be whitelisted rather than sending them to SORBs if they are unable to change the fact they're on an open proxy. Angela.

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Erik Moeller

6:39 a.m.

Angela:

The problem is not being ignored. The developers have already worked out a way to whitelist certain users, at least for editing if not yet for account creation. Better solutions and alternative approaches are being discussed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proxy_blocking

One thing we discussed on IRC yesterday is to a) require logging in when editing from an open proxy, b) require a captcha for every login or account creation from an open proxy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha If the captcha is hard to break - I'm told that, for example, Yahoo!'s is very difficult to break - this should make us relatively secure against spambot and vandal attacks, as we can deal with a limited supply of identities. The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha itself. The person on IRC who specialized in captchas said that http://jcaptcha.sourceforge.net/ is a good, free implementation. A problem is that it runs on Java. I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia. I'd be happy to put further evaluation of this issue on the agenda for the next research meeting. However, Tim might be more willing to work on something in his free time if there's not yet a full-fledged proposal out there. So I'd like to ask Tim to comment first on whether he wants to work on a solution to the problem, not necessarily the one outlined above. Best, Erik

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Mark Williamson

6:51 a.m.

There is unfortunately a problem with Captcha. It assumes that the person can read the Roman alphabet. And many people who can "read the Roman alphabet" will not be able to recognise letters if they're distorted a bit. If we only use it on en:, de:, fr:, etc etc, but not uk:, zh:, etc etc, then I don't really mind. I don't know if it's possible or reasonable, but a numeric Captcha would probably work much better as it could be used at all but a few Wikipedias. Mark On 01/07/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:

Angela:

The problem is not being ignored. The developers have already worked out a way to whitelist certain users, at least for editing if not yet for account creation. Better solutions and alternative approaches are being discussed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proxy_blocking

One thing we discussed on IRC yesterday is to a) require logging in when editing from an open proxy, b) require a captcha for every login or account creation from an open proxy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha If the captcha is hard to break - I'm told that, for example, Yahoo!'s is very difficult to break - this should make us relatively secure against spambot and vandal attacks, as we can deal with a limited supply of identities. The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha itself. The person on IRC who specialized in captchas said that http://jcaptcha.sourceforge.net/ is a good, free implementation. A problem is that it runs on Java. I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia. I'd be happy to put further evaluation of this issue on the agenda for the next research meeting. However, Tim might be more willing to work on something in his free time if there's not yet a full-fledged proposal out there. So I'd like to ask Tim to comment first on whether he wants to work on a solution to the problem, not necessarily the one outlined above. Best, Erik _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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Walter van Kalken

6:53 a.m.

I do not know what Brion did, but hail to him. He solved it for now. I hope we will find a permanent solution before it happens again. Captcha's for open proxies seem like the way to go for me personally. Otherwise a system of emailnotification for open proxies? If it is technically feasible you could even make it such a way that the first 10 edits from an open proxy need to b spaced one minute apart. That way a vandalbot would not be able to wreak havoc instantly. Waerth/Walter

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Timwi

5:04 p.m.

Erik Moeller wrote:

The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha itself.

If LiveJournal have done it, surely MediaWiki can?

I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia.

LiveJournal's captcha includes the option to take an audio test. Timwi

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Gregory Maxwell

7:26 p.m.

On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:

Erik Moeller wrote:

The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha itself.

If LiveJournal have done it, surely MediaWiki can?

Yes, infact LJs captcha code is available... as well as a lot of other captcha code. We'd only need to do integration work.

I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia.

LiveJournal's captcha includes the option to take an audio test.

We could also invoke the captchas against users who are editing too quickly as a way to suppress highspeed vandalism. It would be disadvantageous to just implement aggressive rate limiting, but kicking people over a threshold to a captcha every once in a while (perhaps also based on their approximate edit count) would be good.

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SJ

1:43 p.m.

On 7/1/05, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:

If there is a problem with the information given to blocked users, which as far as I can tell makes no such suggestion that the user is a vandal, then this can be edited by any admin at [[MediaWiki:Sorbsreason]] and [[MediaWiki:Sorbs create account reason]].

