How?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| SFN Mar 29, 2007 5:30 AM EDT |
This is a nifty idea but it has one problem. How, exactly would it be implemented? How do you make it so that we really know who it is that is posting? First person who says IP addresses gets one of my grandmother's patented backhands. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 29, 2007 5:44 AM EDT |
I block that backhand. Down + forward + punch. FATALITY! Anyway, with IPv6 it's theoretically possible to identify every human uniquely by IP address. That is: the address space is large enough. Natting won't be necessary, nor wil dynamic IP addresses. The question then reduces to "How do we tie people reliably to IPv6 addresses", which is left as a exercise for the reader ;-) |
| jdixon Mar 29, 2007 6:21 AM EDT |
> The question then reduces to "How do we tie people reliably to IPv6 addresses... Well, with a significant subset, you don't. Unless you particularly want people screaming "The number of the beast!" at you. And that ignores the availability (and sometimes necessity) of anonymous access methods. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 29, 2007 6:27 AM EDT |
@sander How many unique IDs are possible with IPv6? I've not been paying attention. |
| SFN Mar 29, 2007 6:28 AM EDT |
Although natting won't be necessary, I would think it would still get done. Why would I want to publish my actual IP address? The only way around this would be to make natting illegal. That process couldn't even start until the laughter died down which could take years. |
| azerthoth Mar 29, 2007 6:29 AM EDT |
IPv6 your NEW social insecurity card. Get one assigned to you now at your nearest knee jerk reactionary convention. OK, while its deplorable that things like this DO happen ... they happen in real life without a keyboard too. The only thing removing anonymity from the net will do is give the phishers and scam artists a step up. There is already a way in place to deal with these things if one has the fortitude to do it. Turn it over to the police, local or state. If you have reason to believe that the threats are coming from outside of you state ... the FBI, thats right boys and girls you have a federal offense in writing if it crosses state lines. What good is more legislation going to do when they wont enforce so much of it now ... unless of course it involves tax revenue then watch out. |
| bigg Mar 29, 2007 6:29 AM EDT |
> one of my grandmother's patented backhands Microsoft is your grandmother? |
| SFN Mar 29, 2007 6:32 AM EDT |
Microsoft only wishes. |
| SFN Mar 29, 2007 6:46 AM EDT |
Quoting:How many unique IDs are possible with IPv6?340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 |
| dcparris Mar 29, 2007 7:02 AM EDT |
Ah yes, the new SSN. |
| tuxchick Mar 29, 2007 7:29 AM EDT |
Meh on the whole article. Get rid of anonymity simply to get rid of nasty comments? Get a grip. As Kathy Sierra herself said, if admins had done a better job of moderation, and if other bloggers had spoken against the nasty stuff instead of going 'lalalaaa' and ignoring it, it might have made a difference. Let the poison people go fund their own soapboxes, we're not obligated to give them forums for their bile. It might not stop their sick antics, but the least we can do is not support them. |
| tuxtom Mar 29, 2007 9:00 AM EDT |
It could very well end up being an IPv6 number (which is tattooed in a barcode on your body) combined with biometric authentication to gain network access. It will be mandatory to authenticate several times a day whether you want to use network access or not. This will be administered by the Orwellian State. Any unauthorized traffic is recorded and dropped by the central routers of the Ministry of Information, and all offenders are turned over to the Ministry of Love for processing. The Internet exemplifies Anarchy. That is what is good about it. Without the troubadorian efforts of pr0n we would not be able to check our bank accounts or buy insurance from reptiles online. Take that freedom away and the above be implemented by the Ministry of Truth. And you thought a National ID Card was bad. I'd much rather live with death threats and crude sexual comments. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. You have no business on the Big Bad WAN...try keeping a journal with pen and paper instead. |
| tuxchick Mar 29, 2007 9:17 AM EDT |
gee tuxtom, that's two really seriously attractive options! I don't know what everyone is making such a fuss for. Big Brother or rampant slime? The choice is obvious. How about some serious ideas for implementing a third option, which is an Internet not dominated by slime, and where normal people can hang out and do useful stuff? |
| tuxchick Mar 29, 2007 9:32 AM EDT |
