Forum
Comments:
-
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 06:39:17 AM UTC
....
In theory? It's possible, but viably, it would require a little more than just an IP without their needing to go to the ISP, or the victim having their IP and personal information publicly available somewhere.
As the saying goes ....... anythings possible. It depends on how determined the person is to find you, and how much information you've put out there.
Regards
Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group / hpHosts
it-mate.co.uk / hosts-file.net -
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 08:08:23 AM UTC
Short answer: no.
Long answer: Your IP address will generally show the location of your ISP, not your house.
-
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 07:29:50 PM UTC
Agreed . . . and some are more accurate than others
Some DNS lookup services are more accurate than others.
For example, one shows my IP as residing in Rochester, NY, which is the headquarters of my ISP, and about 3000 miles from me. Two show my IP as residing in Kingman, AZ, which is where my ISP server that I access is located but is about 45 minutes from me. Only one comes close . . . it identifies my IP as originating in the town that I live in . . . but no more, and certainly not my house.
-
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 08:56:33 AM UTC
-
Well, the ISP knows your IP, and they can tell the webmaster who you are. That's why it is forbidden to log IPs in Germany. The ISP however MUST NOT just give away the IPs. Only for prosecution and similar stuff. That's why I think the IP-logging ban in Germany is completely nonsence.
--
Per aspera ad astra -
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 08:32:53 PM UTC
The closest a
The closest a location-detection service has ever got to me is Clydebank, on the other side of Scotland. Sometimes there are advantages to living in a no-name town.
-
- on Sat 07 Nov 2009
- 09:54:38 PM UTC
Unless you purcased a dedicated IP
Your IP changes, even with broadband though not as frequently as dial-up.
-------
WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Sun 08 Nov 2009
- 01:42:24 AM UTC
Could a malicious web master
Could a malicious web master track your activities around the web may be with web bugs and cookies, but only the FBI can find you if you bad?
-
- on Sun 08 Nov 2009
- 03:36:30 AM UTC
Don't get paranoid...
But Google (and similar) probably knows a lot more about peoples web activity than most would like to consider. Partly because they are big, partly because they're global, and partly because of their many different offers (searchengine, browser, YouTube, gmail and much more). Then again, Google has declared itself to be 'not evil', so no cause for alarm... ;-)
You didn't mention if your question was general, or if you had a specific case in mind.
The specific angle: If you visit a site once (and don't leave comments, or interact otherwise), then I wouldn't worry (although I'll still agree with MysteryFCM).
And anyway, what would a stalkers motive be in such a case..?More general: Let's not underestimate how much can be concluded if you have access to a lot of smaller data, that each may seem insignificant. I remember some years ago, that one of the larger search engines published some of the words people had used to search. Of course their intention was that noone could be identified by this. But they were only partly right; family, friends, neighbours, co-workers etc could sometimes recognize a person they already knew. Anonymity is not always a single concept...
-
- on Sun 08 Nov 2009
- 05:45:03 AM UTC
Well, the scenario I had it
Well, the scenario I had it mind is a discussion forum where you discuss politics and you piss off someone.
-
- on Sun 08 Nov 2009
- 07:06:45 PM UTC
forums
All decent forum software provide the Administrators and their Moderators with a poster's IP. Normally these IP's are kept hidden from the general user-base for privacy, but they do not reveal "who" and "where" you are, just who and where your ISP is. Some forum software provide the IP's, for those who have the privilege set, with a link to a whois. With a couple of forum software I had been involved with (long ago now) we provided links using DNSstuff Tools
So say your member id gets banned for flaming...
You create a new registration.
Your IP may change (it always does eventually) BUT your ISP stays the same as does the general location.
So the Forum Admin/Mod notices 5 new accounts, all within the same general location and all from the same ISP and the IP's share the same Net Block with the first account banned. It's a good bet to assume the new accounts are from the banned user so all new accounts are either denied, or accepted and immediately banned. I'm sure the WOT Staff provide protection from banned users to this Forum (and the WOT rating system) in a similar way. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, test yourself here.-------
WOT Services Ltd. - gives us safety through Web of Trust.
WOT Community - gives us security through unity.
Thank you all
- G7W -
- on Tue 10 Nov 2009
- 05:19:55 PM UTC
getting bad sites accepted
Whats to prevent the owners of bad sites using wot to give them good ratings?
-
- on Tue 10 Nov 2009
- 10:48:25 PM UTC
They do, but . . .
While some of these "bad owners" do indeed join WOT and rate their sites "good", the rating has little impact because these people have not established reliability (they're new). The WOT algorithm doesn't allow manipulation of ratings, especially by noobs.
So, it does happen, but these morons have no ability to sway the rating. They may give themselves "good ratings", but that has little to no impact on the overall rating.
