IP Tracking of a screen name ???

[Firestone]

So I read this on the Loose Change Forum:

...
Get an IP Tracker. It costs 249 dollars, and allows you to follow back any screen name and half of yours track back to a plethora of alphabet soup agencies.
...

LCF (http://z10.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=3857&view=findpost&p=12162871)
Now neither batmanchester nor the LCF are very reliable sources of information.

So, is this at all possible?
Can you track an IP based on a nickname someone uses on a forum? :confused:

I think not, but what do I know.

Someone any idea, or is this just standard paranoia?

(Not that I have anything to hide, of course. :))

[Darat]

No idea what they are talking about.

I would assume the forum software they use stores the IP address of every post (all the major forum software I am aware of do this). Some forums display this to everyone some like us don't.

I (and members of the Mod Team) can look up the IP address of a post and then use something like www.dnsstuff.com to see where that IP address resolves to.

[Darat]

Just went and followed the link and still have no idea what they are going on about. Just a note of information one of them says "As for your forum, you are a closed, secretive little cliche, who, as soon as you find out that someone from this or other truth forums join up, you immediately IP ban them."

This is totally untrue. For a start Lisa and I (and we handle all the registrations) have no idea who belongs to a "truth forum" nor do we care. (I don't even understand why we are meant to care.) Secondly we do not use IP blocking here, which is just a feature of the forum software.

[Dan O.]

So I read this on the Loose Change Forum:
So, is this at all possible?
Can you track an IP based on a nickname someone uses on a forum?

In usenet forums, definitely. But on web based forums like this it would be difficult without the cooperation of the host.

There are inline image links on many pages that go back to a number of external hosts. These external hosts will know your IP address and the time that you visited a given page on this host but they don't have direct access to your screen name. If they could determine when you you edited a page they could then scan the page and find your screen name. There are some technical difficulties such as dealing with browser caches that would also need to be overcome. It's also not automatic because someone would need to put the image link on this site that points back to the company's server. [Are there any free image hosts with no other visible means of generating revenue?]

This is only a first guess at what would be possible and I haven't really given it much thought. To find out IF this is actually being done, someone might need to pay for the service and see what they get. Or it might be possible for the sysadmins to detect the access patterns of the data miners.

ETA: There are such things as web-bugs which users may be able to put into places such as their profile and track anyone that looks them up. But again, this only gives the IP address and not the screen name.

[huw-l]

just to reinforce what Darat said: blocking the IP someone came from isn't terribly effective since most people on consumer grade internet connections have dynamicallty assigned IP addresses (i.e the IP address their home connection appears as changes over time).


So even if the JREF were blocking IP addresses (which they aren't) it would be mostly ineffective.

They need to put the crack pipe down.

[Firestone]

Just went and followed the link and still have no idea what they are going on about. Just a note of information one of them says "As for your forum, you are a closed, secretive little cliche, who, as soon as you find out that someone from this or other truth forums join up, you immediately IP ban them."

This is totally untrue. For a start Lisa and I (and we handle all the registrations) have no idea who belongs to a "truth forum" nor do we care. (I don't even understand why we are meant to care.) Secondly we do not use IP blocking here, which is just a feature of the forum software.I don't know where they get the idea, as a number of truthers are active here.
But it's something they keep claiming.

just to reinforce what Darat said: blocking the IP someone came from isn't terribly effective since most people on consumer grade internet connections have dynamicallty assigned IP addresses (i.e the IP address their home connection appears as changes over time).


So even if the JREF were blocking IP addresses (which they aren't) it would be mostly ineffective.

They need to put the crack pipe down.:)

It's paranoia coupled with projection. They block IP-ranges.
A few months ago they actually blocked EVERYONE for two days (probably because they blocked IP *.*.*.* or something like that).

Because I was naughty there (at least in their critical eyes), they blocked the proxy-server I was using.
And it indeed isn't very effective, given the large number of available proxy-servers and (as you said), dynamically assigned IP addresses.

