BillFitzmaurice.info

Hey Bill, dunno if it's true or not... but if it is, why?

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofe ... 740-a.html

osse wrote:Hey Bill, dunno if it's true or not... but if it is, why?

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofe ... 740-a.html

A friend used my computer to make some posts there. Rather than ask me why they had posts from two members from the same computer they banned me without notice. No matter, I haven't even lurked there for at least five years, as it's a site dominated by flame wars.

Do you REALLY mean that you can't use the same computer for two different accounts without these actions? Is this general forum law or just for diyaudio?

Sounds really...

osse wrote:Do you REALLY mean that you can't use the same computer for two different accounts without these actions? Is this general forum law or just for diyaudio?

Sounds really...

It's to prevent so-called 'sockpuppets'. But it's a flawed concept. If I really wanted to conceal my identity it wouldn't be at all difficult.
Some forums even show the poster's ISP address, supposedly in an effort to curb the practice. But as the average ISP counts its subscribers in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, it's a totally flawed idea.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:

osse wrote:Do you REALLY mean that you can't use the same computer for two different accounts without these actions? Is this general forum law or just for diyaudio?

Sounds really...

It's to prevent so-called 'sockpuppets'. But it's a flawed concept. If I really wanted to conceal my identity it wouldn't be at all difficult.
Some forums even show the poster's ISP address, supposedly in an effort to curb the practice. But as the average ISP counts its subscribers in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, it's a totally flawed idea.

A
lthough each household/business has it's own unique IP address, which is what most forums track. Unless you have a proxy server... I get a new IP address each time I open a new browsing session . Not that I'm a 'sockpuppet'

GirlyHandedDog wrote: Although each household/business has it's own unique IP address, which is what most forums track.

Only on TV cop shows.
When you registered here I got an ISP address, that of the ISP you were logged on to the net with when you registered. I can track that to a specific city, and the domain owner, but that's all. It might be your business if you own your own domain. It might be an AOL or Road Runner server, narrowing you down to one of a few million subscribers.
Every device has its own ID number, and an adequately sophisticated program can track that. But unless the device has been somehow registered on a database there's no way of knowing who owns it, let alone its physical location.

http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

That site tracked me down to my ISP. From there, only the ISP has the data of which client has which IP for a specific time. The police can track you back to your house, but a normal message board admin can't.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: it's a site dominated by flame wars.

Oh yes, it is, I only had to read a couple posts there to see that there was constant arguing. Plus you can get 'sin-binned' for practically freaking anything.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:

GirlyHandedDog wrote: Although each household/business has it's own unique IP address, which is what most forums track.

Only on TV cop shows.
When you registered here I got an ISP address, that of the ISP you were logged on to the net with when you registered. I can track that to a specific city, and the domain owner, but that's all.

Frederic Gelinas wrote:http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/
That site tracked me down to my ISP. From there, only the ISP has the data of which client has which IP for a specific time. The police can track you back to your house, but a normal message board admin can't.

Actually, it's not only on the TV show cops. Keep in mind that physical and logical addressing are very different. You don't need to know that my physical internet connection terminates on Falcon Way in Sandy, Utah to block my logical public IP address. Sure, the only information available when you try to track an IP address is the name of the ISP that owns/leases the IP address along with a general location, but that doesn't mean that the public IP address (such as what it will show you when you go to http://www.whatismyipaddress.com ) doesn't identify your internet connection specifically. You don't need a physical address to block a logical address, neither do you need to track the physical address to ban a public IP address on a forum. Sure, some public static IP addresses are shared, but it's far from the norm. It's more common in places like college dorms, or dial-up connections and DSL-based ISPs that are still holding to the legacy technology of PPPoE... which is quickly on the decline since it adds an additional 8 bytes of data to EVERY packet so your ISP can identify you on their private network. Even with such cases, the shared IP addresses are only shared by hundreds at the very most, not millions or even thousands. Individual static IP addresses are more common now-a-days.

