Ted — Tue, 02 May 2000 14:55:00 +0000

I administer a very small (~100 registered members), yet active bulletin board (UltraBoard) and the IPs are visible for all to see. No one has ever said a thing and there are several internet-savy active members. Guess no one seems to care. There were some problems with anonymous/harrassment type posts previously, when the site was using a free remotely hosted bb, but none since the conversion to UB in September with the visible IPs.

I plan on running a significantly larger bb (I purchased Ultimate Bulletin Board) on a different site and figured I'd start by keeping the IPs hidden. I figure I'd start that way, just to keep the IP #'s private to "protect" the honest/well-behaved static IP users. I wonder what the "general consensus" or "correct protocal" is concerning the display of IPs, internet-wide. What's the "correct etiquette"?

werehere — Tue, 02 May 2000 04:53:00 +0000

Well I know many large forum owners, and have one myself, and I would say that it is customary to not publically display them.

Of course it is always left up to the man in charge.

I thank you for taking this thread into consideration after I posted it, that is wonderful

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Tue, 02 May 2000 03:49:00 +0000

Brian,

What roBofh is talking about is the fact that IP addresses were publically displayed on the forums until werehere started this thread. It wasn't something we (admins) really paid attention to and it was just a feature that was there by default when we upgraded to UBB. It has since been turned off because of this thread.

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roBofh — Tue, 02 May 2000 03:20:00 +0000

No, I was responding to the IP: 123.456.789.012 thing, not the IP: Logged. I'm just saying that it doesn't really harm anyone to display it. OTOH, it doesn't help them either Where do I say that not having the IP publicly (as in, to non-moderators) viewable does not prevent moderators or administrators from tracking down spammers?

Brian Farkas — Tue, 02 May 2000 00:46:00 +0000

I re-read the post I responded to- and I still can't find where you said that .

Anyway, we need to consider if there is anything WRONG with displaying the IP address, and what harm it is causing, if any. Right now, we only see IP: LOGGED at the bottom, and I don't see how that is causing any damage. If anything, it will let people viewing the forum know that we do keep an IP log, which may prevent them from doing something they would do if they didn't think we kept one.

I don't think we need to display the IP addresses to the public, but I see no reason for removing the IP: logged...

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roBofh — Mon, 01 May 2000 10:28:00 +0000

OK, read what I said again

Being able to track down someone who spam's the board has nothing to do with whether their IP is publicly viewable or not.

Brian Farkas — Mon, 01 May 2000 03:10:00 +0000

quote:Originally posted by roBofh:
To use BackOrifice (BO2K) you actually need to trick the person running the computer to install it. For that matter, that describes just about every virus and trojan there is. Personally, I feel that displaying the IP address is only a risk to those people with dedicated IP addresses. Otherwise, if you're using a dial-up, by the time someone gets around to doing something mean and nasty, you've usually got a new IP address anyways.

True, but if that person were to attempt to SPAM the forums or commit another malicious act against them, their IP would reveal the ISP that person is using. By revealing what ISP they were using, it is possible to find out who the person actually is, because the ISP keeps logs of what users are assigned to particular IP addresses and at what times.

Brian

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werehere — Sat, 29 Apr 2000 06:14:00 +0000

Yeah well if you had not noticed, there are many people using cables and DSL lines these days, and they almost always use a static IP!

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roBofh — Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:18:00 +0000

To use BackOrifice (BO2K) you actually need to trick the person running the computer to install it. For that matter, that describes just about every virus and trojan there is. Personally, I feel that displaying the IP address is only a risk to those people with dedicated IP addresses. Otherwise, if you're using a dial-up, by the time someone gets around to doing something mean and nasty, you've usually got a new IP address anyways.

Justin S — Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:21:00 +0000

I don't see a reason why to display IP Addresses either. All it does is it lets people find it out and use something like BO2K or BOK2 or whatever that hacking program is called...

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Is this signAture short enough?

Darn- I can't even spell right...