[Foundation-l] TOR Nodes

[Alex]

Todd Allen wrote:
> On Jan 15, 2008 7:07 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On 15/01/2008, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> You may be right. Did the policy change? I ask because there was some
>>> disagreement over whether hardblocking all open proxies is in fact the
>>> policy.
>>>       
>> There are many who disagree with it due to the 1% of good people using
>> anon or open proxies, but it's basically en:wp policy due to the 99%
>> sewage opening them or softblocking them results in.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>>
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>>     
>
> Isn't that also true of school IPs? (I would be surprised if it's only
> 99% there, probably more like 99.9% sewage on those.) Can I go start
> hardblocking schools on-sight?
>
>   
There's a fundamental difference between the two. An open proxy can be 
used by just about anyone from anywhere, making them attractive for 
people trying to avoid a block/ban, spam/vandalbots, or people who don't 
want to be traced. If school IPs were used for any of those purposes 
rather than common vandalism, it probably would be hardblocked. The main 
difference is registered account abuse (hardblock) vs. IP abuse 
(softblock). A school IP can only be used by people *in the school* and 
depending on how many IP addresses a school owns may or may not even be 
shared (colleges have their own IPs too).

A better comparison would be wireless access points, most of which can 
be used by anyone with a laptop willing to go to it, but still much more 
limited in access than open proxies. (I can use an open proxy in India 
from the USA, I'm not about to fly there to use a WAP.)

-- 
Alex (en:User:Mr.Z-man)