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How Do Forums And Websites Track Individual Users?

1.7K views 22 replies 12 participants last post by  Eric Reesor  
#1 ·
How can forums track the members that are banned? I understand they use IP addresses but if the user doesn't have a static IP then his IP will be changing. If you get rid of all their cookies, they will still know you. So there must be something else going on? Do they have hidden cookies? Do they know the MAC address of the user's modem? Do modems have a MAC address?
 
#4 ·
With most ISPs your IP address rarely changes. You’d have to turn your modem off for longer than the duration of the DHCP lease. Even then you will probably get the same IP because when the modem reboots if it sees the same DHCP server it will ask for the same IP address. If the server hasn’t reused it yet it will honour the request for the same IP. To see if your IP is banned use your phone with Wi-fi turned off and cellular data turned on. Your phone will get an IP from the cellular provider which will be different. If you can setup a new user on the forum with the phone then your home IP has been blocked.
 
#12 ·
There's tons of free wifi places around. Set up a laptop/tablet what ever at one of them in a different name than your own and don't use that one at your house/work. Don't use a cell phone and don't use anything like an e-mail addy that can be connected to you. Use the various free wifi's.....A&W, McD's, various malls etc., near and far.
 
#23 ·
They do it like they do it on sesame street. The Cookie Monster with help from the Count. When you go to a web site if you are not using a VPN that masks the chip ID of your device or you have not cheated by masking the chip ID's by running a virtual machine of the operating system that puts out fake data, then the type of operating system, the type of device and the unique chipset ID of your device are all available on line in the communication data. All communication devices like computers, cell phones, tablets use unique chipset identifiers so that the data exchange can go to the right place and users can instantly be identified upon starting a conversation. Cookies can store your user preferences machine identification and time of contact and certain parts of the history of your conversations, they are used so that you can go back to exactly where you were and the website, forum or other communication platform that you are communicating with can keep track of what the users preferences are.
Communication data tracking is a two edged sword it can enhance communications on a site or if the site is malicious attack site or porn site run by crooks and organised crime these methods can be used to keep track of millions of suckers at the same time. For sites like Amazon data and communications tracking is essential for making online sales work and speed up the process of keeping track of millions of purchases and sales.