Talk:Trust and Safety Product/IP Info

Feedback from a network engineer

Hi folks, in my day I'm a network engineer with 10+ year of ISP experience. Let's just assume I know what I'm talking about:

• Location: Location data is often unreliable. Some ISP's assign blocks per region, but others just hand out single ip's or work with dynamic ipaddreses. Let's not even start about mobile. I would make this clearer in the interface that this is a guess. Geoip for my own ip currently ends up on the other side of the country.
• Organization: Seems to be straight from the RIPE database (whois). Names of organizations might be very outdated or cryptic.

Allocation of ip space is done in a hierarchical way:

• IANA is the root and assigns the big blocks to the RIR's, see https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xhtml
• The Regional Internet Registry allocates blocks to ISP's. This is called PA space: Provider Allocated space. You'll also see PI (provider independent) space, but that's less common (system that you can switch ISP's while keeping your block of IP space). example
• To actually use IP space you have to assign it in blocks with a meaningful name. example and a route object should exist example

IP assignments (with fallback to IP allocations) are large enough to not cause any privacy issues so these should be included either with metadata or a link to Whois. As an admin I often check the larger block if a single IP is causing problems to see if they're hopping around. The tool should have the same functionality without exposing the individual ipaddresses. If that's not possible I think this will be the last straw on several wiki's and the communities will vote to only allow edits by registered users. Multichill (talk) 10:25, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. ––– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:46, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback from an ordinary user

I just used the tool for the first and last time. For ordinary users it is just useless. --jdx ^Re: 04:02, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

@Jdx it is meant for users who work in anti-vandalism. Was there something missing that would make the tool more useful for you? -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

@NKohli (WMF) and Jdx: This has been going on for a long time. I'm still getting plenty of feedback from my colleagues at en.Wikipedia that the way to go is probably to stop IP editing altogether. Anti-vandalism patrollers do a grand job but they don't catch it all and not all inappropriate IP edits are vandalism. They have other, more sinister agendas. Kudpung (talk) 06:48, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, simple, elegant solution which would "magically" solve many problems. Unfortunately, for some reason the Foundation has chosen to burn some money on this nonsense. --jdx ^Re: 09:44, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, I used to fight vandalism a lot on Commons (I am not active there for about a year but I think that I am still the one who patrolled the most edits). Anyway, when I spot a vandal I try to do some investigation before I report them on an administrator/steward noticeboard – sooner or later it will be virtually impossible. In my opinion the most needed information for an occasional anti-vandal fighter is exact location (preferably city, at least 1st level region (state/(Bundes)land/województwo, etc.)) and ISP name. BTW, why it is even possible for an ordinary user to turn the tool on? --jdx ^Re: 09:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Commons is an image repository. Comparing it with an encyclopedia that gets tens of thousands of edits every day is like comparinbg apples with oranges. That said, as one of the en.Wiki editors most concerned with maintaining clean articles, I fail to see how IP masking and its associated tool can be of much help. It's time for the Foundation to come down from its antiquated philosophy of allowing IP edits and stop it once and for all. It's an anachronism in today's Internet, and on the en.Wiki the danger/benefit ratio is only explained by the research that the WMF itself wants to hear. We found that out with ACTRIAL. The en.Wiki can't even cope nowadays with checking the daily submissions of new articles and the Foundation won't help there any more either. Wikipedia is on track for losing its reputation for accuracy and neutrality. I realise the devs do their best but they can only do what they are told to do by their bosses. Kudpung (talk) 10:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, one can always retire and that's what I'm going to do once this nonsense takes effect. --jdx ^Re: 11:17, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Advanced information

@NKohli (WMF) @MMoss (WMF) I don't understand why advanced information provided by the IP Info feature is limited to user groups such as admins, checkusers, stewards etc. per foundation:IP Information tool guidelines#Requirements for access while actual access to the IP address will be provided to non-admin patrollers with 6+ months account age and 300+ edits according to foundation:Policy:Access to temporary account IP addresses#Patrollers and other users

By viewing the IP address, non-admin patrollers can use tools such as whois to get the same info as the advanced information which the IP Info feature provides. Therefore I don't see a reason why advanced access to the IP info feature is limited more strictly than access to the IP address itself. In my opinion, patrollers who fulfil the criteria for IP access should also get full access to the IP Info feature. Johannnes89 (talk) 08:39, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I believe that they currently intend to have the same groups for both, although on the technical side I understand that it would involve different user rights. (Having separate user rights would make it possible to set different requirements, if a community chose to do so.) User:MMoss (WMF) has been looking at an update to the IP info guidelines, and also to the main Privacy Policy. It may take some time to get the updates through the approval process.

There is also an incomplete section in foundation:Policy:Access to temporary account IP addresses. That is awaiting some further technical progress. I do not expect further changes to the requirements for the user rights (e.g., six months + 300 edits) in that policy, unless the communities were to decide that this provides access to an unnecessarily large group of editors.

We have several months before this needs to be settled. I think it will all be done in time. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

As a patroller i agree with @Johannnes89: its much easier to track and trace vandals especially when they use the same network

Regards --Milicevic01 (talk) 11:57, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I also second Johannnes89 opinion and I hope it can be changed in some months later. Thanks. --SCP-2000 12:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@MMoss (WMF) @SGrabarczuk (WMF) any updates on this? I still don't get why full access to the IP Info feature is restricted to admins etc. considering that non-admins who meet the requirements for patrollers can just access the IP address of a temporary account and receive the same info using external IP information tools. Johannnes89 (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Access requirements

Is the table of access requirements on Foundation:Legal:IP Information tool guidelines still accurate? On enwiki, I have no access to "Connection method," "Connection owner," "Real IP/Proxy," "Static/Dynamic," and "Number of devices on IP," but according to that page, all this information should be accessible by autoconfirmed users and above. Mokadoshi (talk) 18:07, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Mokadoshi, thanks for reporting the problem. We'll look into that. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mokadoshi, what message do you see? Is it "no access" or "data unavailable"? If the latter, then this may happen to you because we only have this information for IPs that are known to IPoid. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I see "no access." Mokadoshi (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I am a rollbacker on enwp and for me only the Location and Version fields are populated, all others show No access. Count Count (talk) 07:58, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

When I use it on the English Wikipedia, it shows The IP information could not be retrieved. to me when on a contributions page of an IP address, even though I am extended confirmed over there. Codename Noreste 🤔 talk 02:08, 31 March 2024 (UTC)