Well, here is what the text looks like, so you all don't have to go try it yourselves. It doesn't explicitly suggest the reader is a vandal, but it certainly isn't polite. It is rather deceptive, really, in that it seems to tell you how to solve your problem, but is only leading you towards further exasperation. If you follow the SORBS DNSBL link, it takes you to an inscrutable User-page whose clearest sentence is "Please contact User:Tim Starling or an administrator with any problems." Of course you have no way to Tim Starling, as you can neither edit nor follow the "email" link from his user-page. If you follow the "administrators" link you are taken to a page full of user-page links, almost none of which have a visible email address. Sorry, chump. There is a brief half-apology to AOL users near the end, but by the time you get to it you are probably in no mood to notice. It also advises you, inexplicably, "Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences." -- if the authors of this text realized that, why did they not provide a way out? It makes you feel as though you are missing something obvious. I don't know where this text shows up, and it doesn't seem to be a Mediawiki: message, but the default is what should be changed. __________________________________________ = User is blocked =

From <projectname>

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by [[SORBS DNSBL]]. The reason given is this: Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the SORBS (http://www.sorbs.net) DNSBL. You may contact [[SORBS DNSBL]] or one of the other [[administrators]] to discuss the block. Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences. Your IP address is 194.117.134.72. Please include this address in any queries you make. ==Note to AOL users== Due to continuing acts of vandalism by one particular AOL user, this wiki often blocks AOL proxies. Unfortunately, a single proxy server may be used by a large number of AOL users, and hence innocent AOL users are often inadvertently blocked. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If this happens to you, please email an administrator, using an AOL email address. Be sure to include the IP address given above. [Return to Main Page.] __________________________________________ -- ++SJ

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Angela

3:07 p.m.

On 7/2/05, SJ <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Well, here is what the text looks like, so you all don't have to go try it yourselves. It doesn't explicitly suggest the reader is a vandal, but it certainly isn't polite. It is rather deceptive...

That is the standard blocked text (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Blockedtext>) which doesn't really apply to blocked-by-sorbs users. The default text really needs to be ignored, since it suggests contacting User:SORBS DNSBL, which is an account anyone can create (it was created by a vandal on en: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/SORBS_DNSBL>). I've edited MediaWiki:Sorbsreason on en and meta. On meta, the message will now be: __________________________________________ = User is blocked =

From <projectname>

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by [[SORBS DNSBL]]. The reason given is this: Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the SORBS (http://www.sorbs.net) DNSBL. If you are wrongfully blocked by this RBL check, please get tested at http://www.sorbs.net/faq/retest.shtml for automatic removal from the blacklist. This feature is still very much in testing, so if you are wrongfully blocked by it we would very much like to know about it as well. Please contact Tim Starling, whose email address is the reverse of is ua.ude.bleminu.scisyhp(a)gnilrats.t, or email the developers' mailing list (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l). A description of the details of this feature can be found at proxy blocking. This block is automatic, and was not carried out by User:SORBS DNSBL as is suggested above. The text below is given to all blocked users. It may not be applicable to you. You may contact [[SORBS DNSBL]] or one of the other [[administrators]] to discuss the block. Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences. Your IP address is 194.117.134.72. Please include this address in any queries you make. ==Note to AOL users== Due to continuing acts of vandalism by one particular AOL user, this wiki often blocks AOL proxies. Unfortunately, a single proxy server may be used by a large number of AOL users, and hence innocent AOL users are often inadvertently blocked. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If this happens to you, please email an administrator, using an AOL email address. Be sure to include the IP address given above. [Return to Main Page.] __________________________________________ Angela.

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Alfio Puglisi

3:19 p.m.

On Sat, 2 Jul 2005, SJ wrote:

On 7/1/05, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:

If there is a problem with the information given to blocked users, which as far as I can tell makes no such suggestion that the user is a vandal, then this can be edited by any admin at [[MediaWiki:Sorbsreason]] and [[MediaWiki:Sorbs create account reason]].

