Concerned

One of my friends was suspended from an Internet forum. To overcome her suspension she joined the forum again using a different username, password, and email account. They discovered this and banned her.

The above is not the issue. The following is. How could they know it was her? What concerns me if what information do web sites obtain about you? What's the "nuts and bolts" of how do they do this?

What can Majorgeeks find out about me? How does it find that information about me?

As someone who does a lot of confidential things online it makes me wonder how safe my information is.

 

Most likely was a matching IP address.

 

Every website you visit will know (and record) your IP address. This forum records your IP address, as does any other forum.

I am not a moderator here, so I cannot see your IP address, but moderators can see it, and would know if someone with the same IP address tried to register as a different user.

 

Thank you for the responses.

They surprise me in several ways. I had not expected the answer to be so simple. Clearly, my technological knowledge is falling behind. I thought someone like my employer would have a permanent IP address because they have a domain name, a website, and email accounts. However, I thought that private individuals were given a different IP address every time the logged on to the net. Am I behind and is that no longer true? Have I always been wrong and that was never the case? I'd assumed they had another way of finding out.

 

Have a read here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Keep-your-surfing-to-yourself

Firefox also has a "private browsing" feature.
https://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/psm/help_21/privacy_help.html

Also there are many sites like this one"
http://www.thismachine.info/

They can even tell what website you were on just before you visited them...

If you're concerned and wish to take steps to protect your privacy online, start with these articles and google away from there. Good terms to search are:

HTTPS
Web Proxy
Anonymous Surfing

 

When I started this thread I was concerned about my privacy on the Internet. It was reassuring to hear that it was simply the ability to recognise an Internet user by their IP address.

But, now I am no longer so reassured. I saw my friend recently. When she types the URL in to her web browser it comes up with a plain white window, with black text saying: YOU ARE BANNED. I relayed to her what I learned from this thread - they recognise you from your IP address. She told me, no they can't. She said she's turned her wifi router on and off several times since and each time she switches back on she's given a new IP address.

This raises two questions:

1. If you turn your wifi router on and off does your IP address change?
2. If your IP address is different how can a web site "recognise" you?

Is it through cookies? I know there's been a big issue about cookies in UK. I'm not sure if it's a national or EU law but web sites now have to ask you whether or not to accept or reject them.

 

Well that depends on which ISP she is using. Here in the UK nearly all ISPs give you a new IP each time you connect. Maybe that isn't the norm in the US which may account for so many suggesting that is the way it was done. If she is in the UK then I think mark's speculation that it is done through cookies is the most likely explanation.

I'm going to pay a bit more attention to cookies following this.

 

Just had a look at my cookies and every forum I am a member of has left one.

 

She said she turned off the wifi router because as long as it is switched on she has the same IP address. If she switches it off after she has switched it back on it changes her IP address. She had a programme that can show you what information you reveal about yourself to the world. It showed a different IP address before she switch her router off and a different one after she turned it off and put it back on.

So, I don't see how she can be tracked (if that's the appropriate word) if she doesn't have the same IP address.

 

My experience with broadband in the US is this: A quick disconnect/reconnect is likely as not going to give you the same IP you had. I suspect you would have to leave the connection dead until someone else made a request and that now available IP was assigned to them. With "always on" broadband this is not likely to happen.

In the days when I used a modem, I could pick up a new IP with only a few minutes disconnected. It was the nature of the beast, you were knocked offline regularly, or you closed your connection after each session.

As far as cookies go, they can tell a website operator some information. Your IP address which can be used to very broadlt identify where you are, say what city. It will NOT tell them your street address or phone number. they are used to allow access to sites without the need to login each time you visit.

It will tell them what browser you are using. This can be spoofed with one of several addons for your browser, but I don't see why you would want to.

The main purpose of cookies is to write a bit of info to your machine so the web site knows who you are on your next visit. They can, for example, allow a website with ads to tell if you have visited other web sites that display ads from the same ad company. These are Tracking Cookies.

Here is a good site with good info:

http://www.allaboutcookies.org/

 

I have just performed a simple experiment. I typed “www.thismachine.info” as recommended to me in Post #5, into my web browser. It gave me the following IP address xx.xx.xx.xxx. I then restarted my computer and rechecked the IP address with “www.thismachine.info”. As I suspected my IP address is exactly the same, xx.xx.xx.xxx. I have assumed that completely shutting down my computer and rebooting from scratch won’t change my IP address.

After restarting my computer I turned off my wifi router; I waited one minute and switched it back on. For a third time I checked my IP address with “www.thismachine.info”. My IP address is now xx.xx.yy.yyy (I have used the letter 'x' where the numerals remain the same; the letter 'y' where they differ from my previous IP address).

P.S. on a totally different matter: why is what I type having the web address forcibly underlined? I went back into the text and removed the s from around the text I'd typed but it continues to force me to have them.

 

It's the router that makes the connection to the server and obtains an IP, not the PC. Restarting the PC can never have any effect on the IP.

 

I knew that. I did it more to prove it doesn't. Otherwise, people can criticise your experiment and say did you try this ...?

 

Under the forum editor window there are some options; one of them being
Automatically parse links in text

This is checked by default, and when the forum editor detects something that looks like a web link, it will make it a clickable hyperlink.

You can uncheck that option if you don't want web addresses turned into hyperlinks.

 

Thank you