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Toggy



Joined: 18 Aug 2008
Posts: 1239

PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just don't understand why would ask for their account to be de-activated only to register under a different name the very next day. Confused

If you've not used the board for a while and forgotten your password then fair enough but this, no, I don't get it at all.
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Ian Robinson
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Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 3608
Location: Chorley, Lancashire

PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Toggy wrote:
I just don't understand why would ask for their account to be de-activated only to register under a different name the very next day. Confused

If you've not used the board for a while and forgotten your password then fair enough but this, no, I don't get it at all.

Well... in the most recent case, as best I can work out, Rachel decided to leave when Colin came back as they didn't get on last time. But after a few weeks of lurking while ill, she decided she wasn't as bothered by him as she used to be so asked to come back - but under a different name as she didn't realise she could simply re-activate her old account (note that Colin has also come back under 2 or 3 different names too so he didn't know either). But John has said no.

In the meantime, her daughter came on, was a tad provocative and soon got hounded off.

That seems to be how I see it, but I get the feeling I'm only seeing three sides of a square and missing the one that joins everything up Confused
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ruddlescat



Joined: 16 Sep 2010
Posts: 18010
Location: Near Chester

PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think her R2Icon account has ever been deleted Ian

I urged her to keep it open if only for the fact that others on here might want to contact her via a PM and I was under the impression that when an account is closed the screen display changes to black - which it hasn't in her case - so I figure she can still post here if she wants to and I hope she does reappear as she adds interest to this forum even though I don't always agree with her - that's not the point - we need to keep this forum alive and Rachel is a major loss in that regard Sad
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Colin



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916

PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Robinson wrote:
(note that Colin has also come back under 2 or 3 different names too so he didn't know either).


Really? I was registered as "ColinB" which I asked John to be de-activated after I got fed-up with rudeness from a certain poster at a time when I had been hit by personal family turmoil. Then, more recently, I contacted John directly and asked if I could resume activity under my old profile but he told me that I would really need to register with a new identity because he had deleted essential information like my email address, etc. Knowing how these forums work on the back-end I realised he was right. That's how I ended up using the current login. I wasn't in any way guilty of multiple logins or spamming by trying to spoof the system or its admin.

Ian Robinson wrote:
In the meantime, her daughter came on, was a tad provocative and soon got hounded off.


Daughter? Er, nope.

Ian Robinson wrote:
That seems to be how I see it, but I get the feeling I'm only seeing three sides of a square and missing the one that joins everything up Confused


Yep.

I've agreed with a certain "former user" that I won't discuss detail in the open forum so I won't. Goodnight.
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Ian Robinson
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Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 3608
Location: Chorley, Lancashire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Colin wrote:
Ian Robinson wrote:
(note that Colin has also come back under 2 or 3 different names too so he didn't know either).


Really? I was registered as "ColinB"

And Colby. It's subtle, but we saw through your cunning disguise.


Colin wrote:
Ian Robinson wrote:
In the meantime, her daughter came on, was a tad provocative and soon got hounded off.


Daughter? Er, nope.

Well that's what she said on here and you admit the IPs were different to Rachel's. Yet you continue to disbelieve. Bizarre.
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Colin



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 9:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't just "disbelieve", I know. And domestic IP addresses are usually dynamic for security reasons, so will vary slightly each day. Can we now leave it please?
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John W



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Warwickshire, UK

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 11:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Robinson wrote:
Well that's what she said on here and you admit the IPs were different to Rachel's. Yet you continue to disbelieve. Bizarre.


Ian, when I look at your IP profile your postings have come from over 300 different IP addresses.
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John W
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Ian Robinson
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Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 3608
Location: Chorley, Lancashire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

John W wrote:
Ian Robinson wrote:
Well that's what she said on here and you admit the IPs were different to Rachel's. Yet you continue to disbelieve. Bizarre.


Ian, when I look at your IP profile your postings have come from over 300 different IP addresses.

