And lo On Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:48:35 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake thusly:

>>>>> (Mercifully, it's virtually impossible to determine who an IP  
>>>>> address belongs to...)
>>>>  Why would that be?
>>>
>>> ...because every minute of every hour, hundreds of thousands of people  
>>> connect to a given ISP and get assigned new IP addresses purely at  
>>> random?
>>  Except they know the telephone number you're connecting from, unless  
>> you hide it and then some won't let you connect.
>
> This still doesn't explain who the ISP is supposed to keep track of  
> several thousand computers all concurrently using their system.

Customer A from phone-line B is assigned IP C at Time D
Customer A from phone-line B with IP C logs off at Time D, IP C returned  
to pool

To put it another way you're charged per unit (normally megabyte) for  
information downloaded to your mobile, how does your telecom provider know  
that's you getting that data?

>> Check various communications laws, there's normally a bunch of provisos  
>> about providing information. How do you think the police get hold of  
>> telephone records?
>
> OK, so they give the *police* that information. They're not going to  
> give it to anybody else, are they? :-P

Oh no of course not, it's also not likely that the DVLA will hand out  
information to anyone who sets up a Parking Enforcement company and can  
fill in an online form.

>>> Again, how do they get their hands on cookies for a different domain?
>>  Check your stats pages you might see a referrer address so they know  
>> where you came from, they then track you through their site. Now look  
>> closely at the results google presents say for "test"
>>  The first result is "Test.com Web Based Testing Software" hover over  
>> it and it'll take you to www.test.com right? Wrong! Pull up the  
>> properties of the link and you'll see it's going to  
>>
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.test.com%2F&ei=Bag2S
>>  They know where you came from, what you were doing on their site, and  
>> where you left for.
>
> OK, so they know I came from Google. They still don't know what I  
> searched for. :-P

Referrer address = http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=   test    
&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr$3DcountryUK$7CcountryGB  
even features on some sites now with "[IP address] has landed on this site  
searching for [test]" even tries to resolve the IP Address to a place  
based on the ISP - used to have me as Brum now it thinks I'm in  
Cheltenham. And all that without the ISP logs ;-)

>>> (Also, what do you mean "sign up to Google"?)
>>  For personalised info on iGoogle, you got Gmail?
>
> ...wuh?

www.google.co.uk/ig

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message