Not really anonymous…
I am a member of quite a few forums and on mostly all of them
I see the same pattern.
People going on with vehemence regarding someone else’s
views on sex, religion, child upbringing, technology and
whatnot. And when I see this, I can’t help to think
“Who is this person really?” and the second question “Does
that person really behave like this in real life?”
The answer of course, is no. It appears that just because
insults are flung over the net, they are considered by the
one throwing them, to be harmless. The same thing is the
trolls of the net. They throw in some outrageous comment
that is so up the walls that you cant help to laugh about it,
but still, some people take the bait and feed the trolls need
for attention and the cycle goes on.
Why does this occur? Well, my own belief in this, wich of course, isn’t a scientific fact in any way
and subject to change if proven wrong (take that all you messerschmidts of the net) is that
since no reference of the real person is given, they have the posibility to vomit all this
bile all over some other poor forum visitor without fear of repercussion.
Let me dispel you of that notion right away.
When you visit a site, ANY site, you leave a footprint in the log. Let me give you an example from
one of my own sites
Note that **Hidden URL** wich is something I edited.
95.108.158.241 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:32:17 +0100] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 404 358 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yan$
90.231.233.184 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:35:41 +0100] “GET /micke/main.php?g2_itemId=2205 HTTP/1.1” 404 362 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; $
90.206.125.249 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:37:55 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/in$
90.206.125.249 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:37:59 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/in$
180.191.49.15 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:46:35 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/ind$
180.191.49.15 – – [06/Mar/2011:08:46:39 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/ind$
193.47.80.48 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:10:30 +0100] “GET /?cat=5 HTTP/1.1” 304 – “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Exabot/3.0; +http://www.exabot.com/go$
67.195.111.172 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:21:06 +0100] “GET /danman/?m=201010 HTTP/1.0” 404 355 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://he$
66.249.72.47 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:22:48 +0100] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 404 358 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.goog$
66.249.72.47 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:22:49 +0100] “GET /~zutgorak/?p=474 HTTP/1.1” 404 11294 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://$
208.115.111.70 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:46:53 +0100] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 404 352 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Ezooms/1.0; ezooms.bot@gmail.$
114.79.62.3 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:47:15 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/index$
114.79.62.3 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:47:16 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/index$
114.79.62.3 – – [06/Mar/2011:09:47:19 +0100] “GET /gallery/albums/upload/thumb_close.jpg HTTP/1.1” 404 385 “http://**Hidden URL**/forum/index$
Now, neither of these lists very much in itself, but I can see the ipnumber, I can see wich site they
came from using a hyperlink and so on, and its fairly easy to deduce things from it.
This site that the log is taken doesnt really require you to log in, but If it did, I could match an the
login with various things and using geolocation and other tools, you could dig up a lot of information.
On top of that, if you have been careless and entered an e-mail adress in several places and
maybe even, god forbid, have your real name embedded in it, you can get quite far.
You want the ONLY real way to be anonymous on the web?
Simple.. dont be there.
