...by blocking the IP address he was using, how do I check if that IP belongs to a proxy? If so, how do I determine the range of addresses that proxy owns (in order to ban the entire proxy)?
Also, if the IP address isn't a proxy, and I banned the user for illegal activities, am I better off contacting the user's ISP, or attempting to find the user's physical address and contacting law enforcement in that county?
Lastly, if I'm ever asked to keep a copy of an offending post, how do I do so without people accusing me of being WTSnacks?
Hello and welcome to the internet. In our youthful naﾃｯvete, we often think there are things we can do about the internet. This, however, turns out not to be the case.
Have a nice internet.
> how do I check if that IP belongs to a proxy?
HTTP header X-Forwarded-For or open ports 80 or 8080
This isn't reliable, though, so you can't.
I'm no internet expert, but can't you DNS lookup the IP and at least check to see if it belongs to an ISP?
>>2
Despite abundance of clichﾃｩ lines that use "internet" as a punchline, you made me lol.
I want to accuse >>2 of being DQN, but I'm pretty sure that's the site owner, who obviously has forgotten more about running message boards than I currently know.
Seriously though, is that attitude because of indifference on the part of ISPs to allegations that such-and-such user is breaking the law with their service? Or does no one ever really attempt to invoke the 4chan party van?
It's impossible to prove anything on the internet, because there isn't any leftover evidence that isn't trivial to fake or illegal to keep.
The indifference exists at all levels. Partly because nobody has the resources to go after everyone who does something illegal on the net, least of all the police. You need to create a really huge disturbance, or piss off Big Copyright, before anyone will go after you.
> HTTP header X-Forwarded-For or open ports 80 or 8080
As you say, works only for the friendliest of the friendly proxies.
> I'm no internet expert, but can't you DNS lookup the IP and at least check to see if it belongs to an ISP?
Tells you nothing, because it could just be a zombie machine running an open proxy.
>I've heard there are lists of public available proxies out there. Many sites subscribe to these, banning any new IPs found in the list.
there are a number of clever tricks out there to detect proxy users.
browser fingerprinting is an excellent one, statistical methods involving ping response times, some funny javascript activities…