Community Wishlist/Wishes/Blocking proxy IP address/en
Description
Problem statement
Currently, there is the No open proxies policy, but the enforcement of that is left largely to the local communities.
Issue
On enwiki, this was done by a bot (en:User:ST47ProxyBot was the last one. There had been others as well). However, this isn't ideal as anonymisation services have grown more complex over the years. There are too many IP addresses to look at now given that there are more and more residential IP addresses being used as proxies whereas when the industry was in its infancy, the proxy services are offered through servers with easy to determine IP addresses. Some proxies claim to have millions of IP addresses. The bot has largely stopped working on enwiki due to an disinclination by the bot operator to continue the bot as it is.
Additionally, a side effect of using a bot to block IP addresses on an automated basis is that the block log gets clogged up pretty much. At the last count on 6 August 2024, the bot has made 13,885,193 out of the 20,708,480 blocks (67%) and 7,349,437 of 7,509,989 block modifications (97.9%). In total, the bot clocked in 45% (21,234,630 of 46,952,079) of the total (viewable) entries at en:Special:Log. If we are to replicate the same process across all the projects, that would mean a sizeable chunk of the database storage would have been dedicated to host these logs (and also whatever revisions that the bot would make on the corresponding IP addresses' talk pages to information people about the nature of the block).
Without the bot working, there are editors who have been using proxied IP addresses to edit on enwiki, which many of these are vandalism or disruptive in nature. Administrative areas are being protected for extended periods due to persistent disruptive edits from such IP addresses, leaving other anonymous editors editing in good faith pretty much without the usual venues to report issues until the disruption blows over. (i.e. WP:ANI has been protected mostly from 27 July 2024 to date (6 August 2024) due to a persistent disruptive blocked user using proxy IP addresses.)
Proposals
Add relevant proxy information from IP Info extension to Abuse Filter extension
By adding relevant proxy information from the IP Info extension to Abuse Filter extension, i.e. Behaviors, Risks, Connection types, Tunnel operator, Proxies, we may be able to make use of these as conditions to disallow these IP addresses from making edits on wiki.
Create a new extension
Echoing User:ST47 at en:Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#ST47ProxyBot, implement a solution similar to mw:Extension:TorBlock based on threat intelligence feeds, as does any major website for at least the last decade.
Assigned focus area
Unassigned.
Type of wish
System change
Related projects
All projects
Affected users
Editors, Administrators