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SteveDallas · 02-09-2006, 03:34 PM

In general it's very easy to see what address the person is using assuming they don't have a proxy. Once you have this information it's also very easy to find out who owns the network they came from. That often isn't that useful for determining a person's exact identity. After all, how many Dwellars use AOL? Verizon? Comcast? You'd have to get the company running that network to tell you who had access to that address at a particular time (a process that often requires a court order), unless you can infer something from the pattern of access or you have other knowledge to match things up with.

For example, if you know that a particular poster works at Company X, and you see a connection from companyx.com's network, you can suspect (though not be 100% certain) that that poster did the deed. (The poster who is aware of this and feels like doing something else can use tor, which several people have mentioned before, or several other different proxying methods.)

If a poster logs out, logs back in as "anonymous", and then logs back in under his or her "real" account it will be fairly obvious from the log who this was, assuming that all this is done in short order, just because it happened from the same address in a very short period of time. If you post from your house, log out, go to Starbucks, and then log on as a different username, it's not so obvious.

EDIT: I say this not to bust on UT, but because it's true of any site you visit, and I think it's good for people to be aware of these things.

Also, more and more employers are checking outbound traffic to guard against the release of confidential customer info and/or trade secrets. If you're going to whistleblow against your employer don't do it from your work computer.

02-09-2006, 03:34 PM	#13
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	In general it's very easy to see what address the person is using assuming they don't have a proxy. Once you have this information it's also very easy to find out who owns the network they came from. That often isn't that useful for determining a person's exact identity. After all, how many Dwellars use AOL? Verizon? Comcast? You'd have to get the company running that network to tell you who had access to that address at a particular time (a process that often requires a court order), unless you can infer something from the pattern of access or you have other knowledge to match things up with. For example, if you know that a particular poster works at Company X, and you see a connection from companyx.com's network, you can suspect (though not be 100% certain) that that poster did the deed. (The poster who is aware of this and feels like doing something else can use tor, which several people have mentioned before, or several other different proxying methods.) If a poster logs out, logs back in as "anonymous", and then logs back in under his or her "real" account it will be fairly obvious from the log who this was, assuming that all this is done in short order, just because it happened from the same address in a very short period of time. If you post from your house, log out, go to Starbucks, and then log on as a different username, it's not so obvious. EDIT: I say this not to bust on UT, but because it's true of any site you visit, and I think it's good for people to be aware of these things. Also, more and more employers are checking outbound traffic to guard against the release of confidential customer info and/or trade secrets. If you're going to whistleblow against your employer don't do it from your work computer. Last edited by SteveDallas; 02-09-2006 at 03:38 PM.