Blog 4 Jordan Day

Visitor of the day

You
from

Authors

Brag Stats

Comments:25,004
Articles:2,000
Article Hits:12,459,805
Unique Visitors:2,000,438
Rss Subscribers:3,052
Comment Subscribers:2,530
Spammers:136,315
Generated :757,671 spams
Monitoring:3,942,477 spam IPs

Powered by Qwaider Shield

Wordpress copies Qwaider!

By: Qwaider

On:Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:42:04 PM
In:Science & Technology
Viewed: (5576) times

Currently 4.8/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

Rated 4.8/5 stars (118 votes cast) Thanks for your vote!

Alright, I'm known to adopt things that catch up like wild fires. This time, Wordpress FOLLOWS in my foot steps, sadly, they made such a horrible implementation which may pause some considerable privacy issues.

Wordpress have decided to enable Identicons. (Similar to the icons you see on my blog instead of people's gravatars).

Here's why I believe this is such a horrible implementation!

(Gravatar is owned by Wordpress)

Back in October 2007, I implemented identicons. But even back then the privacy and security implications were clear. People's IP's are not supposed to be used. For simple reasons.

Say, a user, posts with two different names and emails. The IP address is the same which mean. These people have been totally exposed. (You can run back to your old posts to see if everyone in the world already knows than John is Mary) Especially if Mary is the blog owner!

Another example would be multiple user behind the same router/proxy. They all have fake internal IPs like 192.168.0.1, .2, .3 etc, while thier external IP is the same. This will lead you to believe that everyone that comes from Company FooBar is the same person, regardless of thier real identity. Which will be very confusing.

In addition to that reason. Gravatar is based on EMAIL, then why is the pictorial representation based on IP!? Why doesn't change when the person gets a new IP? It needs to be based on something that will remain the same across the world, for the same user (Just like Gravatar). Which makes the Email address of the person commenting the best choice due to it's uniqueness (per user), portability and most importantly changeability.

They're still concerned about CPU utilization for generating these identicons. Very warranted in my opinion. But as I have deployed a caching system. They can as well, after all, they own Gravatar, so caching the images should be a simple thing to do for them.

Wordpress, you do awesome things, this is one feature that needs a "little" adjustment.

(Yeah, wordpress didn't really copy me. Or at least, there's no evidence that they have :))

Other Memories Documented on May 07

اصعب وداع..
by: Qwaider.
In: 2018
Viewed: (2113) times

No phone day at the office!..
by: Qwaider.
In: 2008
Viewed: (3996) times

Meet Lopita, my new best friend..
by: Qwaider.
In: 2007
Viewed: (4575) times

Emotional cancer..
by: Qwaider.
In: 2007
Viewed: (4747) times

« No phone day at the office!

Overdoing it! »

Memories....

#1
Hani Obaid
Said
On: 5/8/2008 2:00:44 AM

I don't blame them, I copy Qwaider all the time :P

I dont' mind so much marking the gravatar by IP. Quite the opposite, I don't like it at all when people post using multiple aliases. It's fine if they don't use their real name, but they should stick to one identity for crying out loud!

#2
Qwaider
Said
On: 5/8/2008 2:38:01 AM

Hani, for the blog owner, this is a non issue, because s/he already has access to the IP address in the control panel. It's for external people. So for example
On your blog, lets say your sister is trying to post a comment. You two share the same external facing IP because you're using the same Internet connection. What will happen is that your idinticon and your sister's identicon will be the same "leading" people to believe that it's the same person trying to fake a different name
That's only one case, the other one, is that someone REALLY has the intent to post as different people because he's like .. Moogle (KJ's intimate friend) :)

#3
hamede
Said
On: 5/8/2008 7:18:43 AM

I hate to say this but i agree with sam.

#4
Hani Obaid
Said
On: 5/8/2008 7:37:12 PM

I see your point.

Damn that Moogle is tough, when I sent him off to dig a tunnel to the center of the earth back in 42, I thought we'd be rid of him for a few days :D

#5
KJ
Said
On: 5/8/2008 11:23:36 PM

So I go run a contest on devinatART whilst being stuck in a basement data center taking photos of my own demise, and here I see you two taking advantage of my misfortune and talking behind my back like I don't exist!

Very well then. Since you're still not up to par as to expose Darth Kupo on you two and render you unmooglingly kupolized, I will have to make do with making you two the butt of my jokes to come!

Hani, I thought you're the man in the relationship here b/w you and Q, at least strap on a pair and don't complain from a stupid bunny :P