[Jack Simth]

Atrocities:
I'm curious - are you still of the opinion that collecting and storing such information as IP addresses is wrong, as you seemed to state earlier:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
I guess the question is that thing storing the info that it is collecting? If it is not then I would say no harm no foul, but if it is keeping the info then I would request that you discontinue using it.

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
I should point out that Shrapnel as well as many forums have blocks in place to prevent IP hiding or spoofing. So the anonymous IP won't work here.

*shrug* there is no such thing as a perfect block, just as there is no such thing as a perfect hide or a perfect spoof; whether or not a particular set of blocks stops a particular set of hiding/spoofing methods depends on how the members of each set work. E.g., a browser-level IP spoofer/hider still must send out the true IP address somewhere, otherwise the data doesn't come back to the browser for viewing; a block to stop that is fairly straightforward - match all possible locations of the IP address up. However, a remote machine, set with an imaginary directory structure that causes the remote machine to attempt to find, load, and store a web page based on the directory structure requested could concieveably send a true IP address to the page in question, then relay the page to the browser as though the page came from the remote machine could concieveably defeat such a block by giving the page the IP of the remote machine. That hiding, in turn, could potentially be defeated by a script in the page that sends the browser's IP directly to the originating web page, which in turn could be defeated by a browser that recognizes and disables such scripts, et cetera, et cetera; the old "make some armor that will stop this bullet; okay, now make a bullet that will penetrate that armor" et infinium.

The only way to be sure Shrapnel's set of blocks stops @nonymouse's set of spoofing/hiding would be to test them against each other - make a fake ID temporarily on the Boards operating through nonymouse, and then have an admin or moderator report the logged IP and compare that to the IP of the known originating machine from the post, or the IP of @nonymouse.

[ April 04, 2004, 07:50: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]