I work for a school district near where I live. The district has been having many administrative problems in the last few years, causing me to start a website that acts as a "watchdog forum".

My question is this... does anyone know of any way that they (my employers) could find out that it is me who is doing this?

1. The domain name is registered to a watchdog group and a false address.
2. The site is hosted by a friend who I trust and they will not give out any info.
3. I do not send any email to anyone about it.
4. I have told NO ONE that I am the webmaster.

I got an email from someone saying that they know who I am and they no where I live. I think this is just a scare tactic, but is there a way they can track who is FTP'ing into the server to upload the pages? Does anyone have any other pointers for keeping anonymity?

I care enough about the kids that I am willing to lose my job over this, but I'd rather not if I don't have to.

The web host can track who is FTPing into the server, and from that IP track you down... but it is very unlikely that your employer would even attempt to find out this information. Even if (s)he did, the attempts would be in vain, because you say you have a friend that you can trust hosting the site.

It is also very unlikely that your employer would send you an email saying he knows who you are and knows where you live... I'd take that with a grain of salt, until this person produces anything that sounds like he/she might actually know you.

Personally, I think you're being a bit too worried. I'm not totally sure what you mean by a "watchdog forum", I'm assuming it is something that is discussing your district administration. If this is the case, I doubt your employers would go looking for something like this, and unless they were very techno-savvy and/or devoted a lot of time to finding out who was behind the board, it would be unlikely they would be able to find out your true identity.

Thanks for your response Brian.

Let me clarify a few things...

1. My forum is a place for district residents and employees to comment (anonymously) about things happening in the district. Many of the things being said are things that the administration does not want the public to know.

2. The administration DOES know about this forum and is NOT happy that it is out there.

3. They have been trying to figure out who is doing this. Luckily for me, most of them don't know much about the Internet - but there are a few people who do know about technology.

4. I'm not really scared, just curious to know if there is a way to track this stuff.

Thanks for all your help!

Watchdog

Someone knows your doing it or you wouldn't have got an e-mail saying they know who you are. What else could they have been referring to (hopefully your not having an affair).

Besides if it became public maybe you would be considered as doing good.

First, good for you. The overall state of education in our country is in sad state and I applaud anyone helping to make a difference. Just throwing more money at it won't solve all the problems, many of which are administrative.

That said, I mostly agree with what Brian said. The ways (I can think of) in which they could find out are:

1. You log in to the forum and post from school computers (they could compare server logs against posting time). Solution - don't!

2. Someone (like yur own kids, if you have any) has access to your personal computer and comes across email or information linking you to your forum. Solutions - get a separate computer for the kids and use password protection (not too easy a password) to gain access to yours, from bootup BIOS to logging in as a user.

3. You reply to an email (like the idiot one you got) that might reveal something about you. Sadly, some ISPs will do things like cc a copy of a complaint about spam to the spammer, so don't count on them much for security. Solution - don't reply to any messages like the one you got, and/or use an anonymous remailer for any replies.

4. A cracker captures a session or invades your server, and tracks you or discovers who you are. Solution - make sure the server support people pay attention to security (which should be done anyway), and never place any information on the site that refers to you in any way.

5. You use a local ISP and someone there, known to someone at the school, checks their records to track down the origin of the admin poster to the forum (you). Solution - switch to a larger, out of state ISP if this is the case.

6. You reveal something about yourself in posting. Solution - Don't ever reveal anything, not the name of your dog (if you have one), the breed, or even that you have a dog, or any other personal details about yourself.

7. You are seen or overheard talking to others from the school and act suspiciously. Solution - never act suspiciously and be careful where you meet and discuss matters.

8. You reveal something that only you and a very small group of others might know. Solution - be careful, especially about details.

9. You and your friend have a big fight, and your friend wants to get hurt you by revealing your identity. Solution - don't fight, treat your friends with respect, and don't thrreaten anything, even in the heat of discussion and disagreement (something we should all do anyway).

Generally, with a few simple precautions, you have nothing to worry about, though being aware of all the possibilities can help you avoid any pitfalls.

The email that you got was surely designed to scare you. It won't work without your cooperation. I would dismiss it as a prank from a crank.

[Edited by Duster on 10-17-2000 at 12:31 AM]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.
As I said, it is very, very unlikely that anyone on the district would be able to find out who you actually were. The only way that they could get this information would be:

1. If the forum displays your IP address
2. If someone from your employer contacted your host, and he told them who you were
3. The only other way your employer could find out your IP address (that I can think of) should be through the FTP logs.. and to get to those, they would have to hack in to the web host and trace the IP all the way back to you- a very unlikely possibility.

So as long as you watch what you say and are careful about not revealing any personal information via the forum, you should be OK :)

Brian

Another way someone might find out who you are would be if they were sniffing your server's ports, found your IP from an FTP session and then traced it back to you. Frankly though I don't think that is too likely as it would be a lot of trouble for something as petty as sending you that e-mail. It would also require the help of someone at your ISP to match the IP address to your account and home address. I don't think you are dealing with the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

In my opinion, school boards are worse than your average government bodies in that they are 1)politicians, 2)are arogant (we are educators and know more than you do about educating so don't tell us what to do, we'll tell you what to think instead) and 3) no one really knows who these people are so they keep voting for the incumbant (at least that's how it works where I live). Our school board is so arogant that they go and lose $10 million (vanished, unaccounted for, poof, gone) and now two years later they are asking for a referendum to raise our property taxes to pay for smaller class sizes (I generally support smaller class sizes but not after what this board has pulled). Anyways sorry for the rant. Keep up the good work and hold that board responsible for their actions.

