On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Paul Wise wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 3:28 AM, Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> wrote:
> Almost invariably, web-based chats like this that are launched without
> coordination with the network that they are talking to lead to abuse
> and the eventually banning and/or k-lining of involved hosts.
>
> #debian routinely bans the webchat on freenode, and I've no doubt that
> we'll be routinely banning other web chats which are used without
> authentication.
Do the freenode webchat users not get assigned the IP address of the
user connecting to the web server rather than the IP address of the
webserver itself? IIRC for the Indymedia webchat we implemented the
former.
They get an encoding of the IP which is constant if the official
webchat interface is being used. Unfortunately, people tend to use
them (and tor) as a mechanism to hide their identity so that they can
be a nuisance, and it means that any time we ban someone by IP, we
later have to come back and ban their encoded IP on the webchat, etc.
My real concern is for uncoordinated webchats, though. We try to keep
coordinated ones unbanned in #debian, but if a problem comes from
them, we tend to err on silencing them instead.
Don Armstrong
--
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
-- Frederick Douglass
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu