Forums upgrade feedback and questions

JimmyGoon · n00b Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 15

I don't know if this is still an ongoing discussion or not but

1) I've never used/heard of Tor, but understand what it is
2) Have an opinion.

How exactly are you banning Tor users... is there NO way at all of banning them from posting alone. I don't understand how thats NOT possible!

At the same time, who needs to be anonymous on Linux... support.... forums...? BUT I think privacy and anonimity is a very valuable thing and I think that it should be respected.

BUT! The forums are given to us... and the people that run it, take care of it etc are the ones who get to make the decisions... and as long as they are ok with the fact that they are driving some users away... well then so be it.
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pilla · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:

amne · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:46 pm Post subject:

JimmyGoon · n00b Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 15

ausmusj1 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Jan 2004 Posts: 121

pilla · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject:

Answering a couple of comments from people that think I'm being rude.

electrofreak · l33t Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 713 Location: Ohio, USA

Could a "View your posts" link be put in the top right hand corner of the forum views and in topic views? It's only on the Index and I think it deserves a place in the upper right hand corner along with the unanswered and last 24 hours links.
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ian! · Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:18 pm Post subject:

rusxakep · Guru Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 458

Russian forums encoded now in windows-1251!!

Please return koi8-r or upgrade to utf8.

Thanks! :evil:

viy

This morning all visitors of Russian Gentoo forum realized, that system messages, that were using KOI8-R encoding for years, are all in WINDOWS-1251 now.

We've been suffering from the encoding problem ever since the forum was created, it's too unconvenient to switch encoding forth and back to read individual posts of the thread, when they're in different encodings. And now we've faced new problem that gives even more headache --- the majority of visitors are using Mozilla/Firefox browsers with Russian language's encoding autodetection set up, which brings more mess to our threads.

Now we have a mixture of russian encodings seen in every thingle place of the forum! Each visitor is on it's own to select the "proper" encoding for his post, which doesn't seems right. Maybe it's time to fix the problem once and forever? We've been discussing 2 possible solutions:
1) add "charset=koi8-r" to force usage of this encoding on the phpBB level;
2) convert all system messages and existing postings to UTF-8 and make it the main and only encoding for us.

2nd method would be the best choise! We're waiting for your feedback ASAP.
Thanks in advance.

ian!

Merged viys post with this thread.

viy

ian! · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:19 am Post subject:

Ok you're right. It's a problem occuring when using the russian language pack. Sorry for the inconvenience. We're looking into fixing this.
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ian! · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:12 pm Post subject:

Updated to 2.0.17-gentoo-p3. Encoding problems should be fixed now.
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viy · Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject:

legine · Guru Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 555 Location: Germany

Hihi.

I do not use TOR, because I do not believe that my privacy is in danger when I go in public (=internet). But I see that people fear that the IP address could be a point to attack or the hope to enhance their protection who they realy are because they have think their are in danger by whatever means.

Now because of that this results in the problem that the TOR user cannot be clearly identfied. Because of this the TOR user can troll on the forums without being tracked and pubnished. On our forum we had this behaviour this lead to the first emergency stop in blocking all IP known to be exit by TOR (EXITNODES).

So if I would like to use TOR and I configurate it the way that it can be used by other TOR users in the last gate bevor going in the free world i take responsibility of letting a "badguy" abuse the Forum. Thats why the Gentoo-forums block the TOR gateway since it is the last traceabel step.

Did I outlined the Problem correct so far?

If yes. It would help not to be abel to be the last gateway when exiting the TOR Network. But this would be diminish the use of it.
Ignoring the fact and letting TOR users have unrestricted Access is also not good since we have an Issue here.
Maybe the best way is that people that are on the Blacklist because they are TOR Exitnodes have an alternate way to identify clearly to the Forums.

I have in mind something like an token of some sort that is transported in order to identfy the user clearly.
This is a completely theoretical aproach to the problem. If that would be a workabel approach we can think over the next step how we can afford or how TOR can provide the trust we need. I think that the readonly access is not a satisfactory solution. And we should look into it in order to get this cleand in a way that satisfy the need of all parties involved.

So would my aproach satisfy everyone if it is possibel with our and / or TORs resources?

Cheer
Legine
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amne · Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 11:13 am Post subject:

legine · Guru Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 555 Location: Germany

This is the solution used at the moment. Thanks to point that out. I see I missed some facts.

I read a bit about the TOR project and it sounds interesting. Now our problem is japperdising the aim of TOR. The Forum has every right to do so and IMO you have done the right thing.
But the way I understand the TOR project it is not in the interest of the TOR project to be anynom to everyone.

It aims more to establish privacy to third party. At least I interpred following link that way:
http://tor.eff.org/overview.html

I do not believe in this but some others do or need it. So I think we should look for a solution and give a chance for improvement. Thats what I want to know what other information exept IP adress would be acceptabel in order to identfy a peron for sure.

Would the MAC adress do the trick? or a "cryptic token" of some means?
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quote from Spaceballs:
Dark Helmet:[...] we were told to comb the desert, so we're combing it! [puts down bullhorn] Find anything yet?!
Soldier: Nothing yet, sir.

sschlueter · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:27 pm Post subject:

I simply can't resist to post a few comments regarding this whole thread. English is not my native language, and I find it kind of hard to express my views on this issue, so please bare with me.

I completely understand that abuse of the gentoo forums is a problem and I can very well imagine that dealing with such things takes too much time (or has recently started to take too much time).

I'm currently not a tor user, so I'm not affected by this restriction but on the ideological side I fully support the idea of having the ability to be completely anonymous on the internet. And I think in days like these it is pretty hard to justify such an ability considering the various crimes that can safely be done this way. Until today I wasn't aware that several sites are already blocking tor exit nodes. I'm worried about this, since this could reduce the usefulness of tor up to the point where most users stop using it. This could lead to a situation where 99,5% of the tor users are using it for illegal activities which finally could lead to a situation where tor itself will be declared illegal. I'm fully aware that the forum administrators had a problem to solve but I think the big picture is pretty important in this case.

Anyway, I also want to comment on the general tone and on some attitudes expressed.

I scares me that nixnut is of the opinion that anonymity needs a "good reason". I will not elaborate on this, as I have already said something about my ideological believes about privacy on the internet.

And while I'm already taking into account that this thread is a heated debate, I find it absolutely intollerable that nixnut and ian! have been so extremely rude. Shame on you!

I have always liked the gentoo forums for being such a warm and fríendly place. This feeling is now gone.

legine · Guru Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 555 Location: Germany

nixnut · Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

sschlueter · Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:04 pm Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

DremK · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 83

I use a FREE SYSTEM for its freedoms but i'm indignant in which several services of a free system are limiting OUR FREDOM.

#gentoo channel is the only one that forces tor users to need request voice, and isn't possible post a message and these forums. Simply because people were using Tor to abuse the forums.

I think that it's always possible to be taken other alternatives but sure that was the easiest way (doesn't let tor users)
i.e. developing a plugin so that forum users can indicate if a message is a spam. To the 5 indications the administator would be notified for to checking it.

If you think it's not just about spam, it's also about tracking people who have been banned. I say you that you will not be able to tracking to users with a dynamic ip.

There are a lot of countries and mega-corporations that they want to control everything what we do or to say.
In Spain, France, and i think that it'll be in all countries of E.U. , all communications through Internet will be logged (if its not already done

). Aside from which systems like carnivore or echelon exist.

So Gentoo is letting that all my communication is being to logged like minimum for my country.
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