Here's a thing; one of my socks was recently blocked and when I came to edit with another sock I found to my surprise that the ip address was autoblocked. Nothing unusual there then. Well there wouldn't be if it was not for the fact that I was using a completely different machine in a location that the blocked sock had not edited from for many months - at least five months and maybe longer. Only thing is, the blocked sock had logged on to that machine on numerous occasions but without editing.

So what's going on here? Are ip addresses being stored for much longer than they'd have us believe? Are ip addresses recorded when you log on but don't edit? Is there some software assessing other potential links between accounts?

Yes

Important safety tip: Never log on.

Wow! I wish I'd known that earlier! Good advice! So the bottom feeders than run Wikipedia are monitoring you big brother style it seems. Oh well, I'll just have to wait until my battalion of socks are all out of checkuser range - still 3 months is it?

Yeah, this is all going to be covered in my e-book. It is very important that you LOG OUT of every session, on any Wikimedia project, so that when you move on to a new IP address, when you open your browser to a Wikimedia project, you don't auto-contaminate that new IP.

They truly are the scum of the earth there at the WMF (and those who blindly support their mission), monitoring visitor activity, and they don't care if you're just an innocent co-worker at an office building with 2,000 computers sharing a single IP address. They will even track your behavior using any "user agent" data that may be attached to your browser (such as Google Toolbar e-residue). That's why it's important to use different browsers for your "good hand" and "bad hand" activity.

Ather, I'd be curious to know what sort of work you are accomplishing at Wikipedia. If you're a talented manipulator, I may have some business for you. Depends on the quality of your work. Contact me off-WR if you're interested.

Logging out isn't enough. You must also delete your cookies (and, as Greg points out, vary your User-agent string). Also beware that your "previous page" is also revealed, so they know if, for example, you arrive at WP via a link from here.

The safe process is:

1) Log out
2) Delete all *wiki* cookies
3) Change IP
4) start a fresh browser
5) change the user-agent string with any of a number of available tools
6) if you're really paranoid, change your screen resolution
7) disable javascript
8) type "en.wikipedia.org" fresh into a blank page with no history
9) log in with 2nd, etc account

This will not 100% prevent you from being blocked for socking -- they block people, guilty or innocent, for "behavioral" (read "imaginary") reasons all the time. But it lowers the likelihood of getting caught.

It's so much simpler to just use different browsers. For example, use Firefox on one account and IE on another.

A key section of your user-agent string will nonetheless be the same. One of my browsers has this string:
and another has this one:
There are also language, encoding, character set and a general "accept" strings that are passed along, and these are substantially similar between browsers.

This is a useful tool.

I don't think I'm giving away any great secret in pointing out that the easiest way of all is "use a laptop or get the cheapest second-hand netbook you can find for the alternative account". Unlimited-use browser phones like Iphones (or the alternatives made by other companies that are half the price and twice the quality), with their ever-changing IP addresses, are untrackable as well.

Driving around the 'burbs looking for unlocked WiFi accounts is fun, too. Isn't there a name for this?

"Neener, Jimbo, this Goatse is for your head --> (*)

"No, I'm over HERE, now... "

If only I were younger I would devote days to this, till they finally started doing something intelligent with IP editing.

But I find I really don't care that much.

The funny thing is that having to deal with IP vandalism is its own punishment for refusing to deal with IP vandalism issues. It's far worse on the doofuses at WP than any vandalism I could do in a POINT-y way. So I'm going to keep doing minimal IP-reversion work, (except on the articles I'm in the middle of working with, where I can't avoid it) and just let them stew in their own juice.

There is some lulz to be had in tormenting the worse admins by putting funny things on their user pages at odd hours, from an IP. Just make sure it's something Cluebot won't notice, so it stays there for a goodly time. You can't delete stuff wholesale or use swearwords. But that leaves an awful lot of possible merryment.

Wardriving, I believe.

A cheap way to do it, if you already have a computer with a few gigabytes of memory, Is use half dozen or more virtual machines. Each could have a different OS/browser/screen resolution/IP. Each VM would be dedicated to one account and clearly labeled. You wouldn't have to worry about logging out, deleting cookies, changing user-agent strings or changing browsers. The different IP would be the hardest part to coordinate because unblocked proxies come and go.

Note by changing this you'd be treating symptoms rather than the problem.

You guys have got this all wrong.

The real fun comes from causing as many false positives as possible.

Trying to hide only prevents the PACMAN game from achieving viral critical mass.

Jon

The PACMAN game by Jon is great fun and instructive at the same time!

As for the autoblock just power down your modem/router every time you need to change address. Who cares if they know what browser you are using? Contributing serious content to that site isn't worth anything these days because someone will screw it up anyway. And the magic of DHCP takes care of everything.

In the case of cable modems, this is typically not going to automatically assign you a new IP.

In my experience I have to change the MAC of my gateway to get Comcast to give me a new IP. Since until very recently I was using a 3com 3c509 as my gateway card I could safely diddle the last octet without risking a hardware conflict as very few people are still using this ancient card. (My new box does not use the 3c509 card, but it still uses the 3c509's MAC.)

Last time I went on a week-long vacation, I unplugged my cable modem/router. When I returned, I had been assigned a new IP address that was "pure" as far as the Wikimedia projects are concerned.

That was a joyful moment, in the otherwise dreary 2 feet of snow that surrounded me, where only hours earlier, I was basking in 80-degree sun and the sound of palm fronds blowing in the breeze.

I know someone who got really friendly with a sysadmin at his cable company, for one
specific reason: so he could get the sysadmin to set up the company's server to
issue him a new IP address every day. (Not for messing with Wikipedia, nope....he was
running a spam farm. Wikipedia is chickenshit, compared with the money you can make
spamming pornsite users with "special offers" of free porn.)

I'm not sure if that story puts the spammer or the sysadmin in a worse light: the spammer for not figuring out how to get a new IP anytime they wanted, or they sysadmin for enabling a spammer that apparently managed to go undetected on their system.

The point is: this guy go away with running spam thru a residential cable modem,
for more than a year, without being caught. Because his buddy at Mediacom covered for him.
That's not an easy thing to do.

And if anyone wants to talk about sock nightmares.....

What about Raul654's sockfarm?

And what about the General Tojo debacle? Monster sockfarm, or WP admins abusing process to ban people they don't like?

Ditto ... always preview every edit and check the user details to make sure you are logged in/out/as whom etc. Stick a post-it note on your screen. Change your screen resolution, or always use the most common one.