[Dxspider-support] Who command and IP addresses.

Dirk Koopman djk at tobit.co.uk
Mon Feb 4 22:02:12 GMT 2002


On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 20:53, Fred Allstadt wrote:
> Hello Dirk, and the group --
> 
> Had a user today send me an email.  He expressed some concern that his IP 
> address is displayed when issuing the WHO command.  Since the buzz in the 
> computer world lately has been security, he felt that this was 
> unnecessary.  Now, those of us on this list realize that we give our IP 
> address freely to the world every time we connect to the Internet, but this 
> seems like an easy thing to mask.
> 
> Would it be possible to add this to the 'To Do' list?  Basically, not to 
> display the user IP to users of the (0) level?  It still is good info for 
> sysop level users to have easily available (without having to look through 
> the logs).  Displaying the node IP at all levels I image would be OK.
> 

This is, at the moment, a gut reaction (and therefore, not definitive).

No.

Just right now, I can't quite see how it is a security risk, I would
like some more information on that before putting my size 11 down more
fully (one way or another).

I am wary of "secretly" recording IP addresses. For starters it may be
against UK law. Secondly, I want EVERYBODY to know that if you abuse the
system; if I am sufficiently motivated; I can (and as a group of people
are finding out) *will* track you down and point policemen in your
direction. In other words it is a (small) deterrent. There is the whole
business of Ham Radio's "transparency" (no codes and ciphers, using real
callsigns on the cluster etc etc. All the pressure on me right now is to
provide more and better methods to identify someone as being *really*
whom they sign on as. I believe, empirically, that it is not an accident
that the level of nasty abuse has dropped to virtually nothing since it
has become obvious that DXSpider records as much an audit trail as it
reasonably can. 

So, on balance, right now, I am minded to leave it as it is *and* if
necessary lose some users (and maybe nodes) over it (but I am open to
persuasion). There are no privacy issues here *at* *all*, because there
is literally *nothing* on any cluster, that I connect to, that is
private. It may be Personal, but it ain't Private.

Dirk G1TLH
 
-- 
Please Note: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the 
Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Product, It May Cease to 
Exist or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.





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