Well, here is what the text looks like, so you all don't have to go try it yourselves. It doesn't explicitly suggest the reader is a vandal, but it certainly isn't polite. It is rather deceptive, really, in that it seems to tell you how to solve your problem, but is only leading you towards further exasperation.

Happened to me too a couple of times, and I'm on a dynamic IP. According to SORBS that IP was an open proxy a whole four months ago (enough time to be assigned to dozens of people). The procedure to de-list it was exceedingly complex and, after 20 minutes, i discovered that it wasn't working. Not to mention the need to give a working email address to them before one can even try to remove his IP from ther lists. A very bad experience, and the second time I didn't even try, but just rebooted the router until I got a different IP. It's impossible for non-tech savy users to remove themselves from SORBS. Is it really necessary to keep this filter? I see lots of talk about vandal bots, did we have real, big incidents in the past before using SORSB? Alfio

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Wouter Steenbeek

11:26 a.m.

once more: Do you really want those vandal bot operators to go on at their own will and make the whole project crush? Yes or no? Oh my God, with fools like those, we MUST return to the Nupedia structure sooner or later! Wouter _________________________________________________________________ Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/

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Walter van Kalken

12:08 p.m.

Wouter Steenbeek wrote:

once more: Do you really want those vandal bot operators to go on at their own will and make the whole project crush? Yes or no?

No they will not crush the whole project unless they unite themselves. Which can be savely said they will not.

Oh my God, with fools like those, we MUST return to the Nupedia structure sooner or later! Wouter

Thanks for calling me a fool. Walter/Waerth

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Wouter Steenbeek

12:10 p.m.

Thanks for calling me a fool.

WHAT THE HELL!!! I talk about those vandals! Wouter

_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________ Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/

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Anthere

4 Jul 4 Jul

12:42 a.m.

Walter van Kalken a écrit:

Walter, perhaps it sounds rude, but else do you want? There will surely be something serious (a vandal bot with open proxies, for instance), otherwise they will not take such a rigorous step. And to be quite frank: I prefer excluding some good-willing people from editing Wikipedia to letting a maniacal nerd ravage the whole project. I quite clearly remember such an attack on li:, some time ago.

Yes Wouter I am extremely offended and disappointed by your answer and also by the lack of reactions by boardmembers such as Anthere, Angela and Jimbo. It is very simple it is the fourth time this is happening to me. And I am sick and tired of it especially because everybody is ignorong the problem. Because they have selfish reasons like yours: "I can edit wikipedia why should I care about others?" How about me putting a vandalwarning on your account in nl.wikipedia Wouter? Wouldn't you be offended? Yes you would. And it is exactly this what I read when I try to create a new account in a wiki. And ironically enough I am creating an account to get rid of vandalism.

*Exceptionnally*, I was away from my computer for 48 hours. I took a week end. I think anyone deserve a *real* week end from time to time :-) Ant

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SJ

2 Jul 2 Jul

12:05 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Block messages, SORBS

Please change the message that blocked SORBS-IPs see on all wikis. I encountered it once myself, when I was in Houston behind a local ISP; I don't remember its exact wording, but it was distinctly offensive. (Is it a MediaWiki namespace message?) This message should apologize for the inconvenience, and assume in good faith that it is speaking to a good user trapped behind a bad proxy. * offer them a form to submit to request an account. * don't tell them that 'they might be a vandal'... To reduce the workload produced by the above form, you could also * provide a mechanism for users to create /their own/ account if they already have a known (and not day-old) account on some other Wikimedia project. * Ask users to do this before offering them the form --SJ On 7/1/05, Walter van Kalken <walter(a)vankalken.net> wrote:

Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the [http://www.sorbs.net SORBS] DNSBL. You cannot create an account It is nice that I cannot create accounts anymore ...... it is neat that I am considered a vandal. Can we please stop the nonsense it becomes extremely irritating. Walter/Waerth _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

-- ++SJ

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participants (11)

Alfio Puglisi
Angela
Anthere
Erik Moeller
fun＠thingy.apana.org.au
Gregory Maxwell
Mark Williamson
SJ
Timwi
Walter van Kalken
Wouter Steenbeek