Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/2008 IWF action

Some messages here were originally posted to the main project page, but have been moved here for clarity.

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4

The following advice for anyone that is calling a helpdesk:

1. Remember that they usually cannot hang up on you, they have to stay on the line until YOU hang up.
2. Ask for the name of every person you are talking with and write it down.
3. Demand to speak with someone that knows what a proxy is. If the person on the line says he knows, ask him to explain it to you. If they don't explain it properly, demand again to speak with someone who knows what a proxy is. (For this, it helps if you know yourself :D ).
4. Demand that a ticket is created for your issue (and get the number for that ticket).
5. Demand that they call you when the ticket is closed.
6. Ask the following: "Why is my internet traffic to Wikipedia proxied? The single article that the IWF blacklisted last week is now no longer blocked, but my usage of Wikipedia is still heavily affected by the presence of this proxy filter, more than 5 days after the blacklisting was lifted. I consider this to be inappropriate and I would like "proper" Internet to be restored." If they say other content on Wikipedia is censored, demand to know what URL that is, so that you may contact the IWF (and ask if it is OK if you provide the name of the helpdesk employee + ticketnumber to the IWF, when you contact them).
7. Ask for a refund for this month, because your Internet connection was broken and not up to your satisfaction esp. this last week. Name a percentage of your internet usage that was affected and ask for that much refund. Add some costs for the phonecalls.

This may all seem a bit over the top, but the idea is that they realize that you know what you are talking about and that they will start taking you seriously (The number one problem when talking with a helpdesk). These are all things that you are entitled to ask and entitled to being answered upon. Being annoying is the only way that they will feel motivated to solve your problem in general. I have learned this from some friends who worked at helpdesks, and it really is necessary that you be this drastic and annoying to get any proper help at most helpdesk services. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. Thanks for the great advice. Pretzels^Talk! 17:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this excellent advice. Another possible course of action is to contact the administrator of the IP address as given by a WHOIS search. For example, TalkTalk uses User talk:62.24.251.241, and the WHOIS is here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Direct numbers that are cheaper to call and will most likely be more effective:

• TalkTalk broadband cancellations: 01925 556486
• TalkTalk free customer service: 0800 0490498 / 0800 0490049
• TalkTalk fault reporting: 0800 0495050
• TalkTalk escalation team: 0800 9555544
• Virgin Media broadband faults: 0151 4777590
• Virgin Media technical support: 0800 0521435
• Be Unlimited head office: 020 74795000
• Be Unlimited support: 0808 1013430

These are from SayNoTo0870.com. Pretzels^Talk! 21:39, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if it's of any help, but the reason that BT and O2 sare sharing a censor-proxy may be that O2 was formerly BT's own mobile network (then called Cellnet) before being spun out as O2. Cynical (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BT and O2 do not share proxies or broadband network. O2 and Be do though, since Be is owned by O2. O2 run their broadband service on Be's original network that still has most hostnames branded after Be. See Be Unlimited#Company history and key dates. --Ticram (talk) 18:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thx Cynical, I had indeed made a c/p error when changing the information to a table --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TalkTalk is a real problem area at the moment, with one of its proxy filters at User talk:62.24.251.241 now blocked from anonymous editing of Wikipedia. This places TalkTalk customers no better off than they were at this time last week when the "official" block was in place. This situation needs to be kept under review.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone else comment on whether they believe TalkTalk is still proxying? There are some contributions on 17 December 2008, but not as many as before.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/12/15/lessons-and-questions-for-the-iwf/ The Open Rights Group has posted some additional questions to the IWF on their website. Let's hope they will be able to affect some change in the IWF. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

lets all send emails to complaints@iwf.co.uk en masse with a simple message about free speach.--216.118.68.193 (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think most people outwith this website would support removing the image of a naked child, rather than worry about technical problems. 86.11.172.114 (talk) 21:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• ^{[citation needed]} --Rodhullandemu 21:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This morning, TalkTalk seems to have woken up at last and ended the proxying. This may be the end of the saga as far as the major ISPs are concerned, but further reports are welcome.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As of today, all the IPs are unblocked and their talk pages unprotected. The latest edit from any IP was 17th December, though this was partly constrained by blocks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this looks like the end of the road for the Virgin Killer affair. The blocking imposed by the Internet Watch Foundation took the form of an intercepting proxy server. This showed up when numerous people complained on Friday December 5 that their IP addresses were not appearing as normal at Wikipedia.[1] It took a while to figure out what was happening, which is not surprising, since nothing like this had ever happened before. It is remarkable that all the IWF achieved with the block was to disrupt access to Wikipedia for 95% of the people in the UK, and to make the Virgin Killer album cover world famous.[2]. Thanks to HTTPS and Google, not a single person was prevented from seeing the VK image if they wanted to. Anyone for knighthoods at the IWF?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic from this proxy started again a couple of hours ago. I can't find any content blocked, but Wikipedia is proxied again, which means that this IP will be blocked soon. WTF? --89.167.221.131 (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The proxy has now been blocked again by the looks of things. This is all very irritating... Brilliantine (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? Please see the advice at [3].--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, 100% sure - I think I was one of the first few people to notice it last time. There is a thread at ANI about this now. None of the other previously used proxy IPs appear to be active, by the way. Brilliantine (talk) 18:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please could you give the IP addresses that you have experienced.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, only the 89.167.221.131 mentioned above appears to be active. Brilliantine (talk) 19:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible that due to dynamic allocation of IP addresses, an unusual IP address could be in use. The main point is that two different IP addresses would appear if you were being proxied. Is this occurring?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:00, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The ANI thread has quite a lot of further detail. Brilliantine (talk) 16:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Coincidently there was also an identified CarPhoneWarehouse screw up ~11:40 UTC on 2009-01-07 which lead to filtering (see Special:Contributions/62.24.251.240). —Sladen (talk) 10:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Surely following the instructions at http://www.opendns.org get round your ISPs DNS servers having been 'poisoned' to serve up a filtering proxy instead of Wikipedia. --81.242.189.89 (talk) 22:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, because the filtering occurs at the routing level, not the DNS level. I use OpenDNS, and yet I am being filtered on en.wp. ~~ [ジャム]^[t - c] 23:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the 'inside' can you tell you are being filtered without looking at wikipedia and checking which IP you appear to edit from? --81.242.189.89 (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not easily - that is the point of it being transparent. ~~ [ジャム]^[t - c] 23:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since this time we're not aware of anything being even potentially illegal, it should be alright to explain how to circumvent this. Like the last time, only the IP of the European Wikimedia cache is filtered, so the solution is to route your Wikipedia requests to the US yourself. Edit /etc/hosts or \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and insert the line:

208.80.152.2 en.wikipedia.org

The IP is that of rr.pmtpa.wikimedia.org, instead of what the name servers would usually give for UK users, rr.knams.wikimedia.org. Now it's actually faster to access the US Wikipedia address directly than through the sluggy filtered local proxy. Since OpenDNS is a proxying dns server itself, it might break this kind of geo lookup if the original request was made from around the US and using it might have the same effect as editing the hosts file, but in this case OpenDNS seems to be returning the knams IP. --89.167.221.131 (talk) 00:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 'hosts' file edit seems to be working for me. Thanks for the tip. zazpot (talk) 02:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]