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Hi there,
I was reading through the thread long hairs and gays and noticed that a guy called David made an unpleasant remark towards James, and Bill pointed out this guy was using different names. Out of curiosity I clicked on other posts by this user and saw my name appear as "possibly this user". I am curious as to how this happens, as it definitely is not me. I would never make such comments towards anyone!
Regards
Hi Pablo,
Don't worry in the least about this! The only reason the software shows that you are being listed as "possibly this user", is that there could be some similarity in IP addresses between you and this "David". (by the way, this particular "David" is NOT myself, it is not in me to EVER make a comment as offensive as the one this character made to James)
Every computer has a unique IP address, much like the civic address where you live. It is simply a coincidence that some digits in your IP address are similar to the guy who made the comments, this is what caused the "possibly this user" flag to be raised.
As I am not a computer expert, I am sure Bill or Scott could explain this much better than I could, but I just wanted to ease your fears for now.
Take care,
David
Actually, if you are behind a router (as I am), your computer will have the same IP address as every other computer behind the same router. The only difference, however, is that your computer will have an IP address for the router for use in a LAN (local area network). This IP will be of the form 192.168.x.y, 10.a.b.c, or 172.d.e.f, with a, b, c, e, f, x, and y as numbers between 0 and 255; and d between 16 and 31. Additionally, every computer has another IP address for access to itself (localhost). This IP is always 127.0.0.1.
This means that two people in the same school, for example, will appear on the internet as coming from the same computer.
Similar to phone numbers when you're on the phone, IP numbers are assigned to you when you're on the Internet. An IP number is a long string of digits run together in groups like 12.34.56.78, just like phone numbers are digits run together in groups like 415-555-1212.
In the example I gave, 12.34 would be like the area code (415) and 12.34.56 would be like the area code and exchange (415-555). These are shown in red and orange, respectively, in the report. An exact match of the entire number is shown in green.
The analogy to phone numbers is a loose one, since IP groupings do not correspond to phone area codes, or necessarily to geographical areas at all, but that analogy will give you the idea.
The reason we report the red and orange ones is that for some ISPs, they use a group of IP numbers and their users may rotate around inside an orange group or even inside a red group. By showing those as well as the green ones, you may be able to see more posts by the same guy. But you may also see someone else in his "IP neighborhood".
Bill
Don't worry about it. A better way of doing that would be by MAC addresses. It's more for SPAM/troll posts, IMO, and I don't feel we need that feature here anyway.
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Splat