Warning. You Might Not Want to Accept PM's from NRITH

[Dave]

Several people received PM's from Not Right in the Head which had a jpg image which he has stored on a site that he apparently owns or has access to, as he was able to read the IP addresses of those that looked at his PM.

I don't have a problem with him, but he did this to me to see if I was posting here under another username. He seems like a good guy, but he has a need to keep track of people on here in a way that is ... unusual. I'll leave it at that.

He called what he did to me, a "trap". Fuck that. I don't answer a PM from someone I like so that they can trap me. It's completely wrong what he did. I use one username, but if I have 15 usernames that is none of his business.

I'm disappointed and angry after realizing what he did, and I don't feel I'm going out of line here to warn other members.

http://nrith.tibbetts.net/images/nrith_plate154.jpeg

This is the image URL he sent. It's a license plate. If you click on it he will be able to see your IP.

[J.J. Evans]

Collecting and storing ip information about other users is an explicit violation of this site's Terms of Use. Users who've received said PMs from NRITH should report them to a moderator.

By the way, NRITH, I'm in the projects in Chicago.

Ban 'em David T!

[Renia]

What in the flying hell...

=|
I swear to god, everyone here on Solo is either on crack, or just plain insane.


For the record, I'm just plain insane.

Either way, this is confusing and bizarre, so I'm just going to quietly sip my tea and listen to music.

[Not Right in the Head]

You're completely right, Dave, but calm down. It's not an "unusual" need to keep track of people; it was a joke.

Here's how it works, just so that nobody gets freaked out over this. I own a Web site. Because I own it, I can see its referrer logs--the IP addresses of everyone who accesses any file, existing or not, on it. This is what a sample log entry looks like:

72.189.151.250 - - [17/Apr/2008:22:45:50 -0400] "GET /images/whatever.jpeg HTTP/1.1" 200 22041 "http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=267 7991" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14"

This says that a user at IP address 72.189.151.250 tried to an image called "whatever.jpeg" on my site yesterday, and the page that contained the image was some MySpaz one. You can see that it also says what browser, operating system, etc., was used. EVERY WEB SITE YOU VISIT COLLECTS THIS INFORMATION. EVERY EMAIL YOU SEND ALSO CONTAINS INFORMATION LIKE THIS, AND MORE. The only way a site can collect more information than this is if you submit a Web form of any kind, such as the name and password you use to log in, etc. Obviously, nobody has submitted information like this to me, because I have no forms like this.

Ok, back to how this works. If I send user A a PM with an image named, say, "a.jpeg", and user B a PM with an image named "b.jpeg", and nobody else knows those image URLs, then I can see whether the same user accessed both. The "trap" is to check whether the same IP address accessed both pics. Ooooh.

The only thing at all sneaky about this is that I used uniquely-named images in those PMs. Merely by reading the PM, I can tell you've accessed the image (as opposed to giving you a uniquely-named link, which you may or may not click). There's no way around it unless you use something like the Firefox AdBlock plugin (or Firefox's built-in image-blocker) to block all images from *.tibbetts.net, or just have images turned off altogether. Go ahead; I don't care. I don't post any scintillating pictures; your life will not be less rich if you never see them.

So Dave, while I can understand that this seems rather shady & nefarious, I assure you that it was done in jest, and, as far as I know, violates exactly nothing in the site terms of service.* I would have preferred you to bring up things like this with me privately, but I suppose it doesn't really matter that you didn't. Everyone else uses Photobucket to host pics; I use my own Web site. I apologize for alarming you & the trolls, and you can be absolutely certain that I'm not using any of this information for any other reason.

As always, I'd be happy to explain more about this if anyone wants me to.

* Although, to be honest, I haven't checked. If I need to get banned because of this, fine. It's been a fun ride.

[Not Right in the Head]

Collecting and storing ip information about other users is an explicit violation of this site's Terms of Use. Users who've received said PMs from NRITH should report them to a moderator.

The TOS says thusly (under Section 6, Member Conduct:

You agree to not use the Service to:
....
* collect or store personal data about other users.

Are Web site referrer logs considered collecting & storing? Maybe, but every Web server in the world has logs turned on by default.

[Dave]

You did violate TOS. You sent us PM's through this website, containing a picture stored on your website. We didn't visit your website by choice. We visited this website by choice, and you used a "trap" to find out information that is none of your business.

