https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59146
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Bug ID: 59146
Summary: Enabling access and edit access to Wikipedia via TOR
Product: MediaWiki
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: NEW
Severity: enhancement
Priority: Unprioritized
Component: User blocking
Assignee: wikibugs-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Reporter: m...@tgries.de
Classification: Unclassified
Mobile Platform: ---
During the 30C3 Congress [1] in Hamburg the core member of the TOR project
complained in one of his numerous talks that the (edit) access to Wikipedia via
TOR is not possible.
He requested that a way should be found to enable the TOR access including edit
access to Wikipedia.
The following answers were given in the mailing list:
- John:
Editing via tor is possible on WMF wikis if the account / user is trusted
- Tyler:
There is a special permission that allows specific accounts to not be
affected by IP blocks. It is granted by application on a case-by-case
basis. You can find more information here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption. I am not sure
whether similar processes exist on other wikis.
As for the original topic, this has been thoroughly discussed before, and
every time I forget what the result of the discussion is. I know for sure
that since MediaWiki is fundamentally centered around knowing users' IP
addresses in order to stop sockpuppets, simply allowing Tor users to edit
will not happen. We need a solution that allows us to know a Tor user's IP
address without actually known their IP address. If that sounds like a
difficult problem, it's because it is. One suggestion was to use a type of
token authentication, where we use RSA blinding in order to give anonymous
exemption tokens. Another suggestion was to simply abandon IP blocks, since
users can easily enough change their IP addresses anyway.
It seems he already knows that - he mentioned it in the 30C3 talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SscFfzD_his#t=36m55s
(see also Roger Dingledine earlier in the same talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SscFfzD_his#t=34m18s )
This problem has been discussed many times before, also on this list:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/323006
There have been quite a few well-meaning but naive proposals to solve
it; I understand Jacob's remarks as a welcome call to the TOR
community to work more intensively with Wikipedians to understand the
actual issues that motivated Wikipedia's TOR block.
- Kat:
FWIW, I set IP block exempt on his account a few years ago, but to my
frustration it looks like someone removed it because of inactivity.
(Editorializing a bit, I don't see much value in the removal; while it is
true that an inactive user's account could be broken into, the permission
extends to a single account, which can be blocked like any other if it
starts to act unproductively.)
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