How interesting! And yet, Colin's original accusations came from spotting that Xanadu's and Rachel's IPs were the same. Throws that argument out the window then, doesn't it?
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Colin



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 1:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, wake up please. I did NOT detect that. I can't - only John can due to his Admin privileges which means that he alone has access to the dashboard. How many more times must we BOTH emphasise this?

Now please leave it.
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Ian Robinson
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Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 3608
Location: Chorley, Lancashire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Colin wrote:
Ian, wake up please. I did NOT detect that. I can't - only John can due to his Admin privileges which means that he alone has access to the dashboard. How many more times must we BOTH emphasise this?

Sigh... as admitted upthread John detects them and passes on to you to check, we know you don't have direct access. I didn't feel like going through all the steps again, but if you insist on being pedantic...
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John W



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Warwickshire, UK

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, you really have not followed the thread have you?

I have not passed on IP addresses to anyone. I noted to Colin they were similar and suspicion of same source, in order to stop the questioning on the welcome thread.

That was supposed to end things and then xanadu asked to leave. The attempts by the ex-member to re-register as another is just trollish and I suspect has an agenda against Colin so I'm not having it.

If the ex-member is reading this thread, or you are PM'ing this mis-information then you are just making matters worse for her. Neither of you appear to understand how unacceptable the behaviour has been
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Colin



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian, this is the last time. Honestly.

Okay - John does NOT pass these things to me to check. That would not only be a contravention of the Data Protection Act but it is not necessary for him to do so. The tools exist right there in the phpBB2 Admin Dashboard (I know, I used to admin several of these forum applications).

I'm not a network systems expert, but I've had to learn the hard way how to manage all this stuff because, unlike R2OK which is hosted by some bloke using a bedroom-based server in India on a static IP address, mine were (and are) hosted on a huge server network in Houston TX that I lease and I have full access to everything on the server.

So, let me explain as best I can:

1: A user entering the site comes via an ISP's dynamically-assigned IP address. That IP address is drawn from the ISP's own pool, and may be different every time the user goes online. However, the differences to the numerical string may vary only slightly (e.g.: the last three digits). Different ISPs have different systems but they're all working with what's called IPv4 addressing, with some now utilising IPv6 due to limits in availability (i.e.: the pool of availability is smaller).

2: The Admin of a phpBB2 forum (i.e.: John in this case) can click on a user name and see his/her email address. That's the simple bit. He/she can then request a list of all the IP addresses used by a user over a defined period. These are all logged and stored in the MySQL database associated with the forum on the server.

3: The Admin can perform another query: he/she can select a given IP address and query all users who have used that IP address. This will throw up a list of all usernames that have used it. In the case of most people here that will be only one. But in the case of multiple identities, the list will feature anything from a couple of users to perhaps many (a certain infamous troll comes to mind here!). On one of my forums, which used to receive over 8,000 unique page requests a day from an average 33,000 daily visitors, some user IDs would throw up a list of many IP addresses. There may be nothing untoward here - people move from home to office to coffee shop, etc., and two users on Starbucks' wi-fi who are logged in to the forum simultaneously will have the same IP for the duration.

4. Having determined which users are associated with which IP, the admin can then query which other users have used the same IP address over a specified period....... and be presented with a tally list in which users are referenced against IP addresses and so on. Not only that, but I seem to recall that if you perform a multiple query on "User X", User Y" and "User Z" you can get a report on which IP address is common to all of them. (This may be a feature in phpBB2 or I may be thinking of another forum like Jelsoft, can't remember).

That's how you can tell who's really who and which other user IDs they've been using and this is what led John to arrive at the decision he did - as I have done in my own forums many times.

The difference between the user/s in question here and my previous IDs is that I always checked with John first because once you delete a profile you can't recall it simply because the data for it is removed from the database tables. That's why you often see "guest" under the user name.

Finally, I should add that another thing the admin can do when you manage the server is that you can get a full IP Traceroute for each page request; this gives you every bit of network info related to a user's connection between their device (even mobile devices) and the host server. So even if the dynamically-generated IP address is different at the "user agent's" end, almost everything else on that route will be virtually identical - the "route" that the page request takes through the network. This is useful for adding high-volume serial spammers to a block list, which can be logged by a web hosting company or ISP as well as site admins.

