Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Could Block 67 Million Verizon Customers
An anonymous reader writes "A particularly nasty Wikipedia vandal has forced a discussion to take place over whether to block edits from an address range used by over 67 million Verizon customers. Verizon has not responded to abusive Wikipedia users on their network before, even though the abusive Verizon users have released private information (phone numbers, etc.) of numerous individuals, and made countless threats that have also been reported to law enforcement. Wikipedia has done something similar in the past with users on the AOL network, which used proxy servers and thus allowed vandals to continue disrupting the site. Discussion is also taking place on alternate solutions to deal with abuse from this Verizon user, named 'Zsfgseg' on Wikipedia. If a block of millions is enacted, Verizon could potentially change how they assign IP addresses, or be forced at least to address a PR nightmare."
Here's the new Verizon Wikipedia page:
:: crickettes :: [1]
[1] Citation needed.
Only editing is blocked, not Wikipedia itself.
The link forwards to a conversation between Wikipedia admins. It seems like there is just one user being a prick. Why not just require user registration for IPs that come from Verizon? Hell, why not require registration for every edit on Wikipedia? I love the idea of being able to make anonymous edits, but seriously wouldn't it make their lives easier by just requiring it for everyone?
This seems silly to me... why would Verizon care?
If the vandals are doing something illegal, then go ahead and follow the legal procedures to get it stopped, which would probably include subpoenaing Verizon for the identity of the vandals and going after them directly.
If it's not something that can be handled in the courts, (being a dick hasn't been made illegal, last time I checked) then Verizon may well open themselves up to a lawsuit for helping Wikipedia with this "wrongdoing".
If it's not illegal, then they'll probably have to adapt their process to take care of the problem.
And I'd be very interested to see how many good edits or entries were being made from that block of IP addresses. They may well be cutting off their leg to cure an ingrown toenail.
$0.02 (CDN)
... why, exactly, the submitter thinks Verizon gives a rat's rear end whether or not their customers can edit Wikipedia pages?
#DeleteChrome
In the news tonight, police find a teenager dead in their basement. Law enforcement received a phone call from a neighbor that they heard a loud scream from the basement, followed by a crash. Police tried to contact the occupants from the doors, but an officer walking around the back looked into a window and saw a body laying on the floor.
Officers broke in to render emergency aid, and EMTs rushed the young man to the hospital, where he was declared dead upon arrival. But the cause of death has given everyone cause for concern.
"It was crazy," said Officer Pullayup. "He had this maniacal grin on his face and his garments below the waist were soaking wet with what appeared to be fluids of a sexual nature."
Further investigations revealed that the teen, known online as "Zsfgseg", had been "trolling" the website known as "Wikipedia" for months. In desperation to halt the abuse, Wikipedia was forced to ban the entire Verizon network, one of the country's largest ISPs. County coroner Dirk Slabber performed an autopsy.
"It looks like he orgasmed to death,"
Police have been unable to reach the parents, who neighbors say only show up once a week to throw food down the back steps of the basement.
[End Of Line]
You might be surprised how responsive they are if their users start to complain. As one of the staff on an IRC network (one of the five largest IRC networks at the time, although that still isn't saying much), we got AOL to pay attention to abusers by banning the whole network. It took less than 24 hours of AOL users telling AOL "Hey, GamesNet is saying they can't get AOL to respond to abuse reports" before AOL got in touch with the network and explained how to expedite abuse reports.
Yeah, if Wikipedia does something stupid and bans Verizon users without explaining why or what the users can do, Wikipedia won't get very far. Personally, I think Wikipedia has more clue than that. It didn't take all that much for that IRC network to get appropriate attention on the chronic abusers.
I created an account on Wikipedia to learn more about its culture and vernacular. But when I attempted to edit my user page, I was greeted with the news that my IP--one among 8192 other Verizon addresses--was banned. An appeal to lift what I considered to be an excessive block was denied by an administrator. But now I see that banning a mere 8192 address won't satisfy the administurbatory will to power. I was wrong to politely request that an exception should be made in my case. I must have been suffering from a profound sense of entitlement commensurate with my self-importance when I made my appeal. Blocking millions of IP addresses is not enough. Wikipedia's administrators must be encouraged to ban the entire Internet.