BTW IPv6 provides for private address pools just like IPv4. It's implemented a bit differently- you get a gigazillion more addys to play with, and you can create and use them just as randomly as you want. We'll still have NAT and DHCP for even more random fun. But those don't matter all that much anyway, because as long as we need a service provider to connect to the Internet, there will always be a trail leading back to specific customers. That's why we keep seeing pressure to force service providers to log every last little thing and to never ever delete logs. I believe in England they already have to do this, with predictable negative consequences and no good outcomes to speak of. None of which matters one whit to the real bad guys, who live in bad-guy friendly countries, and use all kinds of proxies and Windows botnets to cover their backtrails. So as usual, whatever measures governments take will only hose honest citizens. |
| devnet Mar 29, 2007 9:47 AM EDT |
OpenID? URI's for people? anyone? Is this thing on? Bueller? Bueller? |
| jdixon Mar 29, 2007 1:00 PM EDT |
> Big Brother or rampant slime? The choice is obvious. Well, yes, but I doubt even everyone here will agree about which choice that is. And the populace at large have already demonstrated their willingness to trade freedom for security. I expect that not only an assigned IP address, but an implanted RFID tag with GPS and full biometrics will be required before the century is out. I hope I'm wrong, but these trends towards totalitarianism don't tend to end quickly or peacefully. Perhaps fortunately, I don't expect to be alive to see it. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 29, 2007 2:12 PM EDT |
Quoting:How many unique IDs are possible with IPv6? I've not been paying attention. Enough to give every product sold on this planet, from TV's to Big Macs and jars of peanut butter an RFID tag with a unique IP address. |
| swbrown Mar 29, 2007 6:59 PM EDT |
> How many unique IDs are possible with IPv6? You generally are given a /64 subnet by whoever gave you an IP, unlike today where you get 1 IP. Which means you have 64 bits worth of real addresses all to yourself. Which is insanely huge. :) ~4 billion times more address than in the current internet, all to yourself. Also, it autoconfigures the addresses of clients, which is extremely sexy, there's mobile IP, and multicast (although I have yet to get on a network with multicast, grr, I've been barking up that tree for 11 years now). I'm using it currently to get all my systems that are normally behind NAT exposed. I flashed my Linksys router with OpenWRT and went through their IPv6 howto and got a tunnel assigned by SixXS (I used to use 6to4, but having a static address for a dynamic IPv4 endpoint is sexy, also only (mainly) the Germans get m6bone support - SixXS denied my request to route across the planet in order to use it ;)). Still need to debug it though - it cuts out after a while as if the heartbeats are being blocked. Have to look into that. Here's one area Linux distributions sadly missed the boat though - 6to4 setup has never been an easy thing to do in Linux, at least not something a cliche 'desktop user' would be able to do. This should be setup out of the box by /default/. Vista now does this, which makes me jealous that it was kept in guru-land all these years on Linux rather than setup by default. Hopefully Vista doing it will be the kick in the pants necessary for Linux distributions to do it as well. After all, everyone wants to see the dancing KAME! |
| swbrown Mar 29, 2007 7:01 PM EDT |
Btw, here's OpenWRT's IPv6 page if you're interested. I'd recommend it, it's fun. :) With 6to4, even if you don't have a tunnel broker, you can get assigned a tunnel and subnet via the anycast address as long as you have a real IPv4 IP. http://wiki.openwrt.org/IPv6_howto Only difficulty is, you basically have to forget everything you know about IPv4 networking, as it really is massively different. |
| tuxtom Mar 29, 2007 11:13 PM EDT |
>> "Let the poison people go fund their own soapboxes, we're not obligated to give them forums for their bile." How much bile has been spewed on lxer on the topic of Microsoft? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Hands up from everyone here who actually provides funding for lxer. Open forums are open forums...one is free to create closed forums if they wish to control their environment in that manner, but that wouldn't be fun, now would it? Death threats and sex talk are better than censorship...and they don't make Miss Sierra the martyr she is trying to make herself out to be. >> "How about some serious ideas for implementing a third option, which is an Internet not dominated by slime, and where normal people can hang out and do useful stuff?" Useful stuff like slamming Microsoft or picking apart the hated distro of the week for having a binary-only driver? There are plenty of places for normal people to hang out and more useful things for them to do than spend their time on the Internet. Sorry tuxchick, us slime were here first. Squatter's rights. Besides, the Internet is not dominated by slime, it is dominated by Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. At the end of the day it's all ones and zeros. If you lose perspective of that you really need to get away for a while. These machines really aren't that important in the big picture (I'd rather talk to my Mom than email her). You are perfectly free to write in a journal, start a private mailing list or hang out at your local library if you want a more sterile experience, you sexy thing you. Hey! Wait a second. How do we know you're not a creepy old dude impersonating a chick? 8^) |
