Change the open-proxy check behaviour

[isabeau]

Title
Change the open-proxy check behaviour

Short, concise description of the idea
Bypass the open-proxy check when someone is logged in but commenting anonymously

Full description of the ideaCurrently, anonymous comments are blocked if they come from an open proxy (which can be exploited by spammers). Someone who is unable to comment anonymously

Comments

[rebelsheart]

I thought this was supposed to be the case anyway. Yes please!

+1

[girlfight]

Please.

[imc]

I think one difference between posting anonymously and onymously is that you can ban a person posting under their own account or report them for spamming. With anonymous posts the only identifying information you have is the IP address (and actually it'd be quite useful if marking an anonymous comment as spam added the posting IP address to the blacklist, but that's another matter). Anyway, in theory if your suggestion is implemented a spammer could register an account to get around the open proxy limitation but then still post everything anonymously thus ensuring that the spam can't be traced to their account.

[isabeau]

Hm, that's a point I hadn't thought of. Though the open proxy check isn't a catch-all for spammers -- it's not that /all/ spammers use open proxies, it's just that open proxies are easy to exploit. And if someone's creating an account to get around the open proxy check just so they can spam, they could just as easily spam with the account and then create a new account and spam, and create another account and spam, and so on.

and actually it'd be quite useful if marking an anonymous comment as spam added the posting IP address to the blacklistDisagree, for the same reason that LJ doesn't let you ban by IP address :) (Unless by blacklist you mean the list of open proxy thingies, but that's not something that LJ maintains. Not that that changes my disagreement, because it still would cause problems for legitimate users. And while theoretically I could go to my ISP and say "stop using open proxies", and them changing that would allow me to comment anonymously, I can't go to my ISP and say "stop providing services to people who will

[imc]

1. That is true, but I think being able to keep the same account for spamming would be a lot easier for the spammer (after all, I understand the APT has tactics for preventing serial account creating for abuse purposes).

2. I mean it should add to the "you can't post an anonymous comment from this IP address" list. If I actually thought this through there'd be more than enough material to fill a suggestions post since it implies LiveJournal maintaining a list of its own (instead of or as well as the DSBL that it currently uses) and having an appeals procedure to get an IP address off the list, and perhaps additions to the list would be time-limited, and so on.

3. It wouldn't cause any more problems for legitimate users than the current blacklist already does. An open proxy is not something your ISP uses (well, unless they are incredibly sloppy); it's something that people install on their own machines because either (a) their software is very poorly configured, or (b) they need some proxying facility and aren't fully aware of what it does,

[intrepia]

+1

[dcseain]

I disagree; anonymous is anonymous, whether or not the person is signed in.