[thelist] finding ip addresses

[Jon Haworth]

> foolish question for today - how do i then identify the user from an ip
> address... i've been to a whois service, found that the ip address refers
to
> a large isp (bt internet), but beyond that, i'm stuck...

BT Internet use dynamic IPs for most of their customers  - they charge
£11.75 (ICBW but it's probably around $15 US) per month for a static IP,
it's not a standard part of the service. I don't know anyone with a BT
Internet static IP, but I do know a few people who use DDNS for hosting
servers on their DSL lines - in my limited experience, no-one is happy
paying that much for a static IP when they're being drained so much for DSL
:-)

Chances are you will need to get in touch with abuse at btinternet.com and let
them know about it - they'll be able to get the user's number from their
logs, but I don't know if they'll release it to you without some sort of
court order/warrant. If they're received repeated abuse reports about that
user they might get the LARTs out, but they're a pretty naff ISP so I
wouldn't expect too much...

You could block the IP from your BBS, but as I said it's probably dynamic,
so that might not do the trick. You may end up blocking a range of IPs,
which will piss off any other users of your site who have IPs in the same
block :-(


Cheers
Jon