This can be used not just on web forums and websites, it can also be used on incoming emails, etc., as well, I should add.

So, I hope that explains it. I've said already that I'm not going into details as to why this whole nonsense kicked off between one or more users and myself, merely attempting to put paid to accusations that John and I have been colluding to research users' connection info. We haven't.

Apologies for the lengthy response, which I know some people don't like (!) but this is the only way I can clarify a load of stuff in one go.

The End.
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Helen May



Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 19372
Location: Cheshire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Robinson wrote:
John W wrote:
Ian Robinson wrote:
Well that's what she said on here and you admit the IPs were different to Rachel's. Yet you continue to disbelieve. Bizarre.


Ian, when I look at your IP profile your postings have come from over 300 different IP addresses.

How interesting! And yet, Colin's original accusations came from spotting that Xanadu's and Rachel's IPs were the same. Throws that argument out the window then, doesn't it?


Ian

If you have ever used Think Broadband to do a speed test and logged it for reference, you will see that your IP address can and will change. Not always but it can.

Just at add to John's explanation, we could do the same checks for IP addresses when I was admin on Jezzasexiles. It's not something you do all the time but if something odd is happening then you look further into it.

H
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I said it live on air in the studio with Jeremy Vine on 10/3/2005
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Colin



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 916

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 3:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Exactly right Helen. In fact, if you search "What's My IP?" In Google you'll get loads of links to check this. The IP address will vary, of course, but not so much - depending on the size of the ISP's pool.

Btw Helen, what happened to Jezzasexiles? I remember JV mentioning it on air once and saying he was too frightened to post!!
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Ian Robinson
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Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 3608
Location: Chorley, Lancashire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, I'm not doubting the IP stuff, but as ever we've been sidetracked. My point, as basic as I can make it, is: why is one person who's used multiple logins and registered several times banned while someone else who's done the exact same thing isn't? Considering the lack of decent posters round here I don't think we can be that picky.

(Oh, and to pick up on something - I'm not PMing anybody. Especially those who apparently don't have accounts anymore!)
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Helen May



Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 19372
Location: Cheshire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian,

John explained that way back in this thread, and forgive me if I've said this before, I've got the flu, but Rachel wasn't banned when she left some weeks ago, she left of her own accord. I believe she is now though.

You know it's things like this that make you wonder why anyone runs a forum. I speak from experience as well! There is probably a lot more that we don't need or will ever get to know.

H
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88 - 91 FM this is Radio 2 from the BBC!

I said it live on air in the studio with Jeremy Vine on 10/3/2005
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Helen May



Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 19372
Location: Cheshire

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Colin wrote:
Exactly right Helen. In fact, if you search "What's My IP?" In Google you'll get loads of links to check this. The IP address will vary, of course, but not so much - depending on the size of the ISP's pool.

Btw Helen, what happened to Jezzasexiles? I remember JV mentioning it on air once and saying he was too frightened to post!!


Yes JV's comment was a laugh, things did get rather heated in some of the areas on there! It just closed down ages ago Colin.

H
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88 - 91 FM this is Radio 2 from the BBC!

I said it live on air in the studio with Jeremy Vine on 10/3/2005
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John W



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Warwickshire, UK

PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you Helen.

As Helen says, Ian, it was explained earlier. Rachel was never banned but the recent xanadu incident and then the re-application with a new ID from same-ish IP, and changes of surnames Hooby, Scott etc just has the look of someone wanting to post on here for the wrong reasons, so I have refused re-registration.

Colin has left in the past for personal reasons and has always e-mailed me personally first whenever he wants to re-apply.

Accounts are not always closed. There is a De-activated status which means the member who left can't post but can come back as the same if requested - if you look at the old postings e.g. Chris Evans thread, if I've closed an account the name has under it 'Guest', e.g. Rachel, if I have only de-activated it doesn't say guest e.g. R2Icon, and I think the pm function might still work (?)
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