Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CharlotteWebb/Evidence

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Notice Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs; a shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues. If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the Arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-consciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey, use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Be aware that Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to re-factor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the Arbitrators to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Contents


[edit] Evidence presented by Penwhale

[edit] Current version of WP:NOP doesn't have a solution regarding the Great Firewall

From current en-wiki policy on open proxies:

This policy is known to cause hardship to some editors, who must use open proxies to circumvent censorship where they live; a well-known example is the government of the People's Republic of China, which attempts to prevent its citizens from reading or editing Wikipedia. Chinese readers who wish to edit Wikipedia should read Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall.

[edit] WP:TOR, an essay, offers a quasi-solution that doesn't always work

From the link for the advice in the previous paragraph:

One possible solution is to use Wikimedia's HTTPS gateway, which is still accessible at the time of writing. This is not a privacy solution—any edits you make will be immediately visible, and anyone with access to the network, such as the Chinese Government, will be able to correlate your edits with your IP address. It is not much better than ordinary HTTP for privacy, the difference is that it works for the time being. NOTE: As of May 2007, the status of this solution is unknown. Please give feedback on the talk page. Thank you.

But on its talk page, there are responses stating that the HTTPS method does not current work.

[edit] WP:TOR used to offer a way to request a softblock instead of hardblock

This diff removed the information for editors to request a softblock.

[edit] Admins are immune to IP blocks

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-01-08/Technology_report

[edit] Jayjg didn't understand that admins were immune to IP blocks

From Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Softblock_for_Tor_proxies:

Yes, of course, there are plenty of soft-blocked TOR proxies, which means that they might as well not be blocked at all - just keep trying till you get a soft-blocked IP, then do whatever you like. That's how they were able to keep deleting the Main page today. Jayjg(talk) 19:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jimbo's statement on WT:NOP

Quoting from WT:NOP#A_general_statement:

I do not intend this to be a decree or anything overriding policy. This is merely a statement. I think this policy is currently overbroad, in that it does not appear to take proper recognition of the incredible good we can do by working within reason to allow and encourage people who have special circumstances to be able to edit using anonymizing tools such as Tor. As I am told, we have recently switched from soft blocking Tor exit nodes (something I approve of, due to the incredible firehose of vandalism they can be otherwise) to hard blocking Tor exit nodes (something I do not approve of, since this totally forbids Tor users from editing Wikipedia at all, rather than merely imposing a 4 day waiting period on them). I would like this policy to be (thoughtfully, slowly, and with due consideration for all valid viewpoints) revised a bit to include a stronger acknowledgment that editing via open proxies can be a valid thing to do.--Jimbo Wales 03:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:NPOV against WP:NOP

en.wiki has a western bias due to it being in English. However, the Great Firewall of the PRC government coupled with WP:NOP effectively limits one-fifth of the population on earth from editing it. This means that it's not as easy to reach a neutral point of view since it's not as easy to provide Chinese sources.

[edit] Great Firewall is a part of the underlying problem even though this case doesn't directly link to it

CW has his/her own reasons of needing to edit from Tor nodes. However, there could as well be an editor who is behind the Great Firewall and having to edit through Tor nodes. Like I mentioned above, the very first revision of WP:TOR was a technical page by Tim Sterling on using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall.

[edit] Evidence presented by Sean William

[edit] CharlotteWebb was effectively banned

Soon after Jayjg identified that CharlotteWebb used TOR proxies, every IP that CharlotteWebb used in the past 3 months (i.e. all IPs still stored in the Recentchanges table), including non-TOR ones, were blocked. (CharlotteWebb initially noticing/documenting her ban, Raul654's confirmation)

(Conditional section removed due to the condition being proven false Sean William @ 02:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Evidence presented by Seraphimblade

[edit] Jayjg's release of information contributed significantly to the failure of CharlotteWebb's RfA

Before this information was released, CharlotteWebb's RfA stood at a total of (32/4/3). [2] The final total was 93/68/19, with many of the opposers citing the TOR use as their main or sole reason for opposition. It is likely that the RfA would have passed without the released information.

[edit] Jayjg released the information specifically due to CharlotteWebb's adminship request

Jayjg stated that his release of checkuser information was specifically due to the fact that CharlotteWebb was requesting adminship. [3]

[edit] The privacy policy forbids use of checkuser to apply pressure and constrains when it may be used

The checkuser policy states that "The tool should not be used for political control; to apply pressure on editors...", and states that the valid uses of the tool are "to fight vandalism, to check for sockpuppet abuse, and to limit disruption of the project." This section does not limit itself to only identifying information, and its wording suggests that it covers use of the checkuser tool in general.

