[tor-dev] Trip Report: GSoC Mentor Summit

[Paul Syverson]

On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 05:22:55PM -0700, Damian Johnson wrote:
> 
> * Sumana and Rob from Wikimedia
> 
> Unsurprisingly Wikipedia occasionally has issues with spammers using
> Tor. We talked about some possible options, such as requiring accounts
> for Tor users to edit with a sort of proof of work in account creation
> to make ban evasion more of a pita.
> 

FYI. We've discussed this with Wikipedia folks and presented solutions
since about 2005. Whoever we've talked to has generally been very
enthusiastic about suggested solutions but never seem interested in
following up. Technical solutions have been evolving all the while:
nym, nymble, verbs, blakr, etc.  (cf. the freehaven anonbib for papers
and/or websearch for system names) It would be great if this
engagement actually moves forward to actual success, but I thought you
should know this disappointing history. (The panel I arranged that
Jimmy Wales was very enthusiastic and extensively engaged about but
then bailed on as final arrangements were being made led ultimately to
the following paper with Geoff Goodell ``The Right Place at the Right
Time: Examining the Use of Network Location in Authentication and
Abuse Prevention,'' Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 5, 2007.)

aloha,
Paul