| SFN Mar 30, 2007 4:36 AM EDT |
The free speech thing always cracks me up when people are talking about forums. For the most part, forums are not public places. They're private places. It just so happens that the people who own and run those private places choose to let the public congregate there and post blather on a number of topics. But we are still talking about private places. If the powers that be decide that they don't want anybody talking about any particular topic, that's their right. Nobody is required to guarantee you access to their private place (no pun intended), let alone guarantee you the right to talk about whatever you want while you're there. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 30, 2007 5:24 AM EDT |
SFN: Very true. I've moderated a fair share of large and small forums and I've heared the free speech argument a hundred times. The forum owner or moderator is entirely free to do as (s)he pleases. If dcparris started banning everyone from LXer who's nicknames second letter was an f, or to change all dino's posts to only read "Moo!" then he is free to do so :-) |
| jdixon Mar 30, 2007 6:17 AM EDT |
> But we are still talking about private places. If the powers that be decide that they don't want anybody talking about any particular topic, that's their right. Absolutely correct. Fortunately, LXer's ownership and editors seem to be dedicated to allowing free expression as long as it doesn't cross certain fairly well defined lines. That's the trademark of good (and successful) forums. I'm certain a death threat on LXer would be dealt with promptly, and that a followup session with the necessary authorities would take place. I'm also certain that blatant sexual harassment would be dealt with promptly, and that the offender would be banned. |
| SFN Mar 30, 2007 6:26 AM EDT |
Quoting:If dcparris started banning everyone from LXer who's nicknames second letter was an f, or to change all dino's posts to only read "Moo!" then he is free to do so :-) Oh, yeah. Let's get crackin' on that "Moo" thing. I don't quite get the "second letter f" reference though. And I'm sure I would not get it no matter how many times it was explained. Step away from the keyboard. |
| dinotrac Mar 30, 2007 7:00 AM EDT |
Moo! |
| tuxchick Mar 30, 2007 7:54 AM EDT |
Geez tuxtom, I wouldn't boast of being slime, or be proud of having a defeatist attitude. "Waah, the neighborhood has always been bad and there's nothing we can do about it." How silly! |
| jimf Mar 30, 2007 8:18 AM EDT |
> Open forums are open forums...one is free to create closed forums if they wish to control their environment in that manner, but that wouldn't be fun, now would it? Death threats and sex talk are better than censorship. What tripe! Try making a serious death threat to dino (sorry dino) on the street in front of witness, and see what happens. Or accost TC with lewd remarks in front of her friends. You'll find out very quickly just how far your uncensored free speech goes. Even so called 'open' forums have their limits, and all who host forums have legal, and social responsibility. Those who don't moderate are as guilty as anyone who does the inappropriate posting. |
| jdixon Mar 30, 2007 8:24 AM EDT |
> Those who don't moderate are as guilty as anyone who does the inappropriate posting. Well, that's probably overstating things slightly, but your point is taken. |
| jimf Mar 30, 2007 8:48 AM EDT |
> Well, that's probably overstating things slightly, but your point is taken. Think so? Well, I'll take that one further. Unless the site is a members only (i.e. members only can read and write postings) it can't be regarded as private. So virtually all of this open forum stuff is subject to the same rules as when you're walking on a public street. If the chaos continues, sooner or later government will intervene. If they can't nail the poster, they sure as heck can get the site. We haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg here. |
| dcparris Mar 30, 2007 8:48 AM EDT |
> If dcparris started banning everyone from LXer who's nicknames second letter was an f, or to change all dino's posts to only read "Moo!" then he is free to do so :-) > moo! See there? Your editor is very responsive to great suggestions. ;-) TC: I wonder to what degree the author/sitehosts could/should have banned such posts. It's kind of hard to stop death threats, whether you're Ms. Sierra or Mr. Enderle. I do think people should respond accordingly to threats, but about the only way to actually prevent them is to destroy the Earth. Either that or change all the people so that all the people behave responsibly. Since I'm kind of tied up with my own issues, I'll leave that up to others to worry about. Meanwhile, I'll deal with threats when I get them. |
| SFN Mar 30, 2007 8:55 AM EDT |
"about the only way to actually prevent them is to destroy the Earth" Finally! Someone gets me! |