[Firestone]

In usenet forums, definitely. But on web based forums like this it would be difficult without the cooperation of the host.

There are inline image links on many pages that go back to a number of external hosts. These external hosts will know your IP address and the time that you visited a given page on this host but they don't have direct access to your screen name. If they could determine when you you edited a page they could then scan the page and find your screen name. There are some technical difficulties such as dealing with browser caches that would also need to be overcome. It's also not automatic because someone would need to put the image link on this site that points back to the company's server. [Are there any free image hosts with no other visible means of generating revenue?]

This is only a first guess at what would be possible and I haven't really given it much thought. To find out IF this is actually being done, someone might need to pay for the service and see what they get. Or it might be possible for the sysadmins to detect the access patterns of the data miners.

ETA: There are such things as web-bugs which users may be able to put into places such as their profile and track anyone that looks them up. But again, this only gives the IP address and not the screen name.Thanks, that's very interesting.

Anyway, even if this can be done, it seems a very coarse way to match a nickname on a forum to an IP-address.

[Dan O.]

It's interesting that someone who is paranoid would use a web proxy. Setting up a free web proxy server would be one of the easiest ways to gather dirt on people doing dirty things. For the host running the proxy server, getting your real IP address and the screen name on every forum you visit is easy pickings. They even get your password if you care about that.

[Firestone]

It's interesting that someone who is paranoid would use a web proxy. Setting up a free web proxy server would be one of the easiest ways to gather dirt on people doing dirty things. For the host running the proxy server, getting your real IP address and the screen name on every forum you visit is easy pickings. They even get your password if you care about that.Hehe.

Well, for my defence, I have used proxy server on two occasions.

In 2004, the website of GWB was blocked for IP's outside of the USA a few weeks before the elections.
So I was curious to see what info we non-Americans were not allowed to see. Of course there was nothing of real interest on the site.

And after being IP-banned on LCF, I had to use a proxy server, which was then also IP-banned.

But I like you idea ... :)

[Azure]

Hmmm...there are a bunch of ways to generate a false/different IP address.

I've been banned so many times at certain sites, yet there are ways to get around it, even with subnet bans.

[kevin]

JREF and most modern forum systems no longer support this, but if forum software allows you to use an avatar hosted on another server then the following is possible:

1) Set your avatar to an image on a server under your control (one where you can read the log files.)

2) Post in a thread

3) anyone that reads that thread, and doesn't block images, will show up in your logs -- however you won't know their screen name.

4) If someone replies you can match up their reply time with your logs and usually get within 1-10 possible IPs for that person (depends on how busy the forum is).

Since JREF requires avatars be hosted from their server this method isn't possible (except to the server admins, and that would be silly because each post has the user's IP for admins anyway).

[kevin]

Oh yes, another way would be to craft a post that included Javascript. The javascript could look up the ip and send it somewhere other than the original forum. If you see vulnerabilities for cross-site scripting in forum software than this exploit is probably possible somehow.

[kevin]

There are inline image links on many pages that go back to a number of external hosts. These external hosts will know your IP address and the time that you visited a given page on this host but they don't have direct access to your screen name.

oh poot, someone beat me too it.

[my_wan]

So, is this at all possible?
Can you track an IP based on a nickname someone uses on a forum? :confused:


$249 bucks!!!!!! Just use netstat, it's already on your computer.
WinXP Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt
Type-->
netstat/?
and hit enter for all options.

netstat -a
Dispays all connection and listening ports
netstat -a 5
redisplays all every 5 seconds.

No you can't track people on forums. Some forums give the IP. Peoples IP does not necessarily stay the same all the time. Get them talking on yahoo messenger and their IP will be in the netstat list.

If you link a pic on your post to a webserver you control you can use the time stamp of posters and your log files to match IPs to users. I would worry about saying this stuff but anybody capable of being dangerous already knows it anyway.