The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #36585 Message #506705
Posted By: Justa Picker
14-Jul-01 - 09:30 PM
Thread Name: Posting people's IPs in the Forum
Subject: RE: Posting people's IPs in the Forum
You don't need to post people's actual IP's on the Forum.
There is a better and more elegant solution, if the Mudcat wizard programmers want to adopt it.
I've mentioned this before a few months ago, but in speaking with a friend today, she suggested I post this again.
You write a software program to encript/encode the actual originating IP of the poster. The scrambled set of letters become consisent to a particular IP address, so that visits here from a poster (always using the same IP) will always have the same encripted code showing beside GUEST - !WSS-SST?X as an example. Be very easy to make the correlation between a legit member's encoded IP, and that same legit member coming on as a GUEST and flaming/trolling. And even if they go through an anonymizer (as long as they are calling in from the same computer with a static IP address) the encripted IP will always be the same and consistent.
It doesn't tell us where the person is from, nor does it allow anyone to hack them, but it assigns an identity of sorts that can be correlated and tracked, if one has the time to spend sifting through threads, determining the encoded IP signatures of legit members and correlating them against some of the GUESTS' postings. And yes the system administrator(s) would have the ability to decode the IP as well, should there be a valid reason.
No, it won't get around dynamic IP addresses, but I think it could eliminate about 90% of the flaming/trolling activities here without any further moderation or censorship, and since the actual IP is not visible, there's no violation of anyone's privacy or the fear of being hacked. It just levels the Mudcat playing field a bit, in favor of the security of the overall users here.
Sure, someone who really wants to troll/flame, and has nothing better to do with their time, can go to a friend's or parent's place and log on from their computer, but that would get pretty tedious and tiresome after a while, (and wouldn't you better be spending that time practising an instrument...or searching for a lyric for someone?).
If you want to see an example of this method of encoding an IP at work on an [albeit moderated] forum, visit the forum at Stefan Grossman's site. Click on any message posted there and at the top of the screen on the left you'll see a box with info regarding the poster. At the bottom you'll see IP:and encoded letters/symbols. That encoded IP will always be the same to the originating IP, provided the originating IP is always logging in from the same computer and has a static IP assignment.
Personally, I can't see this being a big deal to implement, and the benefits vastly out weigh any inconveniences. And who is really inconvenienced by this? Only those, with something to hide, through questionable activities and behavior on this forum. It's not a "privacy" violation. IE Explorer and Netscape transmit this information to EVERY website you visit. You're just not aware of it...or maybe you are.
If this is a "community", how can it not have any security measures in place to protect its inhabitants, and undermine those who seek to malign or destroy it?