Insanity

Best analogy ever.

I wonder if people are aware that most pieces of mail they send through the U.S. Postal service have their return address RIGHT ON THE ENVELOPE!!! Some agencies will actually SAVE those envelopes, opening up the potential for people to come RIGHT TO YOUR HOUSE!!!



*puts on tin foil hat*

You don't need to worry. No one has ever received or stored your "IPS number" in the entire history of the intarwebs. Cheer up.

Yes, but unfortunately this is not at all about some supposed reservations about IP adresses being logged by websites. This is about a couple of folks driven by personal issues who are trying to disparage a webmaster and his site. It's quite obvious to me.

Well, glad to know privacy is so important to you Cristiano.

Clearly the attitude I want to hear from someone who runs who a public forum.

Yes, absolutely, this is about asking an owner of a popular website related to the game to come clean on his purpose in capturing IPS numbers.

Could he make a statement on this?

Could we ask if he links avatars and different posts, as blaze implied?

Could we ask why he is tracking and saving this information?

These are reasonable and legitimate consumer requests.

When someone notifies another person on a message board that this is "legal notification to stop" and they proceed with a filing in the proper court, said notified person will then have to defend why they continued to talk to the filling party. So be careful.

I am confident that I have Prokofy's IP address only because I know how forum and web software works, and that the IP of each post is logged. I could honestly care less about Prokofy, other than to now go into Prokofy's user profile and IP ban him from my site. As Prokofy is a registered user of the site, the posts from Prokofy would have Prokofy's IP. No magic there, Blaze, and I know you are trying really hard to damage my site or credibility, but it won't work.

Have I ever seen the IP addresses? Yes, when I have blocked people, I have seen the IP address. It is a sequence of numbers that means as much to me as a random key does. I've also seen email addresses of people who have asked me to look it up for them because they have forgotten what they registered with. Funny thing, I have managed to run a site for nearly two years and never had any problem.

Where is your scrutiny on other sites? SLExchange, ANSHECHUNG.COM, SecondServer.net, and SLBoutique.com, Gaming Open Market? Hell, the two people from GOM are just SL players - and they know your alts, I don't. I could care less who anyone's alt is - any speculation I have made has been based upon writing style and semantics, not upon IP address. You are close to crossing a line into libel, Blaze, and if you think I will just sit back and take it, you are quite mistaken.

What's an IPS number?

I have met a lot of people who role play in SecondLife and have zero desire to see their ALTS outed. I am certainly not alone in this.

IP addresses are the only way to connect ALTs. This is why I make a big deal about IP addresses.

True. Ever tried to return a piece of mail without out crossing out the bar code on envelope. It will bounce back to you, not the sender.

Ohhh noes! http://www.whatismyip.com/

Oh, well .. they don't come onto forums and post "I have your IP address".

If they did and someone called them out on it, I'd certainly back them up.

Cristiano, you run a public resource that brings along with it certain responsbilities. One of them is keeping your public resources out of these disagreements.

If you disagree, fine, go ahead and disagree. But you associated SLUniverse with this conversation, not Prokofy or I.

You have to worry sometimes about the Internet generation, whether their little brains haven't been overwhelmed by all those electrons sometimes.

Let me break it down to those who haven't received any snail mail recently, and are probably too young and immature to receive bills, either.

The difference between the Internet and the U.S. mail, hons, is that trusted postal employees handle it until it comes to my mailbox, where only I retrieve it.

No one else can see it while it is in transit -- only the USPS.

Jesus, that should be pretty obvious.

The difference with someone who grabs my IPS number on the Internet is that he is using it to have power over me becaues information is power. He's in a position to grab something as a private entity -- not a trusted federal government service answerable by law to provisions protecting privacy.

He's collecting it to either match SL identity to RL identity, or match SL identities of alts to other alts, or some other purpose, maybe just marketing, who knows. We have no way of knowing if any of the spam we get comes from this particular webmaster's practice of grabbing IPS numbers.

The difference also is that any number of fucktards here on the forums who savagely attack me can't get their grasping greedy little paws on my US mail because after it leaves the recipient's hands and goes through the UPS system, it comes to me, untouched by fucktards. Of course, there might be types that can break into mail depots, but that's extreme.

Whereas the idiots on the Internet -- and there are many! -- can grab the IPS and do whatever the hell they want to with it -- and they use it to harass, as we've seen in spades.

It's why some people refused to visit the Second Life Herald, and refused to deal with it -- because of Uri's practice of grabbing the IPS numbers and contrasting and comparing them, especially to out alts and various letters to the editors. He also used it to connect people from their game avatars to real life, and invaded their privacy with this information, and wrote about it in his newspaper.

This isn't something people take lightly, and they are right to question it.

Absolutely -- because they don't have to play macho big tough-guy and show they have power over other people.



As we all should. We'd like to know how all these vaunted game-related sites use people's private information, whether for gaming advantage or economic advantage.



Totally.


Absolutely, and he has failed to explain why he grabs the IPS addresses. For what purpose?

Ahahah. Ok, you can't say this and not give us some links.

Hehehehehe.

As i see it, Cris has answered the questions asked of him and has assured publicly that no wrong doing is being done. Yet the paranoid mindset continues and it makes me wonder what the real reason is? What are they so worried about that Cris could find out? What are they doing wrong? Omgah...its rubbing off on me...now i'm becoming paranoid!! HELP!!!

It is IP, not IPS. I have no problem with it being questioned. What I have a problem with is the fact that you made a statement about me that was false. There was no question in it, it was a statement. You dodged that in your future responses, but no where in your statement did you ask a question, just as clear as the statement you just made about Second Life Herald.

He already did. He explained that websites do it for forensic matters, ala child porn. Or to block problem users. You're not accepting it. If you don't like that, don't use his site.

By the way, if you are on a cable modem, your IP is not static. When the IP numbers lease is up, they will assign a new one. Some change as often as once per day. You can also unplug your cable modem for a moment and then when you plug it back in, you can usually get a new number, although some cable companies will try to get you the same number you were previously assigned.

DSL, I am unsure of, as it's not available in my area, so I haven't studied it much as a result, although I do know you can get static IPs from at least some DSL providers.

Ok kids. Let uncle Foolish Let you in on something:

IP addresses are recorded by websites, because if they were not, it would have no idea where to send the data to.

Got that? You go to a website because you want it to send you data, or allow you to browse a forum, or DO SOMETHING FOR YOU.

Well, it better damn well know who you are so it sends the data you requested, or it's sending it to some random twit besides you.

You don't want your IP address known, then TOUGH. It's in the mechanic of how data is transferred, and is not changing due to paranoia.

I run two websites, complete with forums and chat. I'm a network tech from the 'old days'. I do tech support NOW.

Now quit crying about things you literally know nothing about. Or better yet: Pick up a book on the subject and educate yourselves before making yourselves bigger fools than I am.

...

And no. I'm not offering a smile icon to take the sting out. Deal with it.

<grumbles about kids who whine about things they know nothing about...>

hmmmm I tend to think only those who are hiding something are worried about if a web site has their IP.... I could care less who has mine, Ive done nothing I need to hide from

Once again, I have already answered this, thus once again you are making shit up. I am not responsible for your lack of comprehension, and again it is IP address. You sound as stupid as George Bush saying on the Internets.

BTW, my IP address is 67.35.77.74. I have a static IP address. Knock yourself out, find your way to my house!

Just so I know. Do you include ME in this statement? Or people other than me? I wouldn't want anybody to accuse you of being evasive so this is a good chance for you to either say "no Aimee this statement does not apply to you" or "yes indeed you fall within this statement."

As for the rest of it. I think Prokofy is hoping beyond hopes that there are enough non-technical people reading this to be confused by what it means for a remote machine to have your IP address (pretty much nothing).

Blaze,


Trimda already took you to school on this thread about IP addresses. You had to retract your orginal flawed arguement, and create a new flawed arguement.


Are you working on Network+ Cert and are trying to get a free education on networking via forums, or are you a complete fucking dumbass?