Reply: 1
From: Mike .
Hello Anon,
I'm a moderator of two conferences only within this WebBoard: Apprentice Millionaire Guide and Property Investor Archive. I believe Les is moderator only of Caveat Emptor. Neither of us moderate the Property Investor Forum conference which you posted to.
The following quote describes how a moderator can exercise editorial control of posts:
(Quote)
Verifying New Messages
Conferences where "Automatically verify new posts" is turned off require a conference moderator (or board manager or WebBoard administrator) to approve any new message before it will be visible to conference participants. This allows the moderators to monitor, or exercise editorial control over what messages are posted in a conference.
A moderator can verify, add, delete, and edit messages in a conference. Users in conferences requiring message verification can post messages (both to new and existing topics), but the moderator decides whether to post the message, discuss the matter with the user personally, or request that the user rephrase the message.
Once the moderator approves the message, it appears in the conference and is available to other conference users.
Users post messages to conferences requiring verification just as they would to any public or private conference. However, the moderator must first verify messages before they appear to other users.
Mike again: I believe none of the conferences actually have "Automatically verify new posts" turned off. However, we can still delete offending posts after they have been posted. If the poster is anonymous we cannot send a reply e-mail to that person.
Now to your specific question: "can you determine who are the author(s) of anonymous post(s)?
"
I personally can't but the WebBoard administrator probably can. Here is a quote I found on the net concerning e-mails which probably applies to postings:
(Quote)
Email services like Hotmail, YahooMail and other free web based email services capture and send the following information about you with the email:
Your IP Address : 63.34.228.78
Your ISP Log ID : 1Cust78.tnt9.syd2.da.uu.net
Your Country of Origin : en-us
Your ISP Address : 1Cust78.tnt9.syd2.da.uu.net
Your Proxy Address :
Your Computer Browser Information : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows 95)
Your Computer Operating System Information : Win95
Your Browser Session ID : 791123489
Here is another quote from an actual forum administrator on another forum"
(Quote)
C'mon you guys, this is just lame. I had to delete 3-4 accounts due to hacking attempts just today [cough]super33[/cough]
I have actually managed to log IPs from these bogus accounts and have gotten personal information on many of these "anonymous" type registrations. I would be more than willing to share this info with your isp and the authorities if necessary.
Mike again: I think it's clear that Ian Somers, as the WebBoard Administrator, could block an IP address from posting on the forum. If he were to match the anonymous IP address with the IP address of current account users he would know their identity.
For those who may want to send anonymous e-mails, the following quote may be of interest:
(Quote)
An anonymous re-mailer is a program that runs on a computer somewhere on the Internet. When you send mail to the re-mailer address, the re-mailer takes your name and your address off of the mail message and forwards it to its next destination. The recipient gets mail that has no evidence of where it originally came from, at least not in the headers. You might give away your secret identity in the body of the message, but that would be the sender's own fault.
Anonymous re-mailers can be "chained" so that a message is passed on from one anonymous re-mailer to another, in two or more separate anonymous "hops" as a way of making physical tracing or monitoring increasingly difficult.
Regards, Mike
PS May I express my profound sadness and deep sympathy over the events that took place in New York overnight. It was an act of hatred on an unimaginable scale.