IP Address

[linkot]

Is it possible that an IP address varies slightly? If so, how do I determine the true IP address?
Thanks!

[webado]

Originally Posted by linkot

Is it possible that an IP address varies slightly? If so, how do I determine the true IP address?
Thanks!

True? it is true at the moment.

Yes, IP addresses may change slightly or a lot for the same visitor, depending on their ISP or whether they use an anonymizer service or not.

ISO's like AOL may change the ip address practically at each page access. That IP address is true at that moment.

Anonymizer services use proxy servers sometimes with several hops in order to cover up the true IP address of the user - which itself is dependent on the ISP. You can't do much about that, especially with regular "legal" tools.

[linkot]

Thanks Christina, I think

I doubt this person would have an anonymizer service ... highly unlikely.

The initial IP address where I nailer her with my site on her desktop ... has the same first two sets of numbers in the IP address ... only the last two sets have changed. Just now a third login with another variance
adsl-67-38-x-xxx.dsl.sfldmi.ameritech.net

All remains the same except the x's and they change. How can I ever block her IP address from accessing my website if I can't nail it down?

Linda

[webado]

Originally Posted by linkot

Thanks Christina, I think

I doubt this person would have an anonymizer service ... highly unlikely.

The initial IP address where I nailer her with my site on her desktop ... has the same first two sets of numbers in the IP address ... only the last two sets have changed. Just now a third login with another variance
adsl-67-38-x-xxx.dsl.sfldmi.ameritech.net

All remains the same except the x's and they change. How can I ever block her IP address from accessing my website if I can't nail it down?

Linda

You can't really. Unless you have access to a control panel (cpanel) on your hosting account and then you usually have tools to block ranges of ip addresses.

Statcounter doesn't block access, it only blocks logging of the hit. It also cannot yet block ranges of ip addresses.

[linkot]

Thanks again Christina ... it is easy to block an IP on a UNIX server by using an .htaccess file ... but I don't know how I would go about determining a range.

My site is hosted on a windows server and that is a situation that I have no control over ... hoping my host will help and they will know about blocking a range without blocking wanted visitors. This is getting too involved Maybe I should forget-about-it and live with it.
Linda

Originally Posted by chrisooc

You can't really. Unless you have access to a control panel (cpanel) on your hosting account and then you usually have tools to block ranges of ip addresses.

Statcounter doesn't block access, it only blocks logging of the hit. I also cannot yet block ranges of ip addresses.

[webado]

Well, the only thing to do is snoop around your hosting control panel and see if you don't in fact have a tool for blocking ip addresses - usually that would also allow ranges. I no longer have an account on any windows server so I can't go snoop around and see what's available. I do believe there was something.

[robinev]

Originally Posted by linkot

The initial IP address where I nailer her with my site on her desktop ... has the same first two sets of numbers in the IP address ... only the last two sets have changed. Just now a third login with another variance
adsl-67-38-x-xxx.dsl.sfldmi.ameritech.net

You're seeing IP addresses from an outfit that's part of the second-largest telco in the US. Ameritech (which is owned by SBC) serves millions of customers in the upper Midwest, including Chicago. If you were to block any range of the IPs that they use for their customers, you'd be far more likely to block unwitting Ameritech users without stopping the person you're looking for, especially since that person seems to be using a dial-up accout with Ameritech. (Dial-up accounts are sure to change with each log-in.)

The second form you detected is a dsl account from the same company. It's most likely a different person since very few dsl users would ever switch over to a dial-up account except in dire emergencies.

(By the way the "sfldmi" portion of that account identifies it as somewhere in Michigan. This would be unchanging if it were a dsl user you were lookiing for and the IP would probably stay the same for weeks or months at a time. Probably, but you can't count on it.)

[linkot]

Thanks ... actually both times it indicates dsl (no dialup) but variations on the last two groups of numbers. I think I'm going to forget about trying to block the IP ... I don't want to shoot myself in the foot trying to do so.

Does (Pppox Pool Rback6 Sfldmi) mean anything to you? This is out of Southfield, Michigan (nearby city to me). I too have SBC/Yahoo (Ameritech) DSL service.

Thanks, Linda

[robinev]

Originally Posted by linkot

Does (Pppox Pool Rback6 Sfldmi) mean anything to you?

Nope. It doesn't mean anything to me but would probably mean something to an SBC engineer. ("ppp" might be "point-to-point protocol" but I wouldn't know anything more even if I knew that's what it meant.) I notice those things on all SBC dsl visitors (including swbell and pacbell). sfldmi is the interesting part to me since it identifies the city better than the geolocation db used by StatCounter.

linkot wrote

The initial IP address where I nailer her with my site on her desktop

Are you trying to find a way to protect others from stealing your website? I had that problem and came accross HTML PROTECTOR. You can trial it free and I was impressed and ended up purchasing it for $29.95. It hides all the HTML source code. You can check it out at:
http://www.antssoft.com/download/htmlprotector.zip