[edit] No evidence of wrongdoing by CharlotteWebb

To date, no evidence has been presented that CharlotteWebb was abusing sockpuppet accounts, vandalizing, or otherwise editing disruptively.

[edit] Jayjg used the checkuser tool to apply pressure

Given the timing of the information release (during an RfA), and the lack of evidence of disruptive behavior by CharlotteWebb, the information gained through checkuser was used to pressure CharlotteWebb and other editors not to use TOR, as no vandalism or abuse was occurring to stop.

[edit] Evidence presented by Durova

[edit] Administrative accounts and open proxies

I am willing to provide evidence off-wiki that one or more sitebanned editors may have used open proxies to gain administratorship on sockpuppet accounts and have exploited the tools to violate the trust we place in sysops. E-mail me to follow up on this offer.

A solution to the dilemma at this arbitration needs to balance fair concerns (such as the Great Firewall) against the dangers of exploitation. DurovaCharge! 04:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by ChrisO

[edit] Jayjg did not communicate effectively with CharlotteWebb

CharlotteWebb was given no opportunity to address the issue in confidence prior to the RFA discussion. She was plainly using Tor to protect her privacy. In the absence of any evidence of abuse, we cannot draw any conclusions as to why she was so concerned about her privacy. In such circumstances, and especially considering there was no evidence of abuse, it was highly inappropriate to post a public challenge to explain her Tor usage. The Committee has another case before it at the moment which was likewise caused by Jayjg jumping to conclusions without first querying the editor involved. There have been a number of other similar high-profile instances (see [4]), which leads me to believe that Jayjg has a persistent and ongoing problem with communicating effectively and taking precipitate, ill-judged action.

[edit] Timing of the disclosure

I understand that a substantial period (in the order of several weeks) elapsed between the initial CheckUser lookup and Jayjg's disclosure of CharlotteWebb's Tor usage. If this is so, why did Jayjg wait such a long time to take action? We have also heard from other CheckUsers that they had noticed CharlotteWebb's use of Tor previously but had let it pass because there was no evidence of vandalism. Why did they not take action?

[edit] Evidence presented by User:KamrynMatika

[edit] Jayjg did not violate the privacy policy, but he did violate the overall checkuser policy

Jayjg did not violate the privacy section of the checkuser policy here as he did not reveal any personally identifying information.

However, in the rules concerning use of the tool [5] it states that:

The tool should not be used for political control; to apply pressure on editors; or as a threat against another editor in a content dispute.

This clearly falls under 'used for political control' as Jayjg had opportunity to discuss this with Charlotte previously to the RfA and did not.

[edit] CharlotteWebb effectively banned

As confirmed by CharlotteWebb, a checkuser blocked all IPs used by CharlotteWebb, both Tor and non-Tor, regardless of the fact that there is no indication that Charlotte is, or intends to be, an abusive user. Kamryn Matika 15:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

(Note: a link to a harassment site has been removed by me. It relates to the evidence of Charlotte stating that the checkuser had blocked her IPs. It has been discussed extensively at WT:NPA that such links, if needed for evidence, can be emailed privately to the Arbitration Committee. KamrynMatika has already been made aware of the situation regarding that site. As Kamryn does not have email enabled, I shall email the link to the Arbitration Committee myself. ElinorD (talk) 15:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC))
  • I understand that some of the information KamrynMatika posted has already been oversighted once, as it does facilitate finding CW's non-TOR IP addresses. I have removed this information again as it is not germane. It can be submitted by email if people think strongly enough. Guy (Help!) 08:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Ryan Postlethwaite

[edit] Locus of the dispute

The locus of the dispute is that Jayjg commented on CharlotteWebb's RfA that she used tor nodes when editing. The dispute of Jayjg and other checkusers behaviour is below.