| jimf Mar 30, 2007 9:03 AM EDT |
> Finally! Someone gets me! Humans got that on some time ago, it's ongoing. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 30, 2007 10:26 AM EDT |
Meow! |
| bigg Mar 30, 2007 12:54 PM EDT |
> Those who don't moderate are as guilty as anyone who does the inappropriate posting. I agree with that. Anyone can post a dumb comment, but not taking any action at all is unacceptable. At a minimum messages and accounts can be deleted. Hypothetically, if I claimed to have had a six-year affair with Paula Abdul, complete with details, the owner of the site would have liability for not deleting the post when requested. If you provide a forum, you are giving people the opportunity to say things that may or may not be appropriate, and as such have no right to be negligent. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 30, 2007 2:42 PM EDT |
> See there? Your editor is very responsive to great suggestions. ;-) Hehe. I once hacked a board in such a way that any post made by a particularly persistent troll would all come out as "Moo!" just to get rid of him and have fun at his expense :-) > I wonder to what degree the author/sitehosts could/should have banned such posts. Threats?! Whenever they find them. You can't expect a forum or blog owner to babysit their site round the clock. And if their sites attract so much comments that they cannot reasonably moderate it by themselves then they should appoint extra moderators. |
| jimf Mar 30, 2007 3:11 PM EDT |
> You can't expect a forum or blog owner to babysit their site round the clock. And if their sites attract so much comments that they cannot reasonably moderate it by themselves then they should appoint extra moderators. Well, yes I can, and yes he should, but, delegated or not, the buck stops with the owner. |
| azerthoth Mar 30, 2007 3:53 PM EDT |
Having administered several forums I have to agree, it is the administrators responsibility to control if something stays or goes and the ramifications for breaking the rules. Two of those forums had several thousand registered users so of course I had to have moderators as I couldn't catch everything in a timely manner. One of the things we did was not so much delete offensive posts, but move them into a "jail" that only the moderators could see. This let us maintain a record of IP addresses and user accounts and the details so we could reference if needed and set appropriate filters. To this day the entire country of Turkey has no access to those forums due to a DOS attack that originated and was mostly trafficked from there. Freedom of speech was not a concern, I explained it as we were offering a place to discuss things within a certain scope, and that things outside that scope or that you wouldn't say to your grandmother were just not relevant and therefor removed with a vengeance. |
| jimf Mar 30, 2007 4:23 PM EDT |
> Freedom of speech was not a concern, I explained it as we were offering a place to discuss things within a certain scope, and that things outside that scope or that you wouldn't say to your grandmother were just not relevant and therefor removed with a vengeance. It's amazing to me that even after a clear explanation, some just can't understand, and, insist that yelling 'Fire!', followed by whatever obcenities, in the crowded theater is true 'Freedom of Speech'. |
| dcparris Mar 30, 2007 6:04 PM EDT |
Amen! |
| tuxtom Mar 31, 2007 12:55 AM EDT |
@tuxchick: My point is that the neighborhood isn't bad to begin with...it doesn't need to change. No one has a right to not be offended. I'm certainly not advocating death threats, but I'm not empathetic towards a grown adult overreacting to anonymous posts on a forum, no matter how distasteful they may be. Methinks Ms. Sierra is being a bit if a drama queen: "Oh, some people (likely 13 year old males) are posting death threats and explicit sexual innuendos on my blog so I am canceling my professional engagements and telling the whole world how bad the Internet has become". If the whole thing hadn't been so self-publicized it might be a different story, but as it stands I call BS. |
| jimf Mar 31, 2007 11:53 AM EDT |
> a grown adult overreacting to anonymous posts Perhaps, but you don't know that she was overreacting. Understand also that the seriousness of any threat is to a large extent dependant upon the honest perception of the person being threatened. Most have a pretty high tolerance for 'distasteful', but, If it really was an out and out death threat, it should have been handled immediately by the members, the moderators, and if necessary, the owner of the site. As for her blog, I do think she should have done some basic security, including the limitation to registered posters for her blog, and control of the IP addressing. Not having taken those precautions is kinda lame. > likely 13 year old males All the more reason to track them down, report them to authority, and get them treatment.... The serial killers of the future??? perhaps that's extreme, or, maybe not... |
| devnet Mar 31, 2007 12:32 PM EDT |
