It is extremely easy to detect a bot unless the bot operator chose to make it hard. Just make a model for how the user interacts with the input devices, and do anomaly detection. That imply use of Javascript though, but users not using JS are either very dubious or quite well-known. There are nearly no new users that does not use JS.
Reused a previous tex-file, and did not clean it up? "Magnetic Normal Modes of Bi-Component Permalloy Structures" ;) On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 6:47 PM Aaron Halfaker <[email protected]> wrote: > > We've been working on unflagged bot detection on my team. It's far from a > real product integration, but we have shown that it works in practice. We > tested this in Wikidata, but I don't see a good reason why a similar > strategy wouldn't work for English Wikipedia. > > Hall, A., Terveen, L., & Halfaker, A. (2018). Bot Detection in Wikidata > Using Behavioral and Other Informal Cues. > *Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction*, *2*(CSCW), 64. pdf > <https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=3274333&type=pdf> > > In theory, we could get this into ORES if there was strong demand. As Pine > points out, we'd need to delay some other projects. For reference, the > next thing on the backlog that I'm looking at is setting article quality > prediction for Swedish Wikipedia. > > -Aaron > > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 11:19 AM Jonathan Morgan <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > This may be naive, but... isn't the wishlist filling this need? And if not > > through a consensus-driven method like the wishlist, how should a WMF team > > prioritize which power user tools it needs to focus on? > > > > Or is just a matter of "Yes, wishlist, but more of it"? > > > > - Jonathan > > > > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 2:34 AM bawolff <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Sure its certainly a front we can do better on. > > > > > > I don't think Kasada is a product that's appropriate at this time. > > Ignoring > > > the ideological aspect of it being non-free software, there's a lot of > > easy > > > things we could and should try first. > > > > > > However, I'd caution against viewing this as purely a technical problem. > > > Wikimedia is not like other websites - we have allowable bots. For many > > > commercial websites, the only good bot is a dead bot. Wikimedia has many > > > good bots. On enwiki usually they have to be approved, I don't think > > that's > > > true on all wikis. We also consider it perfectly ok to do limited testing > > > of bots before it is approved. We also encourage the creation of > > > alternative "clients", which from a server perspective looks like a bot. > > > Unlike other websites where anything non-human is evil, here we need to > > > ensure our blocking corresponds to social norms of the community. This > > may > > > sound not that hard, but I think it complicates botblocking more than is > > > obvious at first glance. > > > > > > Second, this sort of thing is something that tends to far through the > > > cracks at WMF. AFAIK the last time there was a team responsible for admin > > > tools & anti-abuse was 2013 ( > > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Admin_tools_development). I believe > > > (correct > > > me if I'm wrong) that anti-harrasment team is all about human harassment > > > and not anti-abuse in this sense. Security is adjacent to this problem, > > but > > > traditionally has not considered this problem in scope. Even core tools > > > like checkuser have been largely ignored by the foundation for many many > > > years. > > > > > > I guess this is a long winded way of saying - I think there should be a > > > team responsible for this sort of stuff at WMF, but there isn't one. I > > > think there's a lot of rather easy things we can try (Off the top of my > > > head: Better captchas. More adaptive rate limits that adjust based on how > > > evilish you look, etc), but they definitely require close involvement > > with > > > the community to ensure that we do the actual right thing. > > > > > > -- > > > Brian > > > (p.s. Consider this a volunteer hat email) > > > > > > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 6:06 AM Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > To clarify the types of unwelcome bots that we have, here are the ones > > > that > > > > I think are most common: > > > > > > > > 1) Spambots > > > > > > > > 2) Vandalbots > > > > > > > > 3) Unauthorized bots which may be intended to act in good faith but > > which > > > > may cause problems that could probably have been identified during > > > standard > > > > testing in Wikimedia communities which have a relatively well developed > > > bot > > > > approval process. (See > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval.) > > > > > > > > Maybe unwelcome bots are not a priority for WMF at the moment, in which > > > > case I could add this subject into a backlog. I am sorry if I sound > > > grumpy > > > > at WMF regarding this subject; this is a problem but I know that there > > > are > > > > millions of problems and I don't expect a different project to be > > dropped > > > > in order to address this one. > > > > > > > > While it is a rough analogy, I think that this movie clip helps to > > > > illustrate a problem of bad bots. Although the clip is amusing, I am > > not > > > > amused by unwelcome bots causing problems on ENWP or anywhere else in > > the > > > > Wikiverse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lokKpSrNqDA > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > > > Pine > > > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 9, 2019, 1:40 PM Pine W <[email protected] wrote: > > > > > > > > > OK. Yesterday I was looking with a few other ENWP people at what I > > > think > > > > > was a series of edits by either a vandal bot or an inadequately > > > designed > > > > > and unapproved good faith bot. I read that it made approximately 500 > > > > edits > > > > > before someone who knew enough about ENWP saw what was happening and > > > did > > > > > something about it. I don't know how many problematic bots we have, > > in > > > > > addition to vandal bots, but I am confident that they drain a > > > nontrivial > > > > > amount of time from stewards, admins, and patrollers. > > > > > > > > > > I don't know how much of a priority WMF places on detecting and > > > stopping > > > > > unwelcome bots, but I think that the question of how to decrease the > > > > > numbers and effectiveness of unwelcome bots would be a good topic for > > > WMF > > > > > to research. > > > > > > > > > > Pine > > > > > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 9:24 PM Gergo Tisza <[email protected]> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > >> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 6:20 PM Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > >> > > > > >> > I don't know how practical it would be to implement an approach > > like > > > > >> this > > > > >> > in the Wikiverse, and whether licensing proprietary technology > > would > > > > be > > > > >> > required. > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > >> They are talking about Polyform [1], a reverse proxy that filters > > > > traffic > > > > >> with a combination of browser fingerprinting, behavior analysis and > > > > proof > > > > >> of work. > > > > >> Proof of work is not really useful unless you have huge levels of > > bot > > > > >> traffic from a single bot operator (also it means locking out users > > > with > > > > >> no > > > > >> Javascript); browser and behavior analysis very likely cannot be > > > > >> outsourced > > > > >> to a third party for privacy reasons. Maybe we could do it ourselves > > > > >> (although it would still bring up interesting questions > > privacy-wise) > > > > but > > > > >> it would be a huge undertaking. > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> [1] https://www.kasada.io/product/ > > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > > >> Wikitech-l mailing list > > > > >> [email protected] > > > > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > > > > > -- > > Jonathan T. Morgan > > Senior Design Researcher > > Wikimedia Foundation > > User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)> > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > -- > > Aaron Halfaker > > Principal Research Scientist > > Head of the Scoring Platform team > Wikimedia Foundation > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