  • Jayjg added an optional question in CharlotteWebb's RfA, the wording was "Can you explain why you edit using TOR proxies?" [6]
  • Jayjg later confirmed that he had found this out when running unrelated checks and CharlotteWebbs user ID showed up. He commented, "I've had to check lots of vandals and sockpuppets. Every time I discovered they were using TOR proxies, your userid showed up as well. I didn't bother mentioning it before, but adminship is a position of trust. Editing using proxies is against policy. Now I'd appreciate a response." [7] - this was the last time Jayjg commented in CharlotteWebb's RfA. [8].
  • CharlotteWebb then claimed that all her IP's had been blocked, both tor nodes and IP's that are not open proxies, claiming she had been banned from editing, her words were as follows; "Another industrious checkuser has taken it upon himself to identify and block every IP address I have used in the last three months. I know this because I have read the block logs and noticed that several of the IPs blocked as part of this spree have (oh, shit!) nothing to do with the Tor network. For obvious reasons it would be foolish of me to say which is which, though I don't doubt everything about me will be revealed soon enough. It's so refreshing to know that my privacy is in such safe, competent hands! This looks and smells like an unannounced de facto ban from the English Wikipedia (one having nothing to do with my behavior). Because of the heightened level of surveillance I'm under, any further edits I make from this account will only have a denial-of-service effect on myself and any other legitimate users of the Tor network. So, all I can say is I hope to meet you all again in the future when I feel safer."[9]
  • Raul654 later confirmed that both tor and non tor IP's had been blocked that charlotte had previously used - "I did some follow up on your statement above that someone went on a spree and blocked all of your IPs, even non-Tor ones. (Note - this required me to run a checkuser on you) Long story short - you are right that someone did indeed go on a spree. I think, though, given the sheer number of IPs you've used (over 400) the non-TOR ones were accidental. If you email me a list of Non-TOR Ips you've used, I'll see to it that they are unblocked (and if you don't want me to do it, I can privately ask another admin to do it quietly)." [10]

[edit] Evidence presented by User:ElinorD

[edit] Charlotte was very likely aware of the open proxies policy before accepting admin nomination

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Armedblowfish was all about the open proxy policy, as the candidate was using open proxies, and was blocked, and hoped, by gaining admin status, to be able to edit.

Charlotte was Supporter no. 56, at 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC), saying, "The circumstances surrounding this nomination border on being silly."[11].

The RfA page, at the time of Charlotte's vote, looked like this, and was full of votes and comments that referred to the policy prohibiting the use of open proxies. Opposition votes numbers 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 (and the threaded discussion) from the page at the time that Charlotte posted there explicitly mentioned the fact that the use of open proxies was a violation of policy; some of those votes linked to Wikipedia:No open proxies. (There were other oppose votes that mentioned the open proxy issue without explicitly stating that it was a violation of policy. There had even been some support votes and some neutral votes that mentioned the policy.)

Charlotte accepted her own admin nomination nine days later, at 18:52 on 14 June 2007.[12]

[edit] The policy wording at the time the RfA opened clearly forbade the use of open proxies

If Charlotte was unaware that policy forbade the use of open proxies when she began editing, it is extremely likely that she discovered it before her RfA. According to the evidence I have given just about this section, she participated in an RfA where it was being widely discussed, and where numerous links to Wikipedia:No open proxies were given.

At the time of the Armedblowfish RfA, Wikipedia:No open proxies looked like this. At the time that Charlotte accepted nomination as admin, it looked like this. The only change was the addition of an interwiki link.[13] The policy at that time stated in the opening line:

Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies.

The page at meta at the time of Armedblowfish's RfA and that of CharlotteWebb looked like this. It began with:

Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies.

Some users tried to change the page both here and at Meta, to make the use seem legitimate. Edit wars followed. The meta page was (and still is) protected by Majorly[14] in a version which prohibited proxies from editing, rather than editors from using them to edit.[15] After the protection, admins continued to edit the page, and Pathoschild added the following sentence:

"While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked."[16]

That sentence remains in the protected version to this day.[17]

[edit] Jayjg's question did not breach the Checkuser policy

To answer evidence given by Sean William above, Sean quotes from this section of the policy:

It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with CheckUser access, in the following situations:

(He then quotes the situations.)

I have added emphasis to the words "personally identifiable data". To reveal that a person edits through open proxies does not give any information that could help to identify that person in real life. The very use of an open proxy means that the checkuser cannot know anything about the editor; therefore, revealing it tells the community nothing about the user except that they are violating policy.

[edit] Jayjg seems not to have had any history of encounter with CharlotteWebb

Despite the various claims and insinuations that Jayjg deliberately sank Charlotte's RfA, or that he used the checkuser information to apply political pressure on her, nobody has (to the best of my knowledge) presented any evidence that he had a history of conflict with her.

Without going through all his contributions, and hers(!), it would be impossible to prove that he had not encountered her, prior to the RfA. However, he said here that he did not recall "ever interacting with him/her". Unless someone provides evidence to the contrary, I believe that his statement should be accepted. He did not vote in her RfA.

