When Trust is Gone, What else is left? greenspun.com : LUSENET : Uncensored Spinoff : One Thread --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post will sound vague, of that I am aware. Recently, people have been gathering once again at Bok's chat room to spend time once again chatting about this and that. You know, life in generall stuff.

On the evening of June 6th, someone came into the chat room and identified him/herself as Carlton (the doorman).

Carlton made some suggestions that OTFR from the TB2K spinoff forum had been mailing peoples IP addresses to people that she had e-mail exchanges. Not sure of just how many people have been passed this information, but it was confirmed by at least one known forum regular there which would be easily identified.

At this point in time, I'm not sure if it is the anonymous posters, or posters that use multiple names to post onto that forum. Does it really matter? Anytime you have a forum in which you are allowed to post anonymous, a level of trust is established between the poster and the forum moderator. When that trust has been broken, what is left?

Granted, the fine people that identify themselves freely is one thing that should be admired. However, some people wish to voice a somewhat silent opinion on topics. Being allowed to post as an anonymous person gives those people "comfort". However, how much comfort can these people have in knowing that their supposedly anonymous opinions are not anonymous anymore?

If someone were to be posting from their work address as an anonymous poster and another had a grudge against the poster, the IP information could be used for real harm against a person. I'm not saying that this is happening, just that it could happen.

This Carlton had received an e-mail containing another of Carlton's IP addresses that (it appears) OTFR didn't know was Carlton's. This person had wanted the information to be gotten out to the forum members, but was afraid of the backlash. Carlton wanted someone to post this so that others could see, thus I am.

I am not Carlton.

Just so you can know.

-- (Unknown@Poster.Here), June 07, 2000

Answers

Yes I did copy/paste this here. As I havent been around lately, can someone verify for me if the above is true?

As many of you know, I do post from work, am doing so right now, with my bosses permission. So, I am NOT worried about getting 'caught'.

As I have never really fully understood ISP, other than they are the service providers whatever (see I told ya), my next question is:

IS THIS TRUE? Can 'we' be id'd by our ISP, I've asked before and never received an answer. I dont really care much about the he said she said BS which occurred in Bok's, I just want to know, if we post as another persona, can it be traced and is OTFR guilty of doing this?

Thanks, sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 14, 2000

Answers

Only time I saw it done was when someone was impersonating Hawk recently. In fact, this his happened on multiple occasions.

I will let the techies answer your other questions.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), June 14, 2000.

Sure, your IP can be traced. About all it will tell anyone is what ISP/part of the country you are coming from. Not much to be concerned with unless you have a very small ISP.

The other part of the post bothers me. I'm not one to put anyone on a pedestal, but if OTBFR is handing out IP's via email, he/she has lost all credibility. If ppl have little else to do with their lives than gossip about IP's (admin. and email recipients) -- it might just be time to push themselves away from the keyboard.

-- (doomerstomper@usa.net), June 14, 2000.

Who was Carleton the doorman? I can hear his drunken voice but I can't remember the TV show. Anyone? This could be important.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), June 14, 2000.

Think it was Rhoda's show -- spinoff of Mary Tyler Moore. Who knows? Maybe the name of the show was Rhoda :-)) I can hear Carlton now. Non-impressed -- my kinda guy.

-- (doomerstomper@usa.net), June 14, 2000.

nemesis:

Carlton the doorman was on the show "Rhoda" which was a spinoff of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Can't remember whether he was Rhoda's doorman or her sister Brenda's, though. Pretty sad that I know this, huh?

-- -- (MissAnn@th.rope), June 14, 2000.

I thought Carlton was from the Jeffersons...

Anyway, if you have a dedicated connection, like a cable modem, DSL or T1 line, your IP address is "fixed" and can be used to "target" your machine. In these cases, a good firewall program will protect you from just about anything.

If you use a dial-up connection, your IP address changes every time you call, depending on which modem at your ISP answers the call. A tiny ISP may only have a few IP address available, while a large ISP may have thousands available in each area of the country.

So your IP address can always be used to identify your ISP. Some ISPs log each call, and some don't. But even those that do usually will not give out the info, unless a court order is involved.

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 14, 2000.

Sysman:

A question, if someone works for American Widgets, whose domain name is americanwidgets.com with a fixed IP address of 123.45.678.90 (say), and they post from work, they will register the IP of 123.45.678.90 when posting, and it would be straightforward to get americanwidgets.com by plugging the 123.45.678.90 into a Whois engine, no? (reverse lookup, just as I do all the time when using ZoneAlarm and firewall).... this would be if the employees are not going through an ISP but their business is connected to the internet directly, and the IP address has not had some other change made in front of it, such as using a proxy). (ignorance showing here)

The other question is begging the obvious, why should this be a concern on THIS forum? Blecch, yuck.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 14, 2000.

It would depend on if their IP addresses are routed by DHCP, or if they have fixed IP addresses. But even if they have DHCP, there can be logs kept about which accounts were assigned which DHCP addresses and when.

-- (@ .), June 14, 2000.

Then there is AOL!!

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), June 14, 2000.

OK, so it would be some range of addresses which are owned by that domain, assigned by DHCP (for a Microsoft network) or some other way by some other vendor's network, but you would be able to determine what company owns that range of addresses, unless the company had done something to mask it.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 14, 2000.

I thought Carlton was one of Bob Newhart's patients...pretty good cast of characters..remember the "Hi Bob" games..

-- justa, (ponderin on the@couch.com), June 14, 2000.

Consumer,

Whoever "Carlton" is, s/he seems to be looking for trouble or some action. Remember, whether it's here or in Bok's chat room, anyone can troll anonymously and stir trouble.

" Can 'we' be id'd by our ISP, I've asked before and never received an answer."