I'm of the mindset that if you do anything publicly, you open yourself up to both good and bad. Just like when you're standing in the line at the bank you can't stop anyone from using the fword or robbing the place and threatening your life in the process, you can't do it online either. Simply accepting that you can't control the behavior of others is a FACT OF LIFE...whether it be online or other. I think they've made a whole lot of crap out of nothing in this instance...nothing because by being online in the first place, you are open to any and ALL criticism/threats/promises/reviews. If not, don't be online anymore. |
| jimf Mar 31, 2007 12:56 PM EDT |
> robbing the place and threatening your life in the process Are you saying that society doesn't have repercussions for that?. I think that there are quit a few in our jails that would disagree. True that bad people can create bad situations for everyone, but that doesn't mean we need tolerate the behavior. That's a sad mindset you got there devnet. Even if it's a loosing battle, I've got work toward something better. |
| tuxtom Mar 31, 2007 11:34 PM EDT |
jimf: You're completely ignoring the fact that no one did anything in real life. Anonymous posting on a blog is hardly worth taking so seriously. How can you advocate administering literal repercussions for "virtual" offenses? The Internet is a stage, and ALL of us are actors. Some people play the role of the Villian, some the Damsel in Distress, some the Thought Police. It is all a game played out on a virtual stage. It's fiction. To take it so seriously is naive. |
| jimf Apr 01, 2007 12:11 AM EDT |
> It is all a game played out on a virtual stage. The stage may be virtual, but it's not always a game, or at least any more than any human correspondence is a game. to regard it all as a game is the real naivety. |
| SFN Apr 02, 2007 5:11 AM EDT |
Quoting:You're completely ignoring the fact that no one did anything in real life. Anonymous posting on a blog is hardly worth taking so seriously. How can you advocate administering literal repercussions for "virtual" offenses?I agree. We shouldn't ban people from an online forum for making anonymous threats. We should wait until someone is found in an alley with their throat slit then try to find the person who did it and spend the next six years trying to charge them with murder, then the next seventeen years trying to get them put in the electric chair. Better that than stomping on an individual's freedom to post. |
| azerthoth Apr 02, 2007 7:16 AM EDT |
Yup, I have always believed that being anonymous has abrogated my responsabilities and freed me from the repurcussions of being a human being. It worked out well for the unabomber after all. It continues to work for all the sexual predators that cruise the chat rooms. Virtual Offenses?!? no such thing, there is a real person typing in threats to another real person. Its the same as mailing a letter, but with the internet it allows for everyone to read it instead of just the addressee. |
| DarrenR114 Apr 02, 2007 8:30 AM EDT |
@azerthoth, On the flipside of that you have things being published under pseudonyms and anonymously for very good reasons: the author wants the content evaluated on its own merits and not their own (which I can think of at least two cases where the reputation of the author(s) was impeccable.) |
| jimf Apr 02, 2007 8:47 AM EDT |
> anonymously for very good reasons Yes, that is the downside, but for the most part, anonymity is ultimately an illusion. Everyone has an IP address, and, the behavior of the irresponsible assures that anonymity will be severely curtailed at some point in the near future. |
| bigg Apr 02, 2007 9:17 AM EDT |
I'm sure there are a lot of parents of college students wishing their kids had been anonymous while downloading music. Darren: While I agree there are reasons for being anonymous, it's still up to the owner of a site whether anything should be published. It's the duty of the owner of the site to delete posts and accounts. |
| jezuch Apr 02, 2007 2:58 PM EDT |
Quoting:the author wants the content evaluated on its own merits Huh, especially if it's a death threat, yeah... |
| jdixon Apr 02, 2007 3:29 PM EDT |
> I'm sure there are a lot of parents of college students wishing their kids had been anonymous while downloading music. Bigg, I think if you check, it's always sharing files the RIAA goes after people for, not downloading. Not that this makes downloading legal or correct... |
| bigg Apr 02, 2007 4:44 PM EDT |
Yes, sharing, though I believe sharing and downloading are about the same in that situation. |
| jdixon Apr 02, 2007 4:56 PM EDT |
> though I believe sharing and downloading are about the same in that situation. By default, yes. But that's easy to fix. |
| DarrenR114 Apr 03, 2007 6:01 AM EDT |
@jezuch, I had in mind names like Publius, George Sand, Andre Norton, and Mark Twain. Who really wrote the Federalist papers? Why didn't they make themselves known? |
| jezuch Apr 03, 2007 2:32 PM EDT |
Darren - I know, I just can't stop being sarcastic, it's beyond me :) |
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