[edit] The checkuser who blocked Charlotte's IPs was not violating policy

Charlotte stated on 17 June that a checkuser had blocked every IP address she had used in the last three months, including some that had nothing to do with the TOR network. She stated that this looked and smelled like a de facto ban. She voluntarily disclosed that she is not in China.[18]

Raul654 stated on 19 June that he had investigated and found that someone had indeed gone "on a spree".[19] He added, "I think, though, given the sheer number of IPs you've used (over 400) the non-TOR ones were accidental."

Jpgordon stated about the blocking of Charlotte's non-TOR IPs:

"Re-checking hundreds and hundreds of IP addresses to ferret out the (apparently) small number that were not Tor nodes strikes me as a massive and unreasonable project; we do almost all of this by hand, and it would have taken days if not weeks to do this. As it turns out, the presence of CW on an IP was pretty strong evidence that the IP was a Tor node (or some other open proxy; I don't know offhand if CW used non-Tor anonymizers.)"[20]

ChrisO stated that

"CharlotteWebb's IP address(es) were subsequently publicly revealed by another administrator and CheckUser (who I won't name here - yet) in the course of an indiscriminate block of every IP address that she'd used, including non-Tor IPs, even though the account itself was (and is) not blocked.

In the same post, he referred to the "indiscriminate block and de facto public disclosure of CharlotteWebb's IP addresses by [that] admin".[21]

In fact, the checkuser in question did not reveal any public information. Certainly he did not put Charlotte's name in the block log when blocking the IPs! It seems to have been an accident, and would never have become known if Charlotte had sent a private email about the matter, rather than posting about it on her talk page.

If the blocking of the non-TOR IPs was an accident, resulting from the massive number of IPs used by Charlotte, and complications in working out which ones are TOR and which ones are not (which I have no knowledge or), and if it is standard practice to block open proxies on sight, then there is no evidence of any breach of policy on the part of the checkuser who blocked the large number of IPs.

[edit] CharlotteWebb has not been left unable to edit

After mentioning on 17 June (diff given above) that she was de facto banned, Charlotte left a message on Kim Bruning's talk page at 06:51 on 19 June (UTC).[22]

Later that day, Raul654 sent her a message (referred to above) in which he said:

"If you email me a list of Non-TOR Ips you've used (go to my userpage and click email-this-user), I'll see to it that they are unblocked (and if you don't want me to do it myself, I can privately ask another admin to do it quietly)."[23]

Charlotte replied:

"I have already chosen to create a new username, after wasting a year of my life on this one. I fully realize that anyone will be able to find me if they fish long and hard enough for it."[24]

Question: how can she start a new account if all her IPs, including the non-TOR ones have been blocked?

[edit] Any personally-identifiable information seems to have come from Charlotte herself

It has been claimed that Jayjg breached Charlotte's privacy in asking why she edited from open proxies. The use of an open proxy means that we cannot know anything about an editor, so all that that revelation tells us about her is that she doesn't want anyone to be able to know who she is.

It has also been claimed that the checkuser who blocked Charlotte's IPs by that very fact publicly disclosed them. Checkusers presumably block numerous open proxies. Her name was presumably not put in the block log. That he inadvertently blocked some non-TOR IPs was unfortunate, but understandable. Even Raul654, after checking the logs, had to ask Charlotte to email him a list of non-TOR IPs; it wasn't something he could recognise instantly. This error caused undeserved inconvenience and annoyance for Charlotte, but did not violate her privacy. Nobody could know just because one of the checkusers blocks some legitimate IPs as open proxies, that these IPs had been used by a particular user.

CharlotteWebb provided the evidence herself. First, she stated on her talk page (rather than sending a private email to the ArbCom or to an individual checkuser) that all the IPs she had used in the previous three months, including the non-TOR ones, had been blocked. (diff given above)

Not only that, but on another website, she apparently (at least if it's the same person) gave the name of the administrator who blocked the IPs. The link has been submitted to the Arbitration Committee by private email.

It still remains doubtful that her privacy has actually been compromised, especially as her editing history consisted mainly of vandalism reverts and adding/removing categories — something about which some editors expressed concern on the RfA page — leaving it extremely difficult for potential stalkers to build a profile of her sex, age, or interests.

[edit] Evidence presented by JzG

[edit] Jayjg did not violate policy`

The root of the issue is that Jayjg posted a question at CW's Request for Adminship: [25]. This comment does not reveal any personally identifying information about CharlotteWebb. Indeed, the inability to infer any personally identifying details is pretty much the whole point of TOR.

Further, given that WP:NOP is and was then policy (regardless of what people think of that), the question was both valid and reasonable.

Alternative approaches, such as contacting bureaucrats to close the debate early as failed, could perhaps have been explored, but that is hindsight. In the end, we have a firm policy against editing using open proxies, and consciously violating a policy which has been extensively debated is a serious problem in a candidate for adminship.