I'm sorry, but this is Wikipedia's issue to deal with, not Verizon's. And, to imply otherwise is just trolling.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
I hope he/she is getting in all the laughs now, because when they finally do decide to p0wn him/her, it won't be funny anymore.
Who would "they" be? If this fuckwit is even in the U.S. I'd be surprised. He could be pretty much anywhere: sure, the activity is coming from an address assigned to Verizon, but we may find it belongs to some poor schmuck who had no idea his computer was being used to proxy vandal traffic.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The dynamic IP ranges is what is causing this blanket-edit bans. Psycho asshats just reset their modems. Assign static IPs to customers and then just ban that /64. Problem fixed..
As to people saying you will be tracked, well, you are already tracked. Each of your IPv4 assignments is tracked by the ISP. /64 just specifies a network, not individual. The benefits of static IP outweigh the negatives. It allows you to specify that you will only login from a given /64 to your bank, your stock account, etc...
Back when I had Comcast, they offered what were called "permanent" IPs. Not static, just "permanent", in that the address wouldn't change upon a modem reset, only when Comcast needed to for "network management" purposes. In the two years I had them, I think it changed a couple of times. Once was in response to my upgrading my speed tier. And I agree: static IPs are damned convenient. It really is nice not to have to use a dynamic IP service like DynDNS just to get access to your equipment, and being able to point a domain at your own server.
Dynamic IP pools made a lot more sense back in the days of dial-up, where you had more customers than IP addresses, and connections were being made and dropped to your modem bank on a continuous basis. You just hoped that more wouldn't try to go online than you had addresses to assign to them. That's not the case with the vast majority of broadband connections, which are always on anyway.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Now because of the infractions of recruit Zsfgseg, all 67 million Verizon users will have to run up Currahee ... three miles up, three miles down. All weekend Internet passes are hereby revoked."
Verizon user: "Lieutenant, permission to speak, sir."
Lieutenant: "Permission granted."
Verizon user: "Why can't I edit Wikipedia pages?"
Lieutenant: "Because one of youse 67 million recruits is a royal fucking dickhead. Any questions?"
Verizon user: "Why does Wikipedia hate us?"
Lieutenant: "Wikipedia doesn't hate us. They just hate you, Verizon user."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
the difference is that the vast majority of people who visit Wikipedia merely view content.
and viewing content isn't going to be blocked.
in your example, you BLOCKED access completely.
therefore you proved the OP's point beautifully.
It's not Verizon's responsibility to do anything unless people on their network are breaking laws. Last time I checked, general trolling was not against the law. (If it were, half the internet would be shutdown. :) )
Wikipedia needs to get their act together and secure their own site better. The fact that they're even considering blocking editing from /6s and /8s is absurd.
59 comments and no-one has traced Zsfgseg yet?
In the good old days we'd have posted his ip address, phone number, physical address and his mother's maiden name by comment 20. Comment 32 would detail how his PC was cracked and display images of the nong via his webcam. By comment 50, his bank account would have been emptied, citizenship revoked, and 2,500 pizzas would be arriving at his door.
Do as you would be done to.
For example, the very controversial editor JayJG did not get elected into the Arbitration Committee, too many people opposed (including me) and others got more votes - so Wales appointed him to it. Great, if you want Wikipedia to favor JayJG's line on Middle East politics, which is what he was always POV edit warring over.
Another example - look at the history of the Wikipedia Review page on Wikipedia. It was blocked from creation by the power users there, and an article could not be created until mid-2008. OK, you say it is not notable enough (although thousands of other less popular websites have articles - although Wikipedia doesn't allow you to cite other relative articles as evidence for relevancy, one of their bizarre rules of this type). Well mention of the existence of Wikipedia Review, linking to it and so forth was banned for years on the Criticism of Wikipedia page. It's a real sign of the cultishness of the admins that the Criticism of Wikipedia page forbid links, or even mention, to the most prominent forum for criticism of Wikipedia. I guess they finally relented, but by that time a lot of the critics (like me) left. Look over that page's history and the discussions and archived discussions.
