Since I cannot delete this ... it will just sit here looking stupid.

[jeepinator]

OK, how dumb is it that I cannot delete my own new topics ?

Answer: Profoundly

[ 09-04-2001: Message edited by: jeepinator ]

[Hairball]

I guess you're just not worthy enough to handle that kinda of responsiblity Jeep. :D

[maxxxracer]

this has brought up a good point. Actualy it is a good idea. A creator of a topic could delet a topic that had many other posts on it by other people and this would effectivley make this person a moderator by being able to delete other peoples posts. Now does it make sense?

[HowieStern]

this thread is pretty stupid jeep, but it still doesn't compare to the pure ignorance of your normal posts...

peace out.... :)

[Hairball]

Well, if you thought really really hard, you could change your original post into something really funny that actually kinda made sense with the other posts of this thread... :)

[Obi112]

Oh, Howie, and your "RIP: Hank" thread is pure genius, with a body of "...". If your going to make a thread, at least put a comment/argument into the body of the message.

[Railman]

It's starting to look like this is the place to make some igsignifigant, off the wall, asinine, durogatory comments & still get away with it! Are we all invited? :rolleyes: :D :p

[HowieStern]

hey... Hank the Angry Drunk Dwarf (a member of the whack pack from the stern show) was a really cool dude... i, for one am sorry to learn he passed away.... how nice of you to not like it.... you're pretty high class if you didnt like him aren't ya???

i did insert (NFM) on the subject line (no further message for the newbies)... it didn't waste anyones time opening it up... it was just my way of saying good bye to such a cool guy...

peace out.... :)

[SteveP]

Well, ya see, it works like this. We have a Buy/sell/trade section. Someone burns another user and there is a dispute as to what was promised or the description of the product, etc. It's better that users not be able to delete the entire listing so there's no record of a post anywhere. Yes, they can edit the post and erase the pertinent information, but at least there's an IP record of the post. No, I can't set up each individual forum with separate privileges - it's an all-or-none proposition.

[jeepinator]

We use a HTTP caching engine on our network. It sits just outside our core router.
As far as HTTP requests are concerned all 65,000 IP addresses that are registered to us egress this device. That means that in our case you are lumping (potentially) more than 65000 people together for an accounting error of a pretty massive scale.
In reality, IP address accounting has resulted in very few legal victories (any ?). For your purposes it may be effective, so I cannot pass judgement on that. I am happy to see an aggressive attitude towards curbing bad trade.
I am only posting to educate.

[ammoace]

UHHHHHH, ok. Now can we have that in english please. :D I truly have little idea of what you just said Jeep. I think I caught/understood some of it but most went zing, over my head. :confused:
If you really want a post deleted you could always let a mod or admin know. But if the thread has usefull information on it it will probably just be closed.
Just my .005 cents,
Jerry

[jeepinator]

Sure.
In our case alone (the company I work for), there is a potential that 65,000 unique users could appear as the same IP address when looking up what IP address made a particular post. The results of this look-up can be worthless at best and lead you to false conclusions at worst.
Caching technology is becoming ever more prevalent, meaning tracking IP addresses is becoming more and more worthless.
Caching is a mechanism to keep content nearest the destination. Meaning if I request a specific image from a web server, the image will actually come from a cache engine locate on my network, negating the need for that file to be transported accross metered (and expesnive) data circuits.
If this image has never been requested then the cache engine will load it into it's buffer and be ready to deliver it directly to the next requester (but i will get it from the server). If the image IS in cache it gives it to me directly and the remote server never even knwos I asked. the only traffic off our network that will be created is a simple file date comparison (to make sure there is not a newer version on the remote server). Caching technology originally only worked for files such as image files, but today it will work even with HTML.
The entire purpose of the caching engine is to reduce off net bandwidth.

[KIWIRCGUY]

ahhhhh ok ???? :confused:
Thanks for that Jeep... What you are basically saying is trying to find someone through an IP address is like looking for a needle in a hay stack???

[SteveP]

Of course an IP address alone is not effective in tracking down a bad trader, but even if a given company has thousands of IP addresses, I will at least know the origin of the posts. Weak as it may be in some cases, it's better than nothing. That combined with other BB rules like not allowing registration with free email addresses, has helped to curb the incidence of bad trades. Not eliminated it of course, but were certainly not having the high frequency of bad trades as other BBs that have similar traffic and membership. :D

[Bishop]

The IP of a person posting on a board can allmost allways be traced back to the person.

Boards and log files are very handy in that they record full time and date stamps on each post, and knowing the exact system time and date of a submited peice on info means it can allways be tracked back to your internet account.

And as you should also know all internet companys also have log files on their end, meaning they can link their log files to your personal data stored in their computers.

Link the boards log file to the internet providers file and bingo, you have the person you want to track down.