(BTW, we're drifting a little bit off topic here, so if you have more questions on this, you may want to start a new thread titled something like "How are WOT ratings influenced by owners?")
-
- on Wed 11 Nov 2009
- 02:59:14 PM UTC
Someone threatened me with my IP Address
My son's classmate who is a tech expert loves to threaten people with their IP addresses. He would always say, "Do you want me to pin down crimes with your IP?" or "I'm sure your IP is of very good use to me one day, when you begin to bully me" or probably "I'm sure you don't know this, but I can track your IP address all the way to your front doorstep!"
I think this is ridiculous (what my son's classmate said) upon reading the above comments. But if that particular classmate is so advanced as to purchase or create software to do such things, would it be extremely dangerous?
"Devoted supporter of LiVeRpUdLiAn932"
-
- on Wed 11 Nov 2009
- 04:42:30 PM UTC
-
You're right, it is ridiculous. That only works if the classmate gets the info from the ISP. Otherwise, it only works as close as said above.
He cannot himself steal the IP, but what he could do in theory is writing bad software that does bad stuff from your computer (such as uploading illegal materials on the web). That way it would be your IP that is logged. But the porbability that that happens is about zero. He most likely simply can't do that.
--
Per aspera ad astra -
- on Wed 11 Nov 2009
- 05:03:32 PM UTC
Even then
The ISP knows the customer's billing and service address, and can associate that to the account. The ISP would have to correlate the user of a particular IP address at a particular time to the customer's records. It isn't impossible.
It's not hard to imagine a scenario where a bit of payoff to the right IT employee at an ISP can get you what you need. After all, that's exactly what those private investigators in LA were doing with cellphone companies in order to get call records. Once you know a guy on the inside and can manipulate him, the records can be stolen by the insider and provided to the outsider.
-
- on Wed 11 Nov 2009
- 04:59:37 PM UTC
Geolocation is wildly inaccurate
...unless you're talking about browsers in phones.
Phone browsers can, in some cases, report GPS coordinates back to Websites. As an example, Google can query the GPS coordinates of an Android based phone in order to give you geographically-relevant search results. I know because I own one, and they openly acknowledge they do this.
But otherwise, geolocation databases are horrible indicators of the physical location of a particular home/broadband IP Address. Those used for businesses are more accurate, but only to the data center, typically, in my experience.
-
- on Thu 12 Nov 2009
- 03:19:27 AM UTC
Thank you but
Thank you for your replies. I've got another problem, my son's classmate sent out an email using my son's notebook. It was really hateful and meant against that tech expert classmate. Which explains why my son is in deeeeeeeep trouble. The little tech expert wants to expose my SON of sending that email, all owning to one IP address, and that also explains the thread that I had posted a day earlier.
"Devoted supporter of LiVeRpUdLiAn932"
-
- on Thu 12 Nov 2009
- 03:51:13 AM UTC
I'm confused
Why did your son give his notebook to this person? Or did this person get on it when your son wasn't aware?
Two simple solution possibilities: 1) Tell your son not to give his notebook to this person and keep it in his sight at all times, and/or 2) Enable a BIOS password.
As far as the current "deeeeeep trouble", how about having your son explain the circumstances of the "unauthorized" use to this "tech expert" person?
-
- on Thu 12 Nov 2009
- 07:07:07 AM UTC
My son was in the toilet
My son was in the toilet when his classmate used his notebook to send out the email. Nobody replied, and the classmate deleted it from the sent items folder. Until recently the tech expert wanted to dig up the old scores and sent my son an email regarding the matter.
Yes, this sounds really weird, but it's true. Thanks Bob, I will tell my son to keep his notebook "at bay". Regarding the enabling of the BIOS password, I will ask my colleagues at the IT department for help.
I don't want to blow the thing up, what if I tell the tech expert about the consequences and he really doesn't care and tries to do funny things?
"Devoted supporter of LiVeRpUdLiAn932"
-
- on Thu 12 Nov 2009
- 09:33:34 AM UTC
Age?
How old is this "tech expert" kid? Are his parents mature and responsible people? I mean, can you communicate with them without them getting "defensive" about it?
(This kid sounds really devious and nasty . . . if he gets that from the parents, maybe they aren't "mature and responsible".)
(Before we go too much further on this, PM me any responses you have 'cause this is getting a little off topic and . . . well . . . not necessarily "inappropriate", but close. . . for the WOT forum)
Can a web master track you down in real life?
Say you have a malicious web master with a thing for stalking people. Is there a way that a web master could take an IP address and track you down in real life short of getting a court order to the ISP? Could a malicious web master track your activities around the web by searching for IP address logs somewhere?