No evidence has been presented that Jayjg specifically targeted CharlotteWebb for a "fishing expedition", the assertion that the link was made coincidentally is plausible and has not been disproven.

[edit] Second CheckUser did not violate policy

Tracking a proxy user's addresses and blocking other proxies they have used is a legitimate use of CheckUser, blocking addresses which are not identified as TOR exit nodes may be viewed as collateral damage. There is no policy forbidding CheckUsers from tracking the edits of an account which has violated a policy and blocking them. Doing so quietly may reduce the risk of accidental privacy violation. However, it would have been better to confirm beforehand whether the addresses were TOR exit nodes.

[edit] Banning is disproportionate

Although it is legitimate to track and block other addresses used by an editor using proxies, and to block them, preventing CW form ever editing again would clearly be disproportionate as there is no evidence of bad edits. At the very least it should have been made possible for CW to privately request and be uncontroversially granted unblocking of any IPs which are not TOR exit nodes. I missed this: [26]. An offer was made to unconditionally and quietly unblock the non-TOR IPs.

So: I can see why CharlotteWebb feels hurt by this, and I think it would not be inappropriate to apologise to her as a body politic for the inconvenience this caused a productive editor, but policy was being followed, and the rewriting of policy to reverse-engineer support for CharlotteWebb's actions does not materially affect this.

I think that actually the only legitimate use of TOR by a Wikipedia editor is identifying exit nodes. Too much vandalism.

[edit] The Great Firewall is not our problem

A core argument advanced by those advocating a less restrictive policy towards firewalls is that it effectively prevents those in mainland China from editing. Wikipedia is not an experiment in free speech. If there were no potential drawbacks to allowing TOR edits it would of course be reasonable to advocate that we do not place barriers in the way of Chinese editors who wish to break their country's (ridiculous) law, but as has been pointed out many times large numbers of edits from these proxies are abusive, and downgrading to softblocks is effectively a free pass for abusers as they will no longer be autoblocked. Advocating the removal of TOR blocks to allow PRC editors to contribute is tantamount to leaving your doors and windows open so next door's cat can get in and drink cream. Better to talk to next door about a less restrictive regime for their cat.

Passionate advocacy aside, vandalism is almost certainly a much bigger problem to WP than not getting input from Chinese dissidents still in China. In an ideal world Chinese editors would be able to evade their government's restrictions while vandals could still be prevented from editing. Hell, in an ideal world the PRC government would not have this stupid policy in the first place. But Wikipedia does not exist to solve real-world problems, and we should not give advocates for assisting Chinese editors in evading this stupid law more influence than those who have (rightly) pointed out that softblocking TOR weakens our defences against abusers.

[edit] Evidence presented by Majorly

[edit] CharlotteWebb's RfA did probably fail because of the revealing of CheckUser information

(copied from workshop (with a link added) by SalaSkan)
CharlotteWebb's RfA stood at a total of (32/4/3) (see [27]) when the question was asked. The final total ended up 93/68/19 (see [28]), with many of the opposers citing the Tor use as their main or sole reason for opposition. This would be due to the question, and also the responses to it.

I second this observation. It's pretty much indisputable, though its relevance to the case is debatable. Shalom Hello 10:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Kwsn

[edit] Users bandwagoned in a mass oppose

Charlotte's was standing at 32/4/3 before Jayjg asked the question. Had it gone it's complete course with the same amount of votes (saying the % stayed the same), she would have gotten around 147 support votes, 18 oppose, and 9 neutral.

[edit] Charlotte never answered Jayjg's question

After Jayjg asked the question, she responded twice to it, here and here. No definitive answer as to why she used them was given on the RfA page. In addition, all her relevant contributions (meaning talk page and RfA comments) after the question did not reveal her reason behind using TOR. A user commented on her talk page saying that not answering directly may cause her to be opposed [29].

[edit] Charlotte was not blocked by the Great Firewall

On her talk page she states:

If anybody's wondering, no, I'm not in China. I don't speak Chinese, though I do have some Asian-American ancestry. I've never set foot in China. I see no point in lying about this, but as far as I'm concerned, the thought that a potential stalker might embark on a wild goose chase through the PRC amuses me to no end.

[edit] Checkuser on RfA's

The idea of running a checkuser on RfA nominees was thrown around at the Bureaucrats' Noticeboard. Note at that time the Runcorn incident was still being discussed.

[edit] Timeline

I compiled a short timeline of events regarding the RfA, however it does not go all the way to close, but the general idea of what happened is there. See it here.

