Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MolecularBot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard. The result of the discussion was

Speedily Approved.

MolecularBot

Operator: MolecularPilot (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 06:29, Thursday, December 19, 2024 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: automatic

Programming language(s): Rust

Source code available: https://github.com/IntegralPilot/Gateslam

Function overview:

The bot’s primary task is to collect data on "egress" IP addresses used by VPNgate (not the ones listed on the website/API or the one your computer connects to, but rather a usually different IP that connects to Wikipedia/external services), a VPN service abused by an LTA on Wikipedia. Consensus exists for this bot.

Testing has already been conducted (see bot edit history), further testing not possible without the addition of the bot flag, allowing a bypass of edit rate limits.

Despite being an WP:EXEMPTBOT, a BRFA is filed per a BN discussion so that it can get +bot to bypass rate limits.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

WP:VPT#VPNgate blocking bot (most in-depth discussion - explains most technical details not covered in the brief summary here, contains answers I gave to questions (in "Discussion") likely to be asked by BAG members and was where the consensus for this bot came from)
Wikipedia:Bot requests#VPNGate (brief discussion, contains some technical elements)

WP:BN#+bot for User:MolecularBot (userspace only bot) (why I am filing a BRFA)

Edit period(s): Continuous, will operate on Wikimedia Cloud VPS and run `main.rs` hourly, making a max of 98 edits/hour.

Estimated number of pages affected: 1

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details:

The bot will access the VPNgate-provided list of OpenVPN configuration files (this only shows a randomly selected sample and is updated every hour). Each configuration file includes an "ingress" IP address.
Using OpenVPN, the bot will attempt to connect to each VPN and determine if a connection is successful.
Upon successful connection, the bot will query a third-party "WhatIsMyIPAddress" API to reveal the "egress" IP address that the VPN is using to access external websites, including Wikipedia.
The IP address will be added or updated in it's userspace JSON User:MolecularBot/IPData.json, consensus exists for a future adminbot to be created by an admin to issue blocks based on this data.

This happens at such a rate that rate limits are reached and thus +bot is requested.

Discussion

Speedily Approved. Per previous discussions the flag is purely for rate limit issues. Primefac (talk) 12:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard.