UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 6 Version 6 Support Multiple Personality IP help - please!

Hello,

I have an individual/P.I.T.A. who keeps posting as different persona's. Right now the number is up to four but it's growing daily! I think I may have slowed her down by not allowing anonymous posts anymore... but she's re-registering new names. She has had a history of about 5 different IP's but 90% of the time the IP is the same. Her IP is:

205.188.209.102

I realize this is an AOL address. My question is... how sure can I be that her main IP is always her? I've never had a repeat of an IP between users except for once when she posted under a less popular IP and someone I personally knew posted directly after her. In that instance... he actually was shown as sharing her less frequent IP. Which I found completely baffling. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Your suggestions and advice is greatly appreciated!

Naomi

Each 'cluster' of digits has a range of 0 to 255 so the 'highest' IP can only be 255.255.255.255

Each 'cluster' is generally assigned in a 'block'.

Such that AOL may have 100.100.1.1 thru 100.100.255.255

Since the first two blocks (in this case 6 characters) are the same - if the individual in question were dialing into a local AOL setup which was allocated a block as above you could 'ban' the IP range by banning 100.100. which will effectively ban the 65,000-odd IP addresses beneath it.

255 * 255 = 65,025

So - while it's a broad net you can generally cast it for a short period let it settle and snare everything in it's wake and after a couple of weeks they should go away out of sheer frustration.

If the posts are pretty consistent with these numbers out in front: 205.188. then you can ban those and that should knock down the whole AOL block in that region for awhile.

-> Mirthless Laughter <-

If the other IP's are totally out of range are they all AOL?

Regards,

Brett Harris
Infopop Corporation

banning an IP is no option, at least not if it's a dynamic IP by a provider like AOL, you always affect innocent users as well.

configure your board to accept only one username per email address (no one needs more than ONE username, so that should be cool)
ban those multiple personalities (banning is still a lot less annoying then registering new usernames and getting new email addresses)
if that doesn't work, activate member approval - in most cases you'll recognize the person by name, email or the IP gives you a hint!

sounds harsh, but it's the only way.
I had one freak who registered about 30 usernames, using all of them.
I took the fun out of it using the aforementioned methods.