[edit] Evidence presented by 75.116.11.115

[edit] Through the current sequence of events, User:CharlotteWebb's privacy has been compromised

  • User:Jayjg reveals that CharlotteWebb edits through TOR.
  • A second CheckUser performed a check and went through and blocked all the ips used by CharlotteWebb.
  • We know (or could guess) that some of those ips would be mistakes, and not through TOR.
  • Now all that is required is for someone to look at the second CheckUser's logs and find the blocked ips (probably those blocked on June 15th) and eliminate the TOR ips. With any luck (depending on your perspective) those ips will give you a good geographic location. With a little bit further luck, some of those ips could be hosting web servers or other services which could lead to even better results (ie, a public library, a place of work, etc). This is basically how the Seigenthaler vandal was discovered. And now, we've connected User name -> ip -> location, which is something that should never happen.
  • Addendum: One presumes that this is why CW did not reveal the name of the CheckUser, although several others have cluelessly (including me) spread the meme. I have removed the identity here as being the only actual credible violation of privacy thus far revealed. Guy (Help!) 08:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Wikihermit

[edit] Jayjg's - Not a Direct Violation

Jayjg didn't go out of his way to checkuser CW. His first of only two comments at CW's RFA ask why TOR is used[30]. Next he states that he has seen CW's user name come up before when he checked some IPs [31]. The privacy policy states: When using a pseudonym, your IP address will not be available to the public except in cases of abuse, including vandalism of a wiki page by you or by another user with the same IP address. In all cases, your IP address will be stored on the wiki servers and can be seen by Wikimedia's server administrators and by users who have been granted "CheckUser" access. It also states: Policy on release of data derived from page logs

It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with CheckUser access, in the following situations:

  1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
  2. With permission of the affected user
  3. To the chair of Wikimedia Foundation, his/her legal counsel, or his/her designee, when necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
  4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
  5. Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers
  6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

In summary, the IP (or IPs) isn't handed out except for the reasons above. According to the privacy policy, there was no reason to show that CW uses a TOR proxy.

[edit] Evidence presented by Mackan79

[edit] Jay did not breach the privacy policy

Since it deals only with personally identifiable information, Jay did not violate Wikimedia's privacy policy.

[edit] Jay did not run an inappropriate check

Jay has said the information was gleaned incidentally through other checks,[32] and no one has challenged this.

[edit] Jay was entitled to ask CW privately why she was using TOR

Jay could have asked privately, and this would have been perfectly appropriate under policy, although if there was no valid basis for suspicion and no practice of blocking for that reason the question may have been less so. The issue has been raised, but it appears that Jay did not ask CW privately.[33]

[edit] Jay may have been entitled to block CW for a policy violation

If this were consistently done, this may have been overly harsh but also allowable under policy.

[edit] Jay was not entitled to hold such information, decline to act on it, and decline to ask about it, only then to reveal it directly into an RfA for the purpose of influencing that vote

The fact that Jay did this appears to be undisputed, while also at direct odds with the checkuser policy. (In American politics, this actually has a name). If Jay had another purpose, or did not consider contacting CW privately, it would seem that he should explain this.

[edit] Evidence presented by Thedagomar

[edit] Tor exit nodes are dynamic

The essence of tor makes exit nodes, the IPs seen on Checkuser, dynamic. It would thereby be possible and highly likely for CharlotteWebb to get a unblocked IP to create an account with.

[edit] Jayjg has friends

It was previously presented by another user that Jayjg had no prior contact with CharlotteWebb, making it unlikely that he meant ill. However Jayjg must have friends here who could have come in contact with CharlotteWebb.

[edit] Evidence presented by Armed Blowfish

Posted by the Clerk, by request, because User:Armedblowfish is not able to edit the site. Newyorkbrad 14:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I've never presented evidence to the Arbitration Committee before, so I don't know if this is what you are looking for. Let me know by e-mail or IRC if you have any questions, but please don't yell at me. Background on me: I am a Tor user and exit node operator, and I am rather banned.

