Re: ? RE: AOL POSTERS-ISP'S & TROLLS - IP's and ISP's

Posted by LadynRed (65.80.184.109) on November 17, 2002 at 13:47:23:

In Reply to: ? RE: AOL POSTERS-ISP'S & TROLLS posted by Why Chat on November 17, 2002 at 12:04:55:

WhyChat, are you saying this troll is using other people's id's to post, and those are the ones you're going to ignore ?

Next, I looked up the IP on one of Linda's posts and it came back as QWEST, not AOL.

Ok, first, my background is 25+ years in tech support and network administration, so I know a bit about IP addresses and ISPs.

For people with DSL or Cable, they generally have STATIC IP's, they are assigned when they get their service and rarely, if ever, change, they have a permanent 'lease' on that IP address. If someone with cable or DSL doesn't use the service for 3 months (can be less), then their lease usually expires and the ISPs servers assign a new IP. Some ISP's set this lease at a shorter interval.

Dial-up customers are typically given a new IP every single time they connect to their ISP, this is called DHCP and allows an ISP to dynamically assign addresses to thousands of people without clashes. That person will have a different IP every time they log in. I know, for a fact, that when I'm at my own computer (which is rare any more), my IP on my dial-up is different every time. The ISP will, of course, stay the same.

Now, we get to firewalls and shell services like AOL.

People behind firewalls , usally corporate but can be a personal pc firewall, will show only ONE IP, ALL the time, because they go thru the firewall. The firewall itself has one IP address and that's all anyone on the 'outside' will see. It will, of course, trace to the company that owns that block of IP's.

Shell services, which is ALL AOL is, is similar to a firewall setup. When people dial-in to AOL, they are NOT ON the internet, they are INSIDE the AOL SHELL (most AOL users don't even know!). When they dial into AOL, they'll get an IP from the AOL servers for their connection to AOL. However, when they leave the AOL Shell by 'going to the internet', then their 'internal' IP address is more or less hidden and an AOL IP is all outside users see. It works very much like a firewall. AOL owns HUGE blocks of IP addresses, as you might imagine. There is also DSL access to AOL, which further complicates the IP patterns.

I'm not saying that there aren't trolls here and rotten people using other people's ID's, but simply doing a WHOIS inquiry isn't necessarily going to give you a true picture either.

I'm sure MY id shows up with at least 3 or more IP's.. I use my fiance's pc (most weekends and evenings) and he's got DSL - 1 IP, 1 ISP.
I post from work, from behind a firewall.. another IP that would trace or whois to my employer.
I post from my OWN pc at my house.. which is a dial-up with a dynamically assigned IP every time I dial in.. same ISP as my fiance, but different IP's each time.

Just trying to clarify the IP thing a bit.. its not always that easy to trace someone. Hope this helps a little.

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup