Wikipedia globally blocks Apple Private Relay IP ranges from editing • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by KennyBlanken » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #13

There are malicious editors out there. For example, someone repeatedly edited the Kubernetes page on Wikipedia to make some changes that were not true and contradicted by the reference that was used. This is just one example. There is a very real problem, even in technical circles, of wrong information being put on there. In this example, it was always by an anonymous account. How does the Wikimedia foundation attemp…

Wikipedia is dominated not by the truth, but by two things:

- people who treat articles like their own fiefdoms and have obsessively memorized every sentence of policy and can drown an edit they don't like with subjective assertions that an edit violates a particular policy

- no-life basement neckbeards who do thousands and thousands of edits on subjects they couldn't possibly have knowledge or experience on and respond instantly to edits to "their" pages

Further, in disputes, it essentially comes down to who the rest of the community likes more. The ultimate ad hominem is that some random IP address vs an established 'wikipedian', even if the 'wikipedian' is full of shit? The wikipedian wins.

The page for AA is a great example. There's a dude who is completely unhinged and suppresses any negative information about AA, such as the problems with abuse, predation, and sexual assault. Or studies showing poor efficacy compared to science-based treatment.

I posted a HN comment as such and was more than a little surprised to come across a reply made barely a few hours later, apparently from that dude, accusing me of being someone he'd had a tiff with on wikipedia.

You look at the edit history and his behavior is clearly gatekeeping and enforcing a particular viewpoint. Yet, curiously, he's never been subject to any censure?

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

#32

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

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.

Abuse-mitigation policies don't always have to be perfect. They just have to have a >1 benefit-to-cost ratio.

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

#33

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

TurningCanadian wrote: post #25

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this all vaguely baffling; I'm by no means a WP expert. If they're not targeted at users, what are they targeted at? Bots?

The tragedy of the commons that happens when you can't establish the reputation of your visitors because regular users are indistinguishable from malicious actors when signals like IPs are intentionally obscured.

The reasoning here just seems perverse. WP wants to allow contributions by anonymous users, which seems noble. But it also realizes that it needs to be able to block some people from anonymous contribution "to protect itself".

The implementation of the blocking mechanism is IP addresses/ranges, which is imprecise (to say the least). But now you have to worry about abusive users bypassing your technical control by obscuring their IP addresses. So you block all IP ranges that implement e.g. CGNAT, VPNs, 464XLAT.

So now you're mass-blocking access to millions of people who have never shown any inkling of malicious intent due to rational technology choices by their service providers or due to a reasonable desire to protect their personal privacy.

If you're OK with blocking users in such an entirely capricious and arbitrary way, why not just insist on registration?

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

#34

Post by KennyBlanken » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #30

moate wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that seems to be what the people in charge actually want but are half-assing in the name of optics. IDGAF one way or the other, but if you're going to be banning millions of users from editing via their IP, just commit to saying "We need to be able to identify you vandals, and a user account is the easiest way". You're either true to a mission statement, or you should stop virtue signaling beliefs you don't h…

> Because that seems to be what the people in charge actually want but are half-assing in the name of optics. Most certainly not. The people in charge actually want it to be open. You are simply watching those ambitions splinter somewhat as they are beset by the crashing waves of the harsh reality that is the Internet.

"Want it to be open" but ban mobile network IP addresses, which basically guarantees people below a certain socioeconomic status can't contribute. Loads of people don't have a desktop/laptop, or even internet service at home - just cell service.

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

#35

Post by xoa » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #13

There are malicious editors out there. For example, someone repeatedly edited the Kubernetes page on Wikipedia to make some changes that were not true and contradicted by the reference that was used. This is just one example. There is a very real problem, even in technical circles, of wrong information being put on there. In this example, it was always by an anonymous account. How does the Wikimedia foundation attemp…

>How does the Wikimedia foundation attempt to handle this?

