Online anonymity lets users gets nasty

[Isaac-Saxxon]

Hey all you avatars listen up. You can say what you want with out anybody knowing just who you are. Well they may know who you are and you just do not know who they are. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070320/...nd_anonymous_3
Isaac

[AnimeSpirit]

Yup, most people are not aware that if you say something REALLY naughty on one of these boards, it is NOT impossible to track you down.

When you visit a website (especially forums like this one), your Internet Protocol (IP) address is most likely recorded along with the exact time you browsed the site. Your IP is a number on your computer that distinguishes your computer from others on the Internet. For most ISPs, this number constantly changes on your computer.

With your IP and traffic time, a webmaster can find out who your Internet Service Provider (Bellsouth, AOL, etc.) is by running a Traceroute or Whois lookup which can be done on the Internet for free. If your IP is static, your ISP will know exactly who you are and can lookup your account information. If your IP is dynamic (like most of us) they can look up which of their customers was on that IP at the time the site was hit.

I know all of this because I run a website myself and I record IPs for it. Why do I record them? Because recording them tells me what kind of traffic my site has and I can't tell which visitors are people and which ones are search engine crawlers without recording the IPs.

In short, you gotta behave on these websites because you are not as anonymous as you may think you are.

[joepole]

>Your IP is a number on your computer that distinguishes your computer from others on the Internet.

It's not necessarily on your computer, it could be on a router several spots up the chain. We're working with an ISP in Alabama that gives all of their customers private IP addresses. There's not a public, traceable address anywhere in your house, it's all 10.x.x.x. An end user would know your ISP, but that does them no good.

>For most ISPs, this number constantly changes on your computer.

For most cable and dsl users it changes rarely, if ever. I've had the same address for years at home. For dialup it obviously changes every time you get a different modem.

[AnimeSpirit]

Originally Posted by joepole

>Your IP is a number on your computer that distinguishes your computer from others on the Internet.

It's not necessarily on your computer, it could be on a router several spots up the chain. We're working with an ISP in Alabama that gives all of their customers private IP addresses. There's not a public, traceable address anywhere in your house, it's all 10.x.x.x. An end user would know your ISP, but that does them no good.

>For most ISPs, this number constantly changes on your computer.

For most cable and dsl users it changes rarely, if ever. I've had the same address for years at home. For dialup it obviously changes every time you get a different modem.

I'm not suprised. There may be some ISPs that offer private IP addresses, but most people like us will use the local services that offer the brand of Internet service most ordinary users need. Most people who are not seasoned on the Internet are too unaware of the functions of IP addresses to seek out a service like the one you have mentioned.

I've got Bellsouth DSL at home and have had it for years. My IP changes every night at midnight. I have watched it happen numerous times. I can't speak for cable modems though because I've never had one, but I believe they remain the same unless they drop the connection for whatever reason. Aside from that, they are considered dynamic. However, I do know that ISPs have become infamous for selling static IPs as an additional service for people who run servers of some kind. A static IP address from Bellsouth is $14.95 per month in addition to your DSL service bill, unless you have their DSL Xtreme service that comes with a static IP for free.

[Santabot]

Originally Posted by AnimeSpirit

I'm not suprised. There may be some ISPs that offer private IP addresses, but most people like us will use the local services that offer the brand of Internet service most ordinary users need. Most people who are not seasoned on the Internet are too unaware of the functions of IP addresses to seek out a service like the one you have mentioned.

I've got Bellsouth DSL at home and have had it for years. My IP changes every night at midnight. I have watched it happen numerous times. I can't speak for cable modems though because I've never had one, but I believe they remain the same unless they drop the connection for whatever reason. Aside from that, they are considered dynamic. However, I do know that ISPs have become infamous for selling static IPs as an additional service for people who run servers of some kind. A static IP address from Bellsouth is $14.95 per month in addition to your DSL service bill, unless you have their DSL Xtreme service that comes with a static IP for free.

I also use the Bellsouth DSL service, but I have their highest package, and I maintain my anonymity where available because, simply, I believe strongly in the Net Neutrality issue. There needs to be a common grounds to where people can say what they wish without being specifically held accountable; when those actions are taken to extreme circumstances, however, there are various ways to detect that person's location or even statistics about them, but as far as internet crimes go, I don't believe most of them should be. It's up to the users to be responsible about how they use the internet, and if they end up getting defrauded, it's their lack of intelligence about the situation that is their fault for having been in the circumstance. I do not sympathize with crooks, if you would call them that, but it's no different than what corporate money-hungry whores do every day to you when (on average) you see 50+ advertisements, etc.

[rhertz]

Originally Posted by joepole

>Your IP is a number on your computer that distinguishes your computer from others on the Internet.

It's not necessarily on your computer, it could be on a router several spots up the chain. We're working with an ISP in Alabama that gives all of their customers private IP addresses. There's not a public, traceable address anywhere in your house, it's all 10.x.x.x. An end user would know your ISP, but that does them no good.

There is no such thing as a non-traceable IP address. If your ISP provides some sort of IP translation service (NAT) then it is up to that ISP to keep logs or not on the "private" IP's it serves. Law enforcement often supoenas or court orders records that identify an ISP's users. RIAA suing users behind 10.x.x.x and 192.168.x.x addresses is one indication that "private addresses" are not 100% safe to hide behind. I'm not arguing. I just want to clear up any possible misunderstanding that 10.x.x.x address offer any anonymity whatsoever. Knowing the ISP and the 10.x.x.x IS knowing who you are. Please make no mistake.