Help with an I.P.

[Ramos12]

I was watching my son chatting with friends on Msn, now i dont normally do this but i suppose its ok for a father to get curious once in a while. Anyways he was on piczo with his site that he made. And when he went to the bathroom and was browsing his page.
I looked on the guestbook and someone had posted a message. It had the sender's IP on the top of the post. So i did the best i could to find out if this person was a criminal. I did not know this friend of his and he usually tells me who he hangs around with. Can anyone find out if this person is a criminal or simply an innocent person sending a friendly message? I need to make sure because i dont wish for my son to come to harm.
The I.P. is 72.142.112.202
Please reply if you have any information on the I.P. or if you know any programs that are of some help.

Thanks guys.

[augiedoggie]

All I can tell you is thats a Roger's IP address in Toronto, I don't think you can find out if it's a criminal. I hope someone else can shed further light on this as I'm interested also. BTW, I used reverse DNS lookup at dnsstuff.com

[TimW]

All you will get with that ip is the ISP address ...not the individual ....best to be open with your son and hope that he will return the same. No, you don't and won't know who it is ....if the sender sends any message that has a sexual connotation ...report it to the police....they can get a warrant to have the isp devulge the user.

Great advice TimW, its just a little harder being a parent today with Text Messaging, Video/Chat sites, E-Mail, Con Sites, as we are not always present when a lot of our kids are On-Line. To those that say we should be, give me a break. Parents can not be a child's shadow, or there will be no ability for mutual trust to develop.

[TimW]

I agree BC ....you got to know your kids and have faith that you've taught them the proverbial right from wrong ...and continue to worry about them till you die.

[augiedoggie]

Originally Posted by TimW

I agree BC ....you got to know your kids and have faith that you've taught them the proverbial right from wrong ...and continue to worry about them till you die.

The best thing I've heard so far is to put the computer in the family room, worked for my friend whose 14 year old boy used to go to ... websites. One great thing about that was that I didn't have to regularly clean out his system anymore. I told him, next time I charge when your son accepts those garbage requests to load claritycodecs etc. Sorry, got off topic here.

[Phantom]

Well, given that there's no solid gold guarantee of protection we can give our children, the best we can do is lay down some rules for the net (includes cellphone SMS, and so forth). The No.1 golden rule, is NEVER give out full names, home addresses, or personal phone Nos, or anything else that may lead to your personal location or identity. Heck, I've been an adult for a long time, and I don't give out any of my personal info, either. There is about two or three out there that know, and they're people I've known for years. As long as the said person(s) don’t know your real identity, apart from maybe your first name, then you’re pretty safe.

Yep, the computer in the family room is a good idea, at least he will know that anything he does on the net may be scrutinised. And yes, ISP address only goes as far as the ISP server, sometimes, not even that. You get an 'Unresolved address' error message at some point down the line. About all its good for is showing the sender's country and area of origin, maybe who owns the server.

[tjcnok]

I believe most of the bad guys use a proxy server anyhow, and even the FBI needs a warrant or something like that to ferret out the creepy crowd.