Posting Anonymously

April 30, 2005 4:29 AM

I have encountered a website that records my IP address on my messages that I post for all to see every time I post. This makes me paranoid because I feel that even though most of the people on the board are cool; someone with malicious intent may try to use that information against me. How can I post to this board anonymously? And if I can't... is there a way to "mask" my IP address of fake another one in it's place? BTW, I am using Mac OS X TIGER (if that's any help).
posted by Livewire Confusion to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Tor.
posted by about_time at 4:38 AM on April 30, 2005

Or JAP?
posted by NekulturnY at 5:02 AM on April 30, 2005

Just to be certain, this isn't the case where you're reading someone else's signature file that includes an image of a little creature holding a sign up that reads "You are using IP address X.X.X.X with Firefox on Windows 2000!"

...right? Because that's only visible to you. It's just a little dynamic image serving trick, and is no reason to be concerned.

What would someone do with your IP address, anyway? Are you assigned a static IP address by your ISP?
posted by odinsdream at 8:29 AM on April 30, 2005

Just to expand on odinsdream's comment in case you don't understand, when you dial into your ISP (or when your DSL/cable box resync's) your computer receives a new dynamically assigned IP address. So one cure for your paranoia would be to just disconnect / reconnect frequently. Some broadband providers may give you the same IP address every time though, even though you haven't paid for static IP service.
posted by intermod at 8:56 AM on April 30, 2005

Open the Network pane of System Preferences and see what your Mac's own IP address is. If it's 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x (or a couple of others I forget right now), you're behind a NAT router which will act as a firewall, and any attempts to connect to your internet IP address will actually connect to the router, and do no harm.

(btw If you're on a modem connection, this isn't relevant)
posted by cillit bang at 9:28 AM on April 30, 2005

A follow-up on cillit bang's comment: a router will protect you from incoming connections to a pretty significant extent Depending on how the router is set up, though, it may forward certain ports to your computer, so you may not be entirely protected.

As a complete sidenote, http://www.pantz.org/networking/tcpip/privatereserved.shtml has a short breakdown of the private & reserved IP addresses.
posted by devilsbrigade at 9:36 AM on April 30, 2005

I'm hoping it's not wrong to piggyback a question here, but if the questioner used an anonymizer like JAP, can he still log in and POST to the site he's trying to use? It seems to me that he could read the forum, but not post.
posted by reflecked at 11:40 AM on April 30, 2005

I'm hoping it's not wrong to piggyback a question here, but if the questioner used an anonymizer like JAP, can he still log in and POST to the site he's trying to use? It seems to me that he could read the forum, but not post.

It depends on how well writen the software is. Just looking at JAP real quick it appears that you should be able to do everything you normally do; that includes reading and posting to forums. I suppose that as a webmaster you could still "trick" the browser into reporting its actual IP. For example, maybe I embed a Java applet of Flash component that calls home. Then most likely it will not go through JAP and thus not be anonymized.

And to reiterate what odinsdream said, those little signs are pretty pointless and don't mean anything. Here's one I created for AskMe:



Everyone sees their own IP, and no one can connect an IP to a username. Also, some software (like SMF) will show you your IP, but doesn't show it to other people (except administrators/moderators). So make sure you are truly seeing everyone elses, and not just your own.
posted by sbutler at 1:25 PM on April 30, 2005

JAP works and it's what I wanted. I can now truly surf anonymously. My IP comes up as being in Dresden. For all intensive purposes... "W00T"
posted by Livewire Confusion at 4:29 PM on April 30, 2005

Forgive me, but it's "intents and purposes"
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:57 PM on April 30, 2005

porpoises in tents?
posted by sad_otter at 9:18 PM on April 30, 2005