Banned from Slashdot

[Jeffrey Baker]

maillist wrote:
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> Just encountered this:
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> 
> 
> Either your network or ip address has been banned from Slashdot
> ...due to script flooding that originated from your network or ip 
> address --

I'm new around here, and this may be covered territory or flamebait, but 
I think this is really great.  "Problems" with IP-to-human mapping will 
eventually become burdensome, and webmasters (far and away the most 
technologically backwards people using the Internet today) will use the 
well-designed end-to-end cryptographic features of their chosen medium.

It is ridiculous that you can't use Slashdot over SSL.  In as much as 
your reputation (on Slashdot, and perhaps in wider geek circles) might 
be impacted if your account is used for purposes other than your own, 
you would expect the Slashdot admins to come up with a way to prevent 
your cookies from being hijacked.  But, of course, they don't.  Instead 
they rely on sending your identity in the clear, and cooking up 
mostly-broken mechanisms to regulate behavior based on packet routing 
information, which is oblique at best.

I think of tor as a kind of gigantic open wifi network.  You wouldn't 
want to be sending your login information in the clear over some 
unencrypted 802.11b link, so why would you want to send that information 
in the clear over another network where it can be observed in transit 
(by which I mean any and all networks)?  Furthermore, why continue to 
assume that an IP address maps to a person or behavior, in a world where 
I can use any one of literally hundreds of 802.11 access points that are 
in range of my home (and anyone can use mine), and any person can use 
tor and have their packets popping out all over the planet?  Indeed, the 
notion of IP banning is triply ridiculous in a system where I can use my 
ISP's website to provision a new IP address and reliquish my old ones.

I hope I haven't strayed too far from the topic.  My main point is that 
I hope we all get banned from Slashdot someday, to finally prove the 
absurdity of banning IP addresses.

-jwb