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IP addresses

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Monday Morning Sportswriter, Jan 5, 2008.

  1. Monday Morning Sportswriter

    Monday Morning Sportswriter Well-Known Member

    Anybody here know much about IP addresses?

    Our blog has had a string of comments coming from different e-mail addresses but identical IP addresses, resolving to an AOL network.

    But I don't know if that's enough to say that they're coming from the same computer. Could it just be that a bunch of AOL users have the same IP address?

    One IP address has been tagged on 10 different comments from 10 different people with 10 different unverified e-mail addresses over the last few months. I suspect that it's all the same person/people behind it. But maybe not.
     
  2. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

    It could be 10 people using an unblock site, which uses the same IP address. Input the address into an IP tracer and see where it originates.

    As far as I know, AOL doesn't give the same address to different users.

    But it sounds suspicious.
     
  3. spup1122

    spup1122 Guest

    I don't know for sure, but I think one IP address per household. But I do know SBC has rotating IP addresses, so that could be the case.
     
  4. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    I'm pretty sure AOL has generic IP addresses, meaning different people could be posting and having stuff come from the same IP address.
     
  5. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    But really, what'd be the odds that so many people who posted to that particular blog post was an AOL user? Ten different?

    It's the same guy, MMSW. Trust your gut.
     
  6. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    My understanding is that on AOL you have a different IP every time you log on. It's called a dynamic IP; one that stays the same is called a static IP.

    http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html
     
  7. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    why do you care? i thought we just whored out to anybody who reads our papers for free on the internet.
     
  8. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Jesus Christ, Frank.
    If this sports stuff does work out, you could move to the Bengal Province and take tech calls.
     
  9. More information would be helpful. How much time elapsed between the postings? They very well could be different people because most AOL users use DHCP when they log on. Or they could all be coming from the same proxy server.

    If it is case of abusive postings from the IP address, just report it to AOL and they will take it from there, In the meantime, if they are abusive posts, talk to your tech guys and see if you can block comments from that IP address.
     
  10. pseudo

    pseudo Well-Known Member

    Yes. eye's correct about the proxy servers. To double-check, I just pulled up a random post on our site from someone I know uses AOL; the IP address came up with hits on several other familiar names, posting from Virginia Beach to New Jersey to Western New York.
    (And a good percentage of those names are people I've met -- tailgated with some of them for the better part of the last 10 years -- so I know they're not figments of someone's imagination.)

    That said, it could still be the same person. Look at the flagged comments, if they were saved: is there anything similar in the style? Consistent misuse of your/you're, misspellings, even sentence structure can tip off the presence of a troll. Did you have reason to suspect it was the same person/people before running the IP check? If so, then follow your instinct.

    Heck, since most of you write for a living, you'd probably have a better-than-average read on someone's Internet "voice" (assuming they provide a decent sample).

    Easiest way to deal with it? Registration, registration, registration. And verify the e-mail address before allowing comments from ANY account. I hate to block an IP if I know it'll affect people who had nothing to do with said abuse; much, much easier to nuke individual accounts. If your blog software isn't set up to work that way, find a program that is.
     
  11. :D
     
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