These things are fairly out in the open, there are a lot of other biases that are harder to point to so obviously. I should also say that someone who spends there time editing the pages on say, quantum mechanics, may never run into these problems, and for them Wikipedia is working quite nicely. It is just when someone has perhaps a different point of view then Jimbo Wales on Ayn Rand, or on JayJG on the Middle East, and so on down the line for the rest of his lieutenants that this becomes obvious. But if one is interested, look into the JayJG Arbcom appointment, look into the blocks from mention of Wikipedia Review on the Criticism of Wikipedia page etc. As I said, there is a cultish quality to Wikipedia, I posted about this on Slashdot before and you get replies from some admins, like "You are one of THOSE PEOPLE! An ENEMY of WIKIPEDIA! A VANDAL/SOCKPUPPET/WHATEVER!" It is the same cultish thing as banning mention of Wikipedia Review that existed before - if Wikipedia is open, why are people critical of Wikipedia on Wikipedia Review considered "enemies"? I should mention I was once blocked for some hours - for criticizing Essjay, who was an administrator who lied about his credentials, and used to refer to his non-existent credentials when edit warring over different articles. This was reported in the mainstream press (about Essjay, not me). I posted to his page that he should be ashamed of himself and I was blocked by an administrator for that for 24 or 48 hours, I forget. So yes, I am one of those "vandals" who was blocked from Wikipedia.
From TFA, looks like it's discussing a soft block...which would mean that Verizon customers could still edit, they would just have to do so from an account. No doubt all those Verizon customers will Really Suffer when they have to use/create a login to wikipedia...a login which is really nearly as anonymous as the ip editing. <gasp!>
Rather than blocking a whole field of public IPv4 addresses, let's have Verizon (who's deploying an LTE network for phones) & Wikipedia (who already uses it on their backend) push big for IPv6 migration. This situation will become easier to manage, not harder.
Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.
It's more about getting VZ customers to complain to VZ customer service. However, just like their wireless IRC ban, they'll place the blame everywhere but where it belongs, with VZ's network littering the internet with abuse. Not that long ago, they were the world's largest source of spam (a title now held by a PA company called BurstNet). To this day, they still provide bulletproof hosting to botnets, script kiddies, and spammers.
"UR FAIR USE RATIONALE IS NO GOOD!"
*removes professional headshot, posts shitty cell phone picture of a celebrities' shoulder*
"Here is a headshot I took with my DSLR, fill flash and $10,000 lens."
"UR PICTURE IS NO GOOD!"
*reverts edit to shitty cell phone photo*
"UR FAIR USE RATIONALE IS NO GOOD!"
"Well the photo comes from government archives and originated in the SS, so I don't think anyone is going to..."
"UR FAIR USE RATIONALE IS NO GOOD!"
*nominates photo for deletion*
Rinse. Repeat.
I know many of them are either admins or obsessive super-editors who have ingratiated themselves into the community, but damn.
I love Wikipedia. It is one of my favorite websites. I have a tab open there right now (doing some research on the oil embargo in the 1970s).
All that said, Verizon not only shouldn't be required to respond, they should be enjoined from responding barring due process under the law. Anonymous speech is one of the most important principles of true democracy. That does not mean that Wikipedia has to allow this abusive asshole's behavior, but they have no place asking Verizon to identify or chastize him.
If this was some sleazy politician asking Verizon to cut off a user who was posting incriminating evidence on the politician's web forum, we wouldn't bat an eyelash before condemning the politician and demanding that Verizon refuse.
Principles are the things you abide by even when the outcome is exceedingly distasteful. Anonymous speech is so vital to the practice of free speech that we must not stand for, let alone condone, infringement of it. Not even to stop this asshat from vandalizing one of the true wonders of the information age.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I hope whatever troll defeated Wikipedia on the battlefield of internet trolling is enjoying a bottle of champagne and a blowjob tonight
And looks like you'll be giving it.
are they a pop combo of female crickets?
I read TFA, it just talks about banning him. All hte links I found just go to more discussions about banning him and how he's evading said bans. But I can't find what he did that caused all the commotion in the first place. Could someone who has worked it out, please enlighten me?