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Allow resetting password from blocked IP ranges by sending emails
Open, Needs TriagePublic

Description

As is discussed in T240203 and other issues, Wikipedia and other projects currently prevent users from resetting passwords or even seeing the "Forget password" button when they access via a blocked IP address. It troubles and/or confuses innocent users, especially in zhwiki where many users living in mainland China rely on open proxies or VPNs to circumvent Internet censorship every day.

I propose to allow resetting passwords via emails as fallbacks. We just need a separate service processing incoming emails and triggering the reset "button". If an email is received by the service, the service could check if its sender address matches a registered account on any projects under Wikimedia. If it does, the service then manages to get a password reset link sent to that address. This way bears no security compromise at all and takes few efforts to maintain.

Event Timeline

Demo tool: https://resetpass.toolforge.org/~.

It depends on Cloudflare Workers to automate the email processing and password reset triggering, with a few lines of code.

I am just reminded that it might have privacy issues as technically I am collecting personal email addresses even though it is not associated with any other info. So I want to seek the community's input on whether this is acceptable or not. Would you mind taking a peek at the tool and dropping me a quick note with your thoughts? Any suggestions or concerns are totally welcome.

Demo tool: https://resetpass.toolforge.org/~.

It depends on Cloudflare Workers to automate the email processing and password reset triggering, with a few lines of code.

I am just reminded that it might have privacy issues as technically I am collecting personal email addresses even though it is not associated with any other info. So I want to seek the community's input on whether this is acceptable or not. Would you mind taking a peek at the tool and dropping me a quick note with your thoughts? Any suggestions or concerns are totally welcome.

According to the Privacy Policy, email address is belong to Personal Information. Unless you have NDA and there is an appropriate privacy policy of your service (or you have specific valid reasons), otherwise collecting personal information is not accepted. It is also strongly discouraged to use third party email service to collect personal information. Thanks.