I have gotten a complaint that 207.142.131.228 is or was attempting to use a proxy at 212.185.189.154. How can that be?
It is important that we not probe third parties for open proxies under most circumstances. It might be appropriate if we are experiencing direct abuse ourselves and we're trying to track down why, but as a matter of routine, it causes us to get complaints which will get us in big trouble with our isp.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I have gotten a complaint that 207.142.131.228 is or was attempting to use a proxy at 212.185.189.154. How can that be?
It is important that we not probe third parties for open proxies under most circumstances. It might be appropriate if we are experiencing direct abuse ourselves and we're trying to track down why, but as a matter of routine, it causes us to get complaints which will get us in big trouble with our isp.
--Jimbo
The proxy checker has been switched off for three weeks. In that time I manually scanned 2 or 3 addresses which were being used by suspected sock puppets, but searching my shell command history confirms that that address wasn't one of them. So I have no idea what they're talking about. The date and time of the suspected proxy scan would be helpful in tracking this down.
-- Tim Starling
O.k., I've requested that information.
I totally approve of how you did this. If we have an active issue with a possible case of abuse, I see nothing wrong with trying to explore the source of the abuse. Manually scanning an address now and then to see if it is an open proxy is valid in self-defense, even at the risk of a complaint.
In this case, I wrote back to the complainant to ask for those details, because the accusation was that we were repeatedly scanning him. Possibly the mail was just really really late or something, I'll also go back and check the headers.
--Jimbo
Tim Starling wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I have gotten a complaint that 207.142.131.228 is or was attempting to use a proxy at 212.185.189.154. How can that be?
It is important that we not probe third parties for open proxies under most circumstances. It might be appropriate if we are experiencing direct abuse ourselves and we're trying to track down why, but as a matter of routine, it causes us to get complaints which will get us in big trouble with our isp.
--Jimbo
The proxy checker has been switched off for three weeks. In that time I manually scanned 2 or 3 addresses which were being used by suspected sock puppets, but searching my shell command history confirms that that address wasn't one of them. So I have no idea what they're talking about. The date and time of the suspected proxy scan would be helpful in tracking this down.
-- Tim Starling
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org