Add a time cost to accounts that is independent from IP or real identity. I gave a suggestion to factoring the product of primes, basically breaking crypto with far fewer bits then would ever be used in a real system to tune to time to a desired target. Another option would be to require a security key for anonymous editing of hot articles then ban the key if needed, which would essentially be a fairly anonymous proxy for money. Now attackers need to spend a key each ban. Although unlike just doing it purely for Wikipedia that might result in a market of "used, banned" keys which isn't really great. But they shouldn't do it via IP, they absolutely could do better.

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

#36

Post by gnfargbl » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

jhugo wrote: post #15

fennecfoxen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I cannot stress this enough, and I think it's important to frame this debate correctly when it comes to discussing these blocks. I have made somewhere around 1200 rangeblocks of webhosting providers in the last 5 weeks or so. Not one of them was targeted at a user." — [[User:Blablubbs]] in linked page Wikipedia doesn't block to punish individuals. It blocks to protect itself. There are plenty of ways around most blo…

AFAIK their policy is to block IPs that "obscure individual users". Another commenter quoted: > Communities typically block edits from IP addresses that obscure individual users. Surely they are aware that this is basically all IPs nowadays...? If that's genuinely the policy then it should be almost equivalent to just requiring an account for all edits, so why not just do that?

> 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 office broadband line typically gets a dynamic-but-ephemerally-unique IP, same as it always did.

The effect of IPv6 on this isn't totally clear to me yet. If anything, as IPv6 deployment among ISPs increases, the trend seems to be for less multiplexing and not more.

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

#37

Post by collegeburner » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #31

mfer wrote: post #13

There are malicious editors out there. For example, someone repeatedly edited the Kubernetes page on Wikipedia to make some changes that were not true and contradicted by the reference that was used. This is just one example. There is a very real problem, even in technical circles, of wrong information being put on there. In this example, it was always by an anonymous account. How does the Wikimedia foundation attemp…

Wikipedia is dominated not by the truth, but by two things: - people who treat articles like their own fiefdoms and have obsessively memorized every sentence of policy and can drown an edit they don't like with subjective assertions that an edit violates a particular policy - no-life basement neckbeards who do thousands and thousands of edits on subjects they couldn't possibly have knowledge or experience on and resp…

100% this, same as you get with reddit moderators and those types of people. There are a lot of people there with agendas who use "the rules" to kill any opinions they don't like.

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

#38

Post by hombre_fatal » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

xoa wrote: post #26

Stupid and disappointing. Wikipedia and others should move decisively away from using IP addresses as any form of unique ID and address the actual problem in a way that still preserves the option for useful pseudonymity and participation. The basic issue with moderation is the balance between the time/resource cost of moderation and the time/resource cost of evading it times the quantity of bad actor interest. Like i…

These ideas always fall short for various reasons in practice. One is that you mainly punish honest users who have to install and run this PoW crapware just to make a small but legit edit. Wait, I have to lock up my CPU for how long to fix a typo I stumbled upon? Lol, forget it then.

Meanwhile, abusers just farm PoW solutions and make it negligible. You end up with a solution that’s even easier to farm than quick expiry captcha.

And your idea doesn’t stop you from having to implement moderation anyways. You have to do the same work.

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

#39

Post by TameAntelope » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

I'm finding it a bit hard to follow the structure of this document so forgive me if this is what's being discussed, but wouldn't it make the most sense to block Anonymous editing from Apple Private Relay IP ranges? Once signed in, there is again a way to track the editor, and a way to deal with bad actors.

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

#40

Post by dtech » Fri, Apr 15, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #33

TurningCanadian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tragedy of the commons that happens when you can't establish the reputation of your visitors because regular users are indistinguishable from malicious actors when signals like IPs are intentionally obscured.

The reasoning here just seems perverse. WP wants to allow contributions by anonymous users, which seems noble. But it also realizes that it needs to be able to block some people from anonymous contribution "to protect itself". The implementation of the blocking mechanism is IP addresses/ranges, which is imprecise (to say the least). But now you have to worry about abusive users bypassing your technical control by obs…

Not blocking anything is infeasible due to abuse, requiring registration is effectively blocking anonymous editing access for everyone. If you want anonymous editing, providing it to some is strictly better than providing it to none.

Your argument is as flawed as saying we shouldn't have email because spammers must be blocked.