[edit] Tor does not attempt to hide from services the fact that a connection is from Tor

Tor exit node IP addresses are publicised by the good people of Tor, who respect the self-determination of services like Wikipaedia who wish to block Tor, although we are interested in subverting entry blocks from those who would stop people from using Tor. As explained by Nick Mathewson,

'We're okay with subverting entry-blocks. This isn't hypocrisy; this is because entry blocks are fundamentally different. When Alice connects to Tor to connect to Bob, an exit block means that Bob doesn't want anonymous connections, whereas an entry block means that somebody doesn't want Alice to have privacy. Entry blocking subverts Alice's self-determination, whereas exit blocking on Bob's part *is* self-determination, even if we don't like it.[1]

Anyway, the fact that one is using Tor doesn't really qualify as personal information. And this brings me to my next point:

[edit] The Tor developers have provided better ways to block Tor

The current blocking methods, checkusering CharlotteWebb included, result in far too many false negatives and false positives, which is bad for both Wikipaedia and Tor. This is unnecessary, since the Tor developers have provided a couple of ways to generate up-to-date lists of Tor nodes exiting to Wikipaedia with much better accuracy. Anyway, the most discrete way to unblock CharlotteWebb's non-TOR IPs would be to simply update the Tor blocks - CharlotteWebb's IPs could then be swept under the rug with all of the former exit nodes and exit nodes that do not actually exit to Wikipaedia.

For more information, see this section of my talk page.

[edit] There was room for interpretation in the No open proxies policy, even with the old wording

Others have noted that the old version of Meta's no open proxies policy used to state, "Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies." [34]

However, the policy was written by people, and people often do not say what they mean.[2] What is not said is often more important than what is said.[3] The intent is more important than the actual words. Read between the lines - policies should be interpreted based on the discussion that goes into them.

Some relevant discussion areas:

So:

  • Policy contradicts policy: No open proxies contradicts the Foundation issues 'NPOV as the guiding editorial principle', and 'Ability of anyone to edit articles', since a large percentage of the world's population (i.e. the Chinese) cannot reach Wikipaedia via normal methods. (Consider the systemic bias implications.) Tor has been particularly effective at bypassing the blocks by Chinese ISPs.[4]
  • The intent of the No open proxies policy is to protect Wikipaedia, not stop well-intentioned editors from contributing.

  • One of the things we currently do is block Tor. I consider that a reasonable solution to the vandalism problem, but an unfortunate thing, since to my mind, Tor is something very good. It would be nice if we could look at the edits coming from Tor and say "Oh, these are fine, they are mostly responsible edits." It'd even be ok if we could look at the edits coming from Tor and say "Ok, so there's a touch more vandalism from these than from other ip pools, but there's also some good stuff coming through from places where we normally don't see a lot of editing activity. We'll put up with it." As it is now, we look at it and say "oh, jesus". — Jimbo Wales[5]

  • Hey folks -- the reason that Wikipedia (and other services) use IPs to block users is not stupidity, laziness, or ignorance. People use IP-based blocking because it limits abuse better than no blocking at all. Blocking IPs is not saying, "I hate privacy, I think IPs do and should map 1:1 to human beings, and abuse is an ISP problem; and Tor doesn't exist." It's saying, "I can't deal with the abuse I'd see if I didn't block some IPs, and while IP blocking is imperfect, it's about as good as any other scheme I have had the time so far to implement." — Nick Mathewson, Tor developer [1]

  • Let me tell you what I love. I love the Chinese dissident who wants to work on Wikipedia articles in safety. I love that Wikipedia is an open platform that allows people to have that voice, and that we can have a positive impact on the world in large part because we don't bow to censorship and we are willing to reach out and work with people like Tor to empower individuals to speak, no matter what sort of oppressive conditions they face. WE ARE ON THE SAME SIDE. — Jimbo Wales [6]

  • I want there to be a great method for people to be able to edit Wikipedia safely and securely no matter what their personal situation may be, and I want that method to be sufficiently abuse-free that we can allow it. — Jimbo Wales [7]

  • A number of Wikipaedia editors, myself included, have publicly admitted to using Tor on relevant talk pages (see above list). However, to my knowledge, none of our accounts were blocked directly, showing that the policy was never meant to target us.

As such, an editor not meaning to harm Wikipaedia could reasonably edit through Tor, for as long as the IPs were not hardblocked, and interpret the policy as allowing this.

[edit] Editor privacy and Wikipaedia security are not inconsistent

While policy matters are for the community, not the Arbitration Committee, so far as I know, I strongly recommend that anyone who believes editor privacy and Wikipaedia security to be inconsistent read my talk page, which contains a policy proposal for destructive editing and sockpuppetry resistant Tor unblocking.