I am not sure why I would be expected to deal with this privately. Some sort of respect for your privacy, maybe?

Thanks for admitting it though. Most people don't understand how these things work, and at least they know that I didn't dream this up.

Sorry, no more PM's though.

[Not Right in the Head]

You did violate TOS. You sent us PM's through this website, containing a picture stored on your website. We didn't visit your website by choice. We visited this website by choice, and you used a "trap" to find out information that is none of your business.

• Sending PMs does not violate TOS.
• Hosting pics on my Web site, then embedding those pic in my posts and PMs does not violate TOS. When I hotlink an image from a third-party site, like Photobucket, are you "visiting" that Web site against your will? Of course not. 99.99999% of the time, you (general you, not specific you) neither know nor care where the image is being hosted.
• Checking my Web site referrer logs to see whether two users have the same IP addresses is shady, as I admitted above, and which I tried to explain, however feebly, was a joke. There was absolutely nothing malicious about it, but you'll just have to take my word for that.

I am not sure why I would be expected to deal with this privately. Some sort of respect for your privacy, maybe?

Fair enough. I understand that you're upset with what I've done, and I apologize profusely. I won't do it again.

I've PMed davidt (ironic, I know) to point him to this thread and to deal with it as he will.

[mell]

aww I like NRitH, please don't ban him!

[Sir Alec]

You broke the rules. It might have been a joke, but it is pretty lame of you.

[Dave]

• Sending PMs does not violate TOS.
• Hosting pics on my Web site, then embedding those pic in my posts and PMs does not violate TOS. When I hotlink an image from a third-party site, like Photobucket, are you "visiting" that Web site against your will? Of course not. 99.99999% of the time, you (general you, not specific you) neither know nor care where the image is being hosted.
• Checking my Web site referrer logs to see whether two users have the same IP addresses is shady, as I admitted above, and which I tried to explain, however feebly, was a joke. There was absolutely nothing malicious about it, but you'll just have to take my word for that.

Fair enough. I understand that you're upset with what I've done, and I apologize profusely. I won't do it again.

I've PMed davidt (ironic, I know) to point him to this thread and to deal with it as he will.

Please don't play word games. You admitted exactly what you did.
No, sending PM's does not violate TOS.
No, hosting pics on your own server does not violate TOS.
Putting images in a PM so that you can see the IP of the person you sent it to is collecting information.
If you had set up a website and invited people to visit it, that would have been different. When I opened a PM from you, on this website, it was "a trap" collecting my IP. It is ironic about "private message" because I think the legal term is "expectation of privacy". When I open a private message, that's sort of what I expect.

Then you say that I shouldn't have told other users about it. That's how almost everybody feels when they are caught. They'd rather keep it private.

I don't think you meant anything malicious. I'm sure if you were out looking in windows instead of setting traps in PM's you wouldn't have bad intentions, but you'd still be making people feel annoyed, and less trusting.

The first PM you ever sent me was asking for personal information, and I made a joke and declined to answer your questions. You asked again, and I explained that personal details I've given on a Morrissey website, here and elsewhere, wound up being twisted and posted on the board. I have some good friends here that I trust, but I don't post my messenger name, email, or ebay seller name. I've had one lunatic threaten me and my family repeatedly on this site. Now, I don't think anything is ever going to come of it, and I don't place you in that category, but the point is that I protect my privacy and it's not up to you to decide what is a joke when you're doing something "shady".

On the one hand you're sorry, but on the other hand you say you did nothing wrong. Whatever. The only reason I'm going on about it is because your explanation of how you did nothing wrong (besides violate other people's privacy) is so lame.

[Norman!]

Hey! NRITH sent me one of those PMs with a license plate too.

I thought it meant he wanted to be my friend.

[Paris Hilton]

I got three PM's about NRITH this week wanting to know my real name. In the first one he accused me of being another user and there was a picture of a license plate. In another one he said he has his own server and so I guess that's where the image records your ip. I forwarded the image with the license plate to DavidT because I guess he should know what people are using his site for. I deleted the emails from my email account because I don't know if I open them whether they will track me as well. I'm changing my account settings and will only accept pm's from mods now.

I don't care if it was a joke or not and I think that's a lame defense. Using your server to track our ip is a invasion of privacy. Shame on you NRITH. And you only admitted this because somebody called you on it. What else have you done that we don't know? I hope you weren't serious about wanting to be a mod because based on this if you had mod privileges what would you do with my personal information then? And everybody elses?????

Hey! NRITH sent me one of those PMs with a license plate too.

I thought it meant he wanted to be my friend.

I'll be your friend, Chubby. Just as soon as you either go to Mexico or reach the age of consent in most states which is 18.

x x
xxx xxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxx
xx
x

If the people stare I really don't know and I really don't caaaaaare!

[cornelius blaze]

Checking my Web site referrer logs to see whether two users have the same IP addresses is shady, as I admitted above, and which I tried to explain, however feebly, was a joke. There was absolutely nothing malicious about it, but you'll just have to take my word for that.[/LIST]

Fair enough. I understand that you're upset with what I've done, and I apologize profusely. I won't do it again.
I've PMed davidt (ironic, I know) to point him to this thread and to deal with it as he will.

well done dave

[bogdana]

• Sending PMs does not violate TOS.
• Hosting pics on my Web site, then embedding those pic in my posts and PMs does not violate TOS. When I hotlink an image from a third-party site, like Photobucket, are you "visiting" that Web site against your will? Of course not. 99.99999% of the time, you (general you, not specific you) neither know nor care where the image is being hosted.
• Checking my Web site referrer logs to see whether two users have the same IP addresses is shady, as I admitted above, and which I tried to explain, however feebly, was a joke. There was absolutely nothing malicious about it, but you'll just have to take my word for that.

i've got the same set up on my blogs, and when i post on other sites i have a link that if people click on it, they end up at my blog, and I can see via my list on my blog who's been reading my commentary on other sites. I don't think this is really anything to be up in arms about. There are far more creepy dangerous people on here than normal but I'd put a ten spot down that NRitH is not someone of whom to be weary, unless he's cracked since a few nights ago, who knows

[bogdana]

NRitH is not crazy. I'm a firm believer in he who smelt it, dealt it

[nugz]

NRitH is not crazy. I'm a firm believer in he who smelt it, dealt it

oh no, NRiTH knows my IP address now. he's gonna come to my house and kill my dog. anyone but NRiTH. he's a crazy, insane maniac.

[bogdana]

oh no, NRiTH knows my IP address now. he's gonna come to my house and kill my dog. anyone but NRiTH. he's a crazy, insane maniac.

He is so crazy, that sometimes he plays crazy mind games with his beautiful children too. Like chutes and ladders

And sometimes he's so crazy he'll drive 45 whole minutes to another state to see a morrissey impostor and socialize like normal people do. COY, he!

[nugz]

He is so crazy, that sometimes he plays crazy mind games with his beautiful children too. Like chutes and ladders

And sometimes he's so crazy he'll drive 45 whole minutes to another state to see a morrissey impostor and socialize like normal people do. COY, he!

i've figured it ALL out. his wife. is a robot. makes perfect sense.

[cornelius blaze]

i've got the same set up on my blogs, and when i post on other sites i have a link that if people click on it, they end up at my blog, and I can see via my list on my blog who's been reading my commentary on other sites. I don't think this is really anything to be up in arms about. There are far more creepy dangerous people on here than normal but I'd put a ten spot down that NRitH is not someone of whom to be weary, unless he's cracked since a few nights ago, who knows

NRitH is not crazy. I'm a firm believer in he who smelt it, dealt it

oh no, NRiTH knows my IP address now. he's gonna come to my house and kill my dog. anyone but NRiTH. he's a crazy, insane maniac.

He is so crazy, that sometimes he plays crazy mind games with his beautiful children too. Like chutes and ladders

And sometimes he's so crazy he'll drive 45 whole minutes to another state to see a morrissey impostor and socialize like normal people do. COY, he!

Awwwwwwww how sweet

gotta love this loyalty

[bogdana]

i've figured it ALL out. his wife. is a robot. makes perfect sense.

and in order for her to survive (thus continue caring for the cyborg children), she must eat new IP addresses at least once a day. OF COURSE!!

Awwwwwwww how sweet

gotta love this loyalty

Don't be jealous baby we still gots room for yous in our heartses.