The most obvious way I can think of is by checking the ownership of the domain name of the website.

If you registered the domain name in your name. Then a simple whois reveals who you are

later

David

If you used your own ISP when doing these updates and received an e-mail at your home ISP, (bad)luck is that someone found out your IP, reversed it to find your account info (it is sometime displayed). They then e-mailed you, but really have no ideas who you really are, all they have is the e-mail address. Unless the ISP is involved in this, there is no way that they can find more from an IP.

Second, the whois possibility has been mentionne d before and it is a real one. Basically follow all the tips here to make sure you are anonymous.

If you have any specific concerns or questions about any type of activities that might compromise your identity, just ask it here!

Well, a thing of good note to point out.

If you are using a local ISP and one of the School Board of Directors is buddy buddy with someone there and they told the person who emailed you who you are.....

Guess what.

You get to sue :).

There's a thing called privacy, I have to go through a long legal process and get a supena for this stupid ISP in Ohio to be able to get the info on a spammer so I can sue him for using my network and get my $1.00 per email addy in his 613,000+ Spam list.

So if they do give your information out without a supena then you can sue the crap out of them :).

If your isp was involved they might have violated their customer privacy policy.

I still think it is something really simple. I think most ISP's respect themselves with respect to customer privacy. I am not sure how a miscelleneous person would get that information out of an ISP (although you never know)

My two likely guesses would be
1. slip up in a post to the watch dog forum
2. whois on the domain name of the watch dog forum. All the info you need is there including an email address

later

David

WatchDog,

You already gave them your identity by posting on this forum. Watch out. (YOUR IP)

Take care,

Good point DH!

That's quite true. Of course, there's always anonymous surfing proxies like http://www.spaceproxy.com/

Originally posted by BC
That's quite true. Of course, there's always anonymous surfing proxies like http://www.spaceproxy.com/

Just a side point, this would not work, if the coding is on the cleint side, so anyone could detect what was happening and from where :)


WatchDog : Always remember to clear history and all temporary files of your system, once you are done posting.

I'm I missing something here.

From his IP address we can determine the general location using a traceroute ie school ... but how would we determine the exact identity?

later

David

David, I think DH was referring to the 'general' location anyway, not specifically the identity...

Thats what I thought.... but I just wanted to confirm ;)

I guess with coordination with a sysadmin at the location ... finding the actual computer would be the next easy step

then if there is only one user for that computer then we know who it is

pretty scary

Does anyone know of any other proxies other than spaceproxy?
(it doesn't work with my my.yahoo account :()

later

David

Well if they traced the IP back to school, they could determine which computer. Go through there logs, compare the time the post was made, go through there security camera tapes.
Thus get to the time the post was made on the security camera tape. They already know which computer, and wola, they the anonymous guy is no more anymous :)

Diyoha, we made the post at the same time!! exaclty the same time :)

Well you could try http://www.anonymizer.com

You're right, I have an IP address which traces to a university. However, that university is actually several hours away from where I live. I have no real ties to that university at all - I'm not a student and I don't work for them. All I have is this long-distance Internet connection - don't ask me to explain how I got it... long story.

In other words, I am not tied to the IP address you see here. True, someone's name is on the dial-up account I am using, but they can always deny any knowledge of its use. Someone can trace back to that school, but that school is clueless to my existance.

Question: How exactly did all the other people hear about the site? Just ran across it in a search engine or something?

Also, small note. Your writing style. People working for schools tend to pick up on who writes like what and words/phrases they commonly use. This isn't exactly something that's easy to avoid doing since writing in your own way is a habit and you tend to do it without picking up that things sound similar. Ok, now I'm going back to searching dogpile to see if I can find this neat site.

Hey Watchdog,

is the domain name for the website registered under your name? Or do you have any personal information attached to the name i.e. email address. If you do then that would be how you were found.

David

Diyoha,

The domain name is registered to the "watchdog" group. The address and phone numbers are ficticious (I know that is not good, but it was the only way to remain anonymous). The email listed is simply webmaster@watchdog-group.com.

So, there is no personally identifiable information on that record.

Thanks everyone for your help with this.

Watchdog

Justin,

Almost forgot about your question...

Question: How exactly did all the other people hear about the site? Just ran across it in a search engine or something?

A few select people (with an interest in the schools) heard about the site from an email. That email was sent over a public library computer using an email address from Netscape that had just been set up for that purpose. Ever since then, word has spread and the site has become amazingly popular.

The library computer I used was fairly secluded. There was no one around at the time and the library has no record of me using the computer. And no, there are no security cameras around the computers at this library.

With all that information, you are probably safe.

Most likely either someone is just playing a practical joke on you, or there was someone who was looking through your computer while you were away - saw what was going on, and are just trying to scare you.

You have taken enough precautions to conceal your identity, except for maybe some sparce security on your own end in safeguarding your own documents.

Just my 3 cents....

Or maybe one of the posters there have changed there mind abt the whole issue?? Well anyways, even if they trace everything back to you, you can always deny it all. Simple!

I guess there is always that!

So unless that are 100% certain it should buy some time

later

David