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General discussion

Tracing to a particular computer

Dec 7, 2003 11:18AM PST

I'm not trying to find out how, but just whether or not there is a way to trace an email or a post to a forum back to the originating computer? Thanks, Jerry

Discussion is locked

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Re:Tracing to a particular computer
Dec 7, 2003 11:36PM PST

"I'm not trying to find out how, but just whether or not there is a way to trace an email or a post to a forum back to the originating computer?"

It can be done. For instance, an email arrives at your machine. At the email server that you picked it up from, you would open its LOG FILE and see where that email can from. Next you for to that originating computer and look in LOG FILES there. Eventually you may find the source IP address of the machine that sent it and then you check who owns that address. If its some ISP like AOL, then they have LOG FILES that note what date/time and to who that IP address belonged to.

This forensic trail is possible to be done, but usually requires court orders and more.

Bob

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Thanks one more time, Bob
Dec 8, 2003 3:53AM PST

can I ask one more? Can a forum webmaster fix things so that images cannot be posted, and, if so, is that difficult thing for the webmaster to do?

What I am dealing with is a forum I participate in. Some poster has taken to inundating the forum with hard core images. I have just been wondering if the webmaster could identify that poster, and also if he could bar that poster from posting, and also if he could keep all images off the forum.

Thanks, grandpaw

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In regards to that. Absolutely.
Dec 8, 2003 4:16AM PST

But some web masters are not inclined to do such things or they are not sure how to control the postings.

Bob

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Depends on forum software
Nov 13, 2009 7:51AM PST

Most websites that run forums use a commercial or freely-available package that has mature feature sets, including the ability to deactivate users, ban users by IP address, etc. There are always ways around this though, so persistent troublemakers can find ways to still bother the community. Better yet, there are oftentimes options to control the posting of images. One good way this has been implemented is to not allow users to post images, until they have "earned" the ability by posting a minimum number of acceptable messages. There is also the feature of having images go into a moderation approval queue before appearing on the site.