[edit] Works cited

  1. ^ a b Mathewson, Nick (2005-09-27). Re: Hello directly from Jimbo at Wikipedia. or-talk Tor mailing list. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
  2. ^ Bernie Fabry, Ph.D (Summer 1996). "I know you know what I said; But do you know that what I said is not what I meant?" (PDF). The Pennsylvania Journal on Positive Approaches 1 (1).  Also see HTML version.
  3. ^ Victoria Maizes (March 2001). "Listening (for what is not said)". Western Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal Publishing Group 174 (3): 216-217. 
  4. ^ Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson (2007-05-12). Design of a blocking-resistant anonymity system (Draft - revision 10168). The Tor Project. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
  5. ^ Wales, Jimmy (2005-09-29). Re: Hello directly from Jimbo at Wikipedia. or-talk Tor mailing list. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
  6. ^ Wales, Jimmy (2005-09-27). Hello directly from Jimbo at Wikipedia. or-talk Tor mailing list. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
  7. ^ Wales, Jimmy (2005-09-28). Re: [roy@rant-central.com: Re: [arma@mit.edu: Re: Wikipedia & Tor]]. or-talk Tor mailing list. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.

Thanks, Armed Blowfish, 28 June 2007

[edit] Evidence presented by Daniel

[edit] Further information about Tor on Wikipedia

In addition to the above comments by Armed Blowfish, it may also be beneficial to read these comments in part or in full. I agree with AB on the general issue of the handling of Tor on Wikipedia, as summarised and put forward by these two compilations. Daniel 09:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Salaskan

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

[edit] CharlotteWebb has not been left unable to edit

On her talk page, CW wrote: "Another industrious checkuser has taken it upon himself to identify and block every IP address I have used in the last three months."
Not every Tor address is blocked, and thus she could possibly continue editing through other Tor nodes.

Also, she said: "Because of the heightened level of surveillance I'm under, any further edits I make from this account will only have a denial-of-service effect on myself and any other legitimate users of the Tor network."
Here, she announced that she wouldn't edit from the account CW any more, because it would only get more Tor proxies blocked.

In short, CW never claimed to have been unable to edit.

[edit] Evidence presented by Wooyi

[edit] Proxies are necessary for piercing the Great Firewall

As a Chinese-born person myself, I must state here, contrary to JzG's assertion, banning all TOR editing is a serious detriment to both WP's quality and moral integrity. By acquiesce and indirectly contribute to Red China's policy of blocking Wikipedia, we are assisting human rights abuses. We must not in anyway help PRC preventing its citizens from learning and telling the truth. It is more than one billion people in China, and there is far less than one billion vandals, so the overwhelming number defeats JzG's argument that we need to assist a dictatorship to combat vandalism.

[edit] No compelling evidence has suggested TOR can be systematically used for vandalism

I can see no reasonable or compelling evidence telling that deliberate vandal/spammer/troll can effectively utilize TOR to implement a massive vandal scheme. WooyiTalk to me? 02:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by GRBerry

[edit] Help:CheckUser at Meta provides additional evidence

  • The Help:CheckUser page at meta has not been edited during the blow up about this. history
  • Wording on that page is not identical to that on the CheckUser policy page. Help version of May 15
  • Relevant statements on the Help page include the following (in order of appearance):
    1. "Special:Checkuser allows a user with a checkuser flag to access confidential data stored about a user, IP address, or CIDR range. This data includes IP addresses used by a user, all users who edited from an IP address or range, all edits from an IP address or range, User agent strings, and X-Forwarded-For headers."
    2. "Revealing stored confidential data about a user is prohibited unless this is necessary to prevent significant violation of policy or disruption that cannot otherwise be dealt with."
    3. "If possible, the checkuser should attempt to resolve the situation without releasing any information, or by releasing the minimum possible information." (emphasis in original)

[edit] Evidence presented by Shadow1

[edit] The blocking "spree" of CharlotteWebb's IPs was performed by User:Dmcdevit with an automated script

At 6:07 on June 16, 2007, Dmcdevit initiated a high-speed blocking run. The number of IPs blocked (277 to be exact) would suggest that the run was targeted at a specific list of IPs, presumably CharlotteWebb's IPs from the results of a CheckUser against her username. The blocking summaries in the run also suggest that Dmcdevit used this script for the run.

[edit] An extremely large amount of the IPs blocked were not actually Tor servers

After extracting the IP addresses from the block log, I filtered out non-Tor IP addresses. This showed that only 81 of the 277 IPs were actually Tor nodes, leaving 196 IPs that weren't.

[edit] The blocking run resulted in a large amount of innocent IPs being blocked

I took the non-Tor IPs and ran nmap against them. The results showed that 121 of the IPs were offline at the time of the scan, which would indicate that the IPs were dynamic and weren't in use. Of the other 75 IPs, approximately 14 weren't open proxies, in my opinion. These results show that about 48%, or about 135, of the IPs blocked were neither Tor servers or open proxies.

[edit] Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

[edit] {Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

[edit] {Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.