Thinking of using a anonymizer?
Well that won't help you to much, all places that provide an anonymizer service keep log files too, meaning they know your IP and if the person running a board comtacts them and says someone is causing trouble or has done an ilegal act, then they are required to either give you the persons true IP, or pass the info on to your internet provider.

And to top it all off, a companys systems also keep logs of all sent info from each and every computer at your company, meaning that it can also be traced to an exact computer in your office.

No matter how distant or protected you think you are, your not.

:D

[ZenLosi]

Bishop, but seriously, I'm sure that it's not done often and it's not that easy to track down a single IP address. Especially if the user is using dial up to connect. Gimmie a break.


-Zen

[Bishop]

It's a heck of a lot easier than most people think.

[jeepinator]

Bishop, we are kinda saying the same thing.
All this looking up you are doing can lead to errors.
But, to argue for a bit, how do you find the unique person creating a post when that person is behind a NAT box that is masqeurading thousands of hosts ?
How about remote controlling a machine ?
Say I exploit a host running PCAnywhere. This is quite easy to do, just scan for TCP port 5631. I remotely access this machine and post something on this board. Well the machine I exploited is win95. It logs nothing. Dead end. NAT'ed networks, same thing. You only know that 1 of X number of hosts made the post, but you cannot know which one. Cisco routers, at least, do not log NAT translations (this would be virtually impossible as millions upon millions are created and zombied on a regular day). Even if you DID log NAT translations, you STILL have no way of saying WHO made the post as there is no simple way to bind the user with his/her IP addres as most networks have hosts with dynamic addressing. Cisco does make an application that can track who had what IP address and when, but this software starts at $20,000. Not a lot of comanies have employed such expensive technology.
My point is clearly that you will not track someone who does not want to be tracked, assuming the indivudual is network savvy.
So, I promise you, I can quite easily be anonymous. I mean REALLY easy.
Just so you know, I work for an ISP. I am Cisco certified and have been doing this for quite a while. I specialize in network security and packet voice.
I do agree though, that in most cases, given a big enough motivation (any time the NSA or CIA is involved would count :p ) a user can be caught. In these cases, however, the user was not thorough, other evidence (not netowrk related) assisted in the finding of said person, or they quite simply left their name somewhere. These agancies would like you to believe that it is impossible to be stealthy on the Internet, but believe me, if it is your life ambition to be anonymous, you can be ...

[Bishop]

Yeah, but the real point in this case is that do you really think someone is going to go to that sort of trouble to make a post on a rc web board???

I think not, and that's what this is all about, or at least I thought it was...

:rolleyes:

[jeepinator]

Steve, thanks for your efforts. I forgot to mention that earlier.

[R_C_MAN]

Yeah but you guys forgot one thing. What if the person is behind a firewall and they write their post in HTML causing the post to be scrambled as it goes over the TC/IP protocal of the mainframe of the RCCA board possibly causing a crash in the LAN's database, which in turn will degenerate a bug in the ISP, which will have a C++ ladder affect on the ISP that has all files writen in JavaScript.
Now I know you know what that leads to. Your IP # doesn't get tracked. DUH!!!

[jeepinator]

:D cute ...

[R_C_MAN]

jeep said:
But, to argue for a bit, how do you find the unique person creating a post when that person is behind a NAT box that is masqeurading thousands of hosts ?
How about remote controlling a machine ?
Say I exploit a host running PCAnywhere. This is quite easy to do, just scan for TCP port 5631. I remotely access this machine and post something on this board. Well the machine I exploited is win95. It logs nothing. Dead end. NAT'ed networks, same thing. You only know that 1 of X number of hosts made the post, but you cannot know which one. Cisco routers, at least, do not log NAT translations (this would be virtually impossible as millions upon millions are created and zombied on a regular day). Even if you DID log NAT translations, you STILL have no way of saying WHO made the post as there is no simple way to bind the user with his/her IP addres as most networks have hosts with dynamic addressing. Cisco does make an application that can track who had what IP address and when, but this software starts at $20,000. Not a lot of comanies have employed such expensive technology.
My point is clearly that you will not track someone who does not want to be tracked, assuming the indivudual is network savvy.
So, I promise you, I can quite easily be anonymous. I mean REALLY easy.
Just so you know, I work for an ISP. I am Cisco certified and have been doing this for quite a while. I specialize in network security and packet voice.
I do agree though, that in most cases, given a big enough motivation (any time the NSA or CIA is involved would count ) a user can be caught. In these cases, however, the user was not thorough, other evidence (not netowrk related) assisted in the finding of said person, or they quite simply left their name somewhere. These agancies would like you to believe that it is impossible to be stealthy on the Internet, but believe me, if it is your life ambition to be anonymous, you can be ...

This is cute too, LOL!