I can't, nor can anyone, know your name and personal ID from looking at your IP address, except for your ISP administrator(s) (ISP stands for Internet Service Provider, the internet company you signed up with. They know your name and other personal data that you gave them when you signed up, but they won't give it out to anyone except perhaps if there's a warrant.)

Hope this answers your questions.

OTFR

-- Old TB2K Forum Regular (freespeech@yahoo.com), June 14, 2000.

OTFR:

Don't be so sure about what you said. The last time I logged onto an AOL site with a question, they asked me to identify my ISP. You can imagine the reaction when I said AOL.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), June 14, 2000.

LOL! Z, I think OTFR meant *competent* ISP Administrators.

(signed) The Sphinx

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), June 14, 2000.

Carlton the doorman, hmmmmm, still cant 'recall' who that was either, but I do believe it was the Jeffersons?

OTFR, thnks that did help.

Z, oh crap I have AOL...

I'm not worried as I said above, I have bosses permission to be interneting while at work, when slow.

home now :-)

didnt mean to stir the crap, just say it on the other site and was wondering.....at least now I have somewhat of a 'clue'...LOL.

----sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 14, 2000.

Uh, SAW, yeah SAW it on the other board....yeah I can spell tonite. need some coffee?

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 14, 2000.

Buuurrrrrrrpppppppppppp! Bubbles, tiny bubbles.

-- Ra (tion@l.1), June 14, 2000.

Whois Web Interface

http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi- bin/whois/whois/

-- what (you@can.find), June 15, 2000.

Start here:

http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and- a.tcl?topic=TB2K%20spinoff%20uncensored

-- that's (how@you.do-it), June 15, 2000.

Delete that space after "/q-and-". The BBS software shoved it in there, it doesn't belong there.

Let me try to make it into a link:

Anonymous access to this site

If that didn't work, just copy the URL in prev. post but delete the space that got inserted into the middle of it.

-- that's (how@you.do-it), June 15, 2000.

One of the things that can be done if someone knows your number is have it traced to the area you live in. It is so funny to trace down my Dad's number, he lives a few miles from me and my signal goes all the way down to california just to turn around and back up here to seattle. You would be surprised at how many "hops" your post takes before it gets to this forum. Probably the closest someone could get to knowing where you are is the town your ISP is located in. As has been mentioned, most numbers change each time you dial into your ISP, usually the last 2 or 3. A lot of people do not realise that by sending an e-mail you are giving out your ISP number also. So if someone posts or writes an e-mail saying they are in Texas, you can look up their number and it will show every "hop" including the last one which a lot of times tell you the city they are really posting/mailing from. Now if a person is online and you look them up, you can actually "ping" their computer, or even check out what equipment they are running. Once they hang up and dial back into their ISP they will usually come up with a simular number but not the exact same one. There are four sets of three numbers 123.234.345.456. Sometimes the last one (456) can be two (45) or even one (4) but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch one of those :o)

This is what my dial-up looked like a few hours ago

dialup-209.245.163.84.seattle1.level3.net

and this is what it looks like now

dialup-63.214.12.146.seattle1.level3.net

from my Fathers computer. Basically the dial-up numbers are an address, but not a physical one like we are used to, so you cannot tell by the address where physicall people are posting from.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), June 15, 2000.

You can't reliably identify anyone by IP, whether fixed or not, whether small or large business.

As already pointed out, when dialing up through a large ISP, it's a crapshoot. You receive one of literally dozens of IP addresses on each dialup, essentially at random. The ISP has thousands (if not millions) of customers; identifying a needle in a haystack would be easier. You can't even reliably locate someone's city (for some reason, most of the stuff I post with Bellsouth routes through Atlanta -- I live in Birmingham -- but I've seen others).

On a dedicated connection, a work connection or a small ISP, it can be narrowed down, but there's STILL no way to prove who actually wrote the post or email in question. Just to name one obvious example: how do you know someone else didn't use that person's computer and account?

On the other side of the coin, anonymizers WILL reveal your personal information if you engage in illegal activity (and there's no clear definition of just what constitutes "illegal activity"), even without a warrant. Go read the disclaimers and membership agreement.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 15, 2000.

One thing OTFR can do which is helpfull, is recognise whether someone is impersonating another poster. As in the time s/he was telling us that posts were by Hawk or someone impersonating him.

If the first 2 or 3 sets of numbers or the "name" showing were not the same as Hawks ie:

Mine

dialup-209.245.163.84.seattle1.level3.net

then something completly different

shep-ppp134.mcmedia.com.au

was the ISP number and/or name of the suspect, then it would be pretty clear it was NOT Hawk posting, especially since you can see that the posts come from two different countries. Closer to home though, OTFR could check and see if the area where the two posts origionate were different then that would show the truth. It is not always a sure thing though, Everyone I know is online, I could go do to door in my block and post from the computers there and they could all be from different ISP's. I could also be signed up with different ISP's on my own computer which would make it difficult, if not impossible to know, that it was me.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), June 15, 2000.

Carlton the doorman was Valerie Harper's (Rhoda) doorman. The voice was by, if my memory hasn't started to fade, Lorenzo Music, who also did the voice of Garfield the cat. On Rhoda, they nevered showed his face.

He and his wife had a short lived variety series - I believe it was called the Lorenzo and Henrietta Music Show.

Just goes to show the kind of stuff one retains - I still have problems remembering what my wife told me pick up at the store this morning, and it is only 8:30 AM.

-- SteveOH (sron123@aol.com), June 15, 2000.

RA:

Very Funny :-) and correct, hiccup...that nite anyhow...summer is a great time to have one to many beers in the evening while lounging around....but at least I corrected myself...saw the mistake, can I get some credit for that or not? :-)

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 16, 2000.