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Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

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Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#91

Post by moate »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #88
moate wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If the concern is socioeconomic status: One could still edit from a library, for instance. Just to be clear, your response to "disadvantaged people would likely have a hard time editing Wikipedia from an 'anon' IPs" is "take time and energy (finite resources that are in many cases more valuable than money) and travel somewhere to edit". This is...not a very good argument in your favor? Also, it makes the extremely…

I appreciate your advocacy for Wikipedia to continue to allow everyone to edit anonymously. When I was a wikipedia regular I also pushed for this. Unfortunately, as with everything, some people do abuse this facility. Some abuse it to place misinformation on wikipedia. Other people (like bored teenagers) might vandalize the wiki by deleting all the content on the page and replacing it with a pithy epithet. Then there…

I think you make valid points pretty much top to bottom. Less tracking on the internet would make me feel better. "Bad" content on a site will corrupt or ruin its ability to function.

I just (ironically?) hate crusaders, and the type of people who proclaim (as wikipedia does) that they're Doing Their Best(tm) to adhere to their stated goal(pseudo-anon editing with IP based tracking) while doing something that undercuts that goal for millions (blanket IP bans).

I guess my ultimate complaint is that the continued mercy of the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents causes people to do things antithetical to what they say they want. That people refuse to live in nuance and continue to pretend they hold themselves to a higher standard that they frequently do not when pressed with any sort of complication.

I understand we live in a society and in order for it to function there are tradeoffs, and I'm not one of these "free speech has been completely killed by cancel culture" nutjobs, but I hate when people speak out of both sides of their mouth which is what Wikipedia does (IMO) when it comes to their moderation/contributor policy. Abolishing anon editing puts everyone on a level playing field (you want to contribute, you have to sign up).

Am I being Just or just Vindictive? IDK, and I'll admit that's open to interpretation. It just feels more fair to me to throw your hands up and admit that vandals are why we can't have nice things than to say APR users are collectively lesser than AT&T users. One feels defensibly, the other feels like logical contortion.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#92

Post by nonameiguess »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #4

Is the premise over at Wikipedia still that an IP address meaningfully identifies a single editor? I think that ship sailed.

Not gonna speak to why they're blocking Apple Private Relay, but clearly, no, they're not implying that an IP uniquely identifies an individual. In some cases, it can identify an organization, though. One of my good friends worked for Wikipedia a while back, and he claims one of the bigger problems they had was Congressional staffers edit-warring on pages, so they blocked the IP range of US Congressional offices. They weren't trying to target a single staff. They were targeting all of them.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#93

Post by sparqlittlestar »

currysausage wrote: post #84

While we're talking about Private Relay: with it enabled (on an iPhone), Google won't show me search suggestions. Both google.com and Safari's address/search bar are affected. It's a small feature, but a feature that I rely on often, so it's quite the dealbreaker for me.

Thanks, related to Safari and privacy: on my iPhone I couldn’t load HN comment pages, unless I turned off”hide ip from trackers and webistes”.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#94

Post by naoqj »

jrockway wrote: post #43
gnfargbl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely they are aware that this is basically all IPs nowadays...? There are indeed many classes of IP address which multiplex large numbers of users (mobile network exits, VPN exits, ISPs with CGNAT, some corporate web filtering systems, shared public wifi, tor, satellite ground station exits, residential proxies, ...). However, claiming that "basically all" IPs are multiplexed is definitely wrong. A home or small…

Is that true? I've worked at two ISPs and we never made an effort to make the IPs ephemeral. (OK, at the second ISP we didn't even have DHCP servers. We made everyone set up every device on their own!) My current home broadband setup gives me the same IP address for months at a time, across router reboots. Advertisers love it, I'm sure.

For most ISPs making IPs ephemeral is the only solution to the scarcity of IP addresses. You don't want IPs allocated to people who have turned off their routers.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#95

Post by fmajid »

kemayo wrote: post #69
brigandish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm regularly blocked from editing because I'm on a VPN. I don't get it, as long as I'm logged in then what's the problem? I'd love to know.

For what it's worth, there's a policy for requesting an exemption to an IP block: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption

I’ve tried, it’s next to impossible to get an exception, at least for English-language Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#96

Post by bdamm »

mimsee wrote: post #49
bdamm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only because they're using weak authentication. If they required users to use something like WebAuthn, the bot problems would be significantly easier to deal with.

How come? Last I checked there was a devtool to create virtual authenticators. Unless there’s a way for wikipedia to permit only certain vendors like Yubico, akin to browsers trusting certain CAs, I don’t see how one couldn’t make a bot register thousands of accounts with virtual authenticators.

Yes, assertion for manufacturing source is part of WebAuthn.

Re: Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing

#98

Post by jhugo »

naoqj wrote: post #94
jrockway wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? I've worked at two ISPs and we never made an effort to make the IPs ephemeral. (OK, at the second ISP we didn't even have DHCP servers. We made everyone set up every device on their own!) My current home broadband setup gives me the same IP address for months at a time, across router reboots. Advertisers love it, I'm sure.

For most ISPs making IPs ephemeral is the only solution to the scarcity of IP addresses. You don't want IPs allocated to people who have turned off their routers.

That doesn't require you to deliberately assign a new IP every time the router reboots, it just requires you to be able to re-use IPs without an active DHCP lease.

In practice customers don't usually turn their routers off for very long, and many ISPs don't have an acute shortage of IPs (those that do have already moved to CGNAT), so it's pretty typical to keep your IP no matter how many times you reboot your router. If I'd leave it off for a month I'd be less sure I'd get the same IP.

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