Is there any possible legal recourse against Grammar Vandal? He/she must be zombying PC's left and right. What are the penalties for zombying?
Ought to put some of the boys onto tracing it back to its lair, then send some digi-bombs in that will destroy its computer once and for all... No?
In general, if TCP/IP had built-in security (as publicly unknown in the 1960s), we would not have captchas, malware, spam, or this endless erosion from the mentally ill.
Can we switch this Wiki to IPV6? does it solve those problems?
And don't private global networks, such as Bloomberg's, have no spam or malware whatsoever?
{How could that work as long as zombie computers can be made to do things using the identity of "approved" humans? The network cannot tell if human fingers are pressing the keyboard or a zombie script. Microsoft Windows may be the security bottleneck, not the Internet. IPV6 may reduce "source" lying, but not internal computer lying. At best it may make it easier to identify zombies.}
Okay, so what about public/private keys and all that? Or some other form of security? Ick.
I don't even particularly like the idea of HardBans here on the C2. And what if GV actually has something to say? This board would be a quieter place without top, for instance, but I for one would not want to see his valuable contributions disappear just because he's hard headed and dense in certain discussions. Is the GV really all that bad?
Were you here when GrammarVandal was in full swing? He's mostly harmless now that he's kept at bay. When he did run free, I never saw evidence he had anything to say, and his volume of StupidLittleEdits had reached a level where constructively engaging in dialogue on any active page was almost impossible. Asking him to stop or slow down only brought about endless uncooperative quibbles and UnethicalEditing. However, that could almost have been tolerated. It was his peculiar, creepy, and disturbing obsession with (and hounding of) an active participant -- until that participant left -- which proved he can't be given unrestricted access here.
So, I guess that leaves us with either legal recourse or ParkingLotTherapy, whichever works best. Eh?
Ward easily has the technical resources to squash GrammarVandal like a bug. But he won't; he gave up on us a long time ago.
He could assign some trusted stewards special access to the server to add security improvements. But I really think we are part of an experiment of his in self-regulation, and that's why he lets it be.'