Forum Question

[Mijo]

Kori or anyone else with the knowledge,

Are there legal ramifications for someone, particularly a site admin, to post someone's IP address on an open forum? I saw it on another forum and I thought it was pretty out of line.

[ZStomp]

Mijo- o,

I've seen it done before so I don't think it's an issue in a legal sense anyway.

[CrazyOne]

did they post someone else's IP or was it the tool that shows you your own IP?

[boutons2]

Assume internet crimiinals are scanning all networks world-wide for IPs to compromise. They don't need to find published IPs.

But I think anyone, esp a site admin who has insider access to that info in the logs, publishing somebody's fixed IP is going to mostly malicious and bad faith.

[Marklar MM]

Pretty much every message board and a lot of online things will make a copy of your ip for the records. Most make them only viewable through a password protected log, or only on the forum to moderators and administrators so they can ban your ip.

[Mijo]

did they post someone else's IP or was it the tool that shows you your own IP?

They posted it. Looked to me like reprisal for pissing the site admin off.

[Shelly]

What happened to Boutons #1?

[pache100]

Some MSN forums used to have the IP address in the header on each post. It sure cut down on the bull (like trolls and imposters), but I think it caused some problems, too (like cyberstalking, etc.). When I first started posting on message boards,, about 10 years ago) I posted on the MSNUnderwire boards (news and politics) and they showed a LOT of info on the header that shocked me. Haven't seen anything like that in awhile, though...but I don't post on many message boards any more. Just here and some NASCAR boards.

[Kori Ellis]

Mijo, I don't think there's any legal ramifications at all as some here have said. But if some admin just posts your IP to expose you (showing to all the other users) and you haven't been doing anything wrong on their site, then that's just not cool. I have seen an admin do it on other forums too. Some people power trip too much.

[CrazyOne]

Some people power trip too much.

You don't say...