December 12, 2004

Help Wanted

Needed: someway to track down identity of viewer of blog via ISP.

Respond to: comment section below.

We'll call you if you fit the description.

Posted by Rae at December 12, 2004 05:44 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Not that I know a lot, but I believe the best you could do would be to use the IP to trace it back to the ISP. You can then usually send that info to abuse@isp.com (insert name of ISP) and have them look into it if it is one of their users (but the users would have to be violating their Terms of Service).

Another option, depending on your hosting company, is to just block the IP from being able to request the site from the server.

Posted by: andy at December 12, 2004 05:55 PM

Essentially, unless you have a very compelling legal reason to do so, you can't do what you want to do. That is, you could trace it back to an ISP, but the ISP is under no obligation to give you the information about who that person is--and even in the case of abuse, they won't give you the information without going through legal channels.

The reason for this is that they would be violating the person's privacy by providing you with that information--and they won't do that without a court order.

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but it is a pretty solid answer.

Posted by: zombyboy at December 12, 2004 06:29 PM

I thought it might not be possible. Thanks, Z. And thanks to you, too, Andy.

Posted by: Rae at December 12, 2004 10:56 PM

I presume that you have the IP address of the offender. If you need to find it, check your "referrer stats" tab on your blog.

Then go to the ARIN WHOIS database at http://ww2.arin.net/whois/

and you'll get your answer. Zombyboy may be right about requesting info from an ISP, but as Andy pointed out, you don't need to involve the ISP. Just ban the 'mo-fo.

If your blog-engine doesn't have these capabilities, dump it and get one that does, like Typepad (or any of the more advanced ones from Six Apart)

Posted by: Rivrdog at December 12, 2004 10:59 PM

Oooh, that was fun! It didn't give me a specific name, but it did solidfy who I think is coming to read over and over for malicious purposes.

Thanks, Rivrdog.

Posted by: Rae at December 12, 2004 11:51 PM
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