How do Ip bans work?

Caporegime
Joined
12 Mar 2004
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Location
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Someone told me that if someone say bans someones ip from a forum, and they have a dynamic address they can re-enter from the forum and no-one will know, but I know for a fact, that even if you change your ip address people can still tell who you are, how does that work?
 
Quite a lot of the time you will have a dynamic ip, this will change IP when you reconnect to your ISP

So say your IP is
155.262.26.00

It could change to
155.262.27.00

So if the forum ban
155.262.**.**
(* = WildCard)

Then they could be stopping other peoples internet connections, so forums usually ban the IP account you last logged onto because this is what most forum softwares work

This is because your ISP will usually give you a range of IP's for your households, because it is harder for them to give you a static IP. A Static IP never changes, this is usually what businesses will have.


Thats pretty much the basics of it.
 
Is ip banning the only way to premanently ban someone from a site? Or are there other ways to block someone? Could some sort of software be covertly placed onto someones pc which identifies someones account with a particular pc?
 
Last edited:
Energize said:
Is ip banning the only way to premanently ban someone from a site? Or are there other ways to block someone? Could some sort of software be covertly placed onto someones pc which identifies someones account with a particular pc?
Yes... a cookie.
 
I have found no real way to ban someone for good, if they want back in then they will get back in really, delete their cookies, re-boot the modem,sure you could IP ban them using a wildcard but then your probably banning genuine people as well that share the same ISP, if they have a static IP then its a bit easier but then they can use proxies and still get back in.

Best thing we did on our forum was disable registrations from free email addresses, that way people aint just using random hotmail etc accounts, they have to use a proper ISP based one, and you only get so many of them :)
 
Its almost impossible to ban people from forums via IP address, because its usually a http proxy ip, unless you ban that proxy or block that isp its impossible.
 
When I had a BT dynamic IP address the whole IP often changed, including the wildcard - No idea why, but I wasn't complaining :D

For some reason I have had a static IP address now from BT for about 2 years, I didn't ask for it either.
 
Energize said:
Other than a cookie though?
Assuming you have a decent firewall and AV software they are not going to be able to install software on your PC without your permission.

Technically they will either have to hack into your PC (illegal) or they will need to craft some kind of Active-X component and dump that into your web browser. Again permission is required for this as the browser's security should jump up and down.

If paranoid, install HijackThis and do a scan (can be found on www.majorgeeks.com)


Back on topic - if you have been banned from a forum, there is often a reason. Sit back and serve your time, or talk to the admins. If you really must get back on and post to that forum, then consider using an Internet cafe in town. Or installing a temp 0845 dial-up connection like UK2's. :)
 
Its not that its just that some forum were claiming to have some magic system which automatically bans multiple accounts without using an ip address.
 
Energize said:
Its not that its just that some forum were claiming to have some magic system which automatically bans multiple accounts without using an ip address.
Ahhh... that will be the "magic pixie dust" routines that they are using. :D

When you connect your web browser to someone's forum, there is not a huge amount of info they can get on you. Mainly info on what your browser is, your OS and your IP Address. Even this info can be fooled with proxies and "alternate" web browsers.

The guys hosting the forum are probally mainly relying on cookies and IP Addresses. Meaning a quick clean out of your cookies, and a loggoff and back on again is usually enough to avoid them.

A determined Forum Mod could probally analyse his logs and look for patterns which can also be used to block you.

I have seen discussions on some forums about how to deal with forum spammers, and the solutions don't really get any more elegant than blocking large chunks of IP Addresses and restricting which email hosts can make new accounts. (i.e. the "No Free EMail A/Cs" method mentioned above)

Best way to find out - take down the name of the board (i.e. OCUK use vBulletin), and go and look on the forums for that board (http://www.vbulletin.com/) as that will probally tell you everything you want to know. :)
 
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