User talk:Xsecret

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Xsecret (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Dear admins, the /16 I use has been blocked for some reasons (unrelated to me) for one year. This seems a bit extreme because these 65k+ IP are used by a french ADSL ISP (OVH) with many customers. Any chance to have this block (or part of this block) unban? My own IP is in the 151.121.0.0/24 range. Thanks.

Decline reason:

151.121.0.0/24 does not belong to OVH. We'll need your exact IP address to investigate further. You can find this using WhatIsMyIP. If you don't wish to provide this publicly, you may use WP:UTRS. Yamla (talk) 18:36, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Berean Hunter - This IP, This range / Whois is technically labelled "DSL static IP"/"OVH xDSL" by OVH. I know, I've run into trouble ascertaining exact hosting ranges for OVH - and I've tried to reach out to OVH to resolve the situation in the past - of course with no usable answer. In any case, would you mind taking a second look at this range please, and see if the rangeblock is still needed? SQL ^{Query me!} 04:01, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SQL, the denied unblock request was filed from a different, not-blocked static IP that does not show as a proxy...that was the first two edits on June 10. The third a few minutes later is from the IP in question which shows as a proxy. This suggests that Xsecret has access. The unmentioned IP he was originally using has anon edits that go back to 2008 (2010, 2013) which are consistent with Xsecret's topics - computer hardware. His editing is so infrequent that he could have made his edit rather than file this since he was not blocked.

About the range, the very first anon edit from the /16 range was in Feb. 2017 suggesting that allocations began shortly before and was unused prior. The volume of anon editing across the range for 2017 until you and I blocked it, suggests low usage. I can see a sockmaster in many of the anon edits which makes legitimate use even lower. I don't think there is all that much collateral damage as is suggested. Xsecret's unblock request is the only one for that range when combining anon requests (0) plus account requests...no other unblock requests received as witnessed by running a range check today.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, this edit was on the same unblocked IP as the first unblock request on this talk page.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 16:33, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe its time to have a more technical discussion. OVH is a major hosting company with many cloud/VPS/bare-metal hosting service. That represents maybe 90% of their business and they probably use the vast majority of their IPs allocation for that purpose. Anyway, they also have two other services as an ISP. The first one is a standard xDSL offer, mainly targeted to pros and power-users here in France. The second one is called "OverTheBox" (OTB). That's what I use. It's a link aggregation/failover service. Basically, you have to install a specific linux distro to create 2 or more VPNs to their servers (from 4G/xDSL/whatever connection), that ultimately provide a single end-point to the Internet (using a public address in the 151.127.0.0/16 range). I can switch to the aggregated OTB connection or to any of the "primary" connection. That's why you see more than one IP address for my account. I made the edit on the 8085 page you mentioned with a primary connection. BTW, it's a bit annoying to switch IPs just to edit Wikipedia.
--Xsecret (talk) 18:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation. Why is it annoying to switch IPs? What is involved in doing that?
— Berean Hunter (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OverTheBox acts as a physical router (usually an Intel NUC). If you want to bypass it, you have to unplug your Ethernet cable from the OTB and plug it directly to one of your DSL modem. PS: All OTB users have a static IP. I don't know if you can whitelist an IP inside a blacklisted range, but it could be enough.
--Xsecret (talk) 21:11, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Within the 151.127.0.0/16 range, are you saying that one IP will remain assigned to you statically on an ongoing basis as long as you are a customer, without becoming dynamic and available for another OTB client? If so, does this mean that if someone is abusive on one of those IPs, that I might be able to find a counterpart IP that I could map to it in the unmentioned IP range? That could be very helpful for finding their non-proxy IPs to see if they abuse that also.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 22:28, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. See https://github.com/ovh/overthebox / translated ad page, which does mention that you can change your IP at will / /24 resolved - they provide reverse DNS which partially supports the static connection aspect. This really looks like a VPN service. Possibly not an anonymizing one. I get how handy link aggregation / failover are. I have two connections terminating into a Ubiquiti USG. SQL ^{Query me!} 01:17, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OTB is based on a public static IP (my IP never changed). You can't change it without unsubscribe then subscribe again. The only way to have another IP is out of user's control (it's part of OVH's automatic DDoS mitigation) and only temporary (couple of hours or until DDoS ends). Anyway, OTB is not exactly a mainstream tool. May I ask why the entire /16 has been blacklisted? If you check reverses, you can see that 151.127.0.0/22 (.0.0 to .3.255) is dedicated to OTB. Starting from 151.127.4.1, reverses show "*.dsl.ovh.fr". Are the offending IPs in the .0.0/22 block? --Xsecret (talk) 07:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yet on a random pull of 151.127.12.10, we can see that it is back into Overthebox IPs. Same for 151.127.15.10. So what is the IP allocation layout? I believe that is what SQL requested from OVH without response. I'm unlikely to reverse probe to try to map that if it has holes as opposed to neat, known partitions. I'm using other metrics to determine that the collateral damage isn't much. Under "Advanced" in your preferences, check the box that allows /16, /24 and /27 – /32 CIDR ranges and hit the save button. Then take a look at Special:Contributions/151.127.0.0/16. In sheer numbers, the anon edits aren't all that much and some of those are from a sockmaster. Since I'm a CU, I can't identify who but it means that what you see boils down a little further in terms of legitimate edits. There are no anon IP unblock requests despite having been blocked since Feb. 7. If I had anon-blocked a British Telecom /16 range, the first unblock request would have probably arrived within an hour. The lack of requests in 151.127.0.0/16 is telling. Your request is the only account request to date that I know of. I've only got about 7-8 days of time that I couldn't see accounts since my March 9 block and I ran the latest range check two days ago.

The current CU data does not contain the edits that I once could see. They have gone stale beyond our 90 day window so I have to rely on a little bit of memory for the account edits (outside of the sock accounts). The accounts were very few in number and were COI with possible paid editing. Promotional editing. Previously, the OVH ranges were known for spambots but I haven't seen that when I checked.

Whitelisting individual IPs is not currently available to us but may be in the future. Since your previous editing was last November, and the previous edit to that was a year prior, it can't be all that annoying to switch IPs. :) Now, if you were to become much more active and write us several articles that aren't promotional then we could consider IP Block exemption. Your activity level doesn't really warrant that however.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 15:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Xsecret (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Sorry, made a typo on the former unblock request. Dear admins, the /16 I use has been blocked for some reasons (unrelated to me) for one year. This seems a bit extreme because these 65k+ IP are used by a french ADSL ISP (OVH) with many customers. Any chance to have this block (or part of this block) unban? My own IP is 151.127.0.118. Thanks.

Decline reason:

As per what Berean Hunter has said above. The IP block is not stopping you editing, you just have to log in to edit. If you really don't want to log in to edit, you could just try and change your IP address. I've done that a few times myself so I know it's not that annoying or inconvenient to do :) 5 albert square (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

@5 albert square: Xsecret is logged in to edit, but logged in users are blocked by their IP. See the revision history. 72.165.59.162 (talk) 01:51, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Correct... --Xsecret (talk) 03:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Then you can change your IP address.--5 albert square (talk) 05:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My IP is static and can't be changed. I can use some tricks like bridging my phone to use 4G network by WiFi, or physically remove the gateway before connecting my Eth cable elsewhere, but that's MUCH more annoying than "just login". Something I don't understand : if you think it's that easy to change my IP, the IP blacklist is useless, right? --Xsecret (talk) 09:23, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]