[oklahoma.crown]

I am the moderator of a message board. We have continually had slanderous posts from an AOL posters. I have banned them several times and just when I think they are done, they start posting again. At first it was against one individual, now it's almost with every thread. Is there a way to trace the IP address back to the poster without going to court for a subpeona?

Edited by oklahoma.crown, 09 September 2009 - 05:11 PM.

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Is there a way to trace the IP address back to the poster without going to court for a subpeona?

Yes. The forum admin should have access to the Admin Control Panel, where s/he can see all of the IPs a user ever used.

I think One of the forum admins here might want to confirm that. I'm pretty sure that's how they get IPs for IP banning.

A lot of relatively small forums/new websites/wikis get spam like that. It's really annoying, and we just have to deal with it Good luck!

[Chopin]

Is there a way to trace the IP address back to the poster without going to court for a subpeona?

Yes. The forum admin should have access to the Admin Control Panel, where s/he can see all of the IPs a user ever used.

I think One of the forum admins here might want to confirm that. I'm pretty sure that's how they get IPs for IP banning.

A lot of relatively small forums/new websites/wikis get spam like that. It's really annoying, and we just have to deal with it Good luck!

[Johanna]

I have a vBull, IPB and an SMF forum and all of them allow the admin to see IP addresses. Are you having problems with one individual or a group of AOL spammers? I am assuming that AOL is the email addy they are registering with? All the boards have "admin approve" functions, too, also in the ACP (admin control panel).
Johanna

[oklahoma.crown]

Yes, I can see the IP address for all posters. So I know the IP address and I do have the capability to ban them from posting. Is there a way to trace the IP back to their computer or email with only the IP address?

[Icaro Freire]

Why du u wanna to do this? retaliation? revenge?

[Johanna]

The best you're going to get is their ISPs, but you may be able to detect a pattern if you are getting randomly attacked (like Viagra ads are showing on your board) or if a single poster is trying to cause problems. If his ISP is small enough, you could probably just ban it too.
Johanna