[Foundation-l] and what if...

[Thomas Dalton]

>> Indeed, I don't see any alternative way to block anonymous users. Even
>> forcing people to register wouldn't help since, without IP addresses,
>> we can't block account creation by people creating new accounts every
>> time one gets block. What we need to do is put pressure on ISPs to use
>> XFF whenever they are using proxies. The fact that people couldn't
>> edit during the block has nothing to do with censorship, it's just a
>> technical issue that can and must be fixed by ISPs.
>
> This is probably off-topic for this list, but IP blocking is actually
> inefective in exactly the same way as it would be just blocking
> accounts. When you block a dynamic IP a vandal can reboot and he/she
> usually get new dynamic IP from his/her ISP. So you have to block
> another IP number. If the vandal is very  determined, you have to
> finally block entire IP range, cutting off at least several hundreds
> other people, and even if you do this vandal can still go to internet
> caffe nearby which uses IP's from another ISP, so if you spot him/her
> you have to block IP of the caffe. In some extreme cases you finally
> end-up blocking IP ranges of all major ISP's from the area where
> vandal operates...
>
> Honestly saying I have no ready to use receipe how to replace IP
> blocking. But IWF case have just shown that in the future it has to be
> replaced by something smarter or we end up in blocking all major ISP's
> customers all over the world.

I see no evidence that anything smarter exists. The only thing we know
about anonymous users are their IP addresses, so that's all we can use
to block them. It is theoretically impossible to do anything else, as
far as I can see.