Ever seen those apps for your iPhone or Android phone that allow you to monitor your personal/business surveillance cameras? They request your public IP address... which is the same address that forum administrators can see when you register, and the same address I get at the website I referenced above.

I got a kick out of Gregory East's post where he said something like, "Sometimes I'm motivated to read a big wall of text. Not today." I definitely wouldn't have read this post if I hadn't written it.

GirlyHandedDog wrote:and you'll be greeted by one of the cleanest/tidiest offices that you've ever seen .

Just blame any mess on the others in the office. I do like the poster on the wall!

GirlyHandedDog wrote:I got a kick out of Gregory East's post where he said something like, "Sometimes I'm motivated to read a big wall of text. Not today." I definitely wouldn't have read this post if I hadn't written it.

Just to keep people from being overwhelmed I'll keep this short.


Most residential internet users do NOT have static IP addresses. Internet service providers are assigned blocks of IP addresses, and it is far easier for them to allocate a certain range of addresses to a geographic area than to manage those addresses on a household by household basis. So they use DHCP to assign addresses (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have a stable home internet connection, it is very likely that your assigned IP address has not changed in quite some time, but if you reset your modem, or if there is an outage, or any of a handful of other things happen, when you reconnect you will most likely not be given the same IP address.

So, if you get a subpeona and request the records from an ISP, it is generally possible to correlate an IP address with a specific household, without their records it is generally only accurate to a local area - the actual IP address assignments are constantly shifting.

jcmbowman wrote:

Most residential internet users do NOT have static IP addresses.

The IP I'm on at the moment is 72.71.226.72,
Fairpoint Communications, Manchester (US). I don't own Fairpoint Communications, I don't live in Manchester NH, and 72.71.226.72 does not in any way identify my computer or home address or current location.
If you want to know what information is available about your current connection go to
http://en.utrace.de/

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:

jcmbowman wrote:

Most residential internet users do NOT have static IP addresses.

The IP I'm on at the moment is 72.71.226.72,
Fairpoint Communications, Manchester (US). I don't own Fairpoint Communications, I don't live in Manchester NH, and 72.71.226.72 does not in any way identify my computer or home address or current location.
If you want to know what information is available about your current connection go to
http://en.utrace.de/

Depending on the tool I use I get conflicting reports about the actual geographic location of the IP address. It appears to be centered in the southern half of New Hampshire. It is part of a block of addresses assigned to Fairpoint Communications, which is a regional telco/data provider that is regulated by the NH Public Utilities Commission (http://www.puc.nh.gov/telecom/FairPoint.htm). They appear to resell data connectivity to a number of smaller local ISPs, one of which I'm sure is the ISP you use, Bill.

jcmbowman wrote:
So, if you get a subpeona and request the records from an ISP, it is generally possible to correlate an IP address with a specific household, without their records it is generally only accurate to a local area - the actual IP address assignments are constantly shifting.

True... and it depends on your ISP (who by the way is able to determine your lease period for a dynamic IP, whether it be 3 days or 3 years). At home, I have a dynamic IP, at work I have a static IP... and technically speaking, they're both considered "residential" internet connections.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:The IP I'm on at the moment is 72.71.226.72,
Fairpoint Communications, Manchester (US). I don't own Fairpoint Communications, I don't live in Manchester NH, and 72.71.226.72 does not in any way identify my computer or home address or current location.
If you want to know what information is available about your current connection go to
http://en.utrace.de/

Sounds like you have PPPoE... When I use the website you mentioned, it shows Integra Telecom and Salt Lake City. I don't own Integra, and don't live in Salt Lake City... but that IP does correlate to my unique connection on the internet, assigned statically to the MAC address of my modem.

Let's end this boring thread... this is far less interesting than reading about everything else available on Bill's forum.

GirlyHandedDog wrote: Let's end this boring thread... this is far less interesting than reading about everything else available on Bill's forum.

+1 lol and I'm an IT guy (maybe that's why it's boring!)