Difference between revisions of "Talk:833: Convincing"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(moar links to back me up)
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My IP address got logged when I was editing this page, since I got accidentally loged out in the proccess. May someone fix this? I feel nervous. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 18:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 
My IP address got logged when I was editing this page, since I got accidentally loged out in the proccess. May someone fix this? I feel nervous. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 18:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
  
:There is no way, short of going to a MySQL prompt and manually editing values, to change the logs that MediaWiki records. However, your IP address is not private information, nor does it personally identify you. It is merely a number in a block of IPs that your ISP pays money to use. An IP address is a temporarily assigned name that your computer uses to communicate with the Internet. Even if you were using a secure connection to a website, your IP address is still transmitted in the clear, otherwise the server could not reply to you. I know there's a lot of scare campaigns that make it sound like you need to protect your IP address like your Social Security Number (or other similar "unique" identifier your government uses to make sure you pay your taxes). If you really are scared that your IP is now "out in public" (which it always has been) unplug your modem long enough for the capacitors to drain (milliseconds probably) then plug it back in. It'll send out a DHCP request to your ISP and they'll give you a new number from their pool. But keep in mind, if you were really scared about someone finding your IP address you'd be using {{w|The Onion Router|Tor}} in the first place and you'd simply change your exit node. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]])  18:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
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:There is no way, short of going to a MySQL prompt and manually editing values, to change the logs that MediaWiki records. However, your IP address is not private information, nor does it personally identify you. It is merely a number in a block of IPs that your ISP pays money to use. An IP address is a temporarily assigned name that your computer uses to communicate with the Internet. Even if you were using a secure connection to a website, your IP address is still transmitted in the clear, otherwise the server could not reply to you. I know there's a lot of scare campaigns that make it sound like you need to protect your IP address like your Social Security Number (or other similar "unique" identifier your government uses to make sure you pay your taxes). If you really are scared that your IP is now "out in public" (which it always has been) unplug your modem long enough for the capacitors to drain (milliseconds probably) then plug it back in. It'll send out a DHCP request to your ISP and they'll give you a new number from their pool. But keep in mind, if you were really scared about someone finding your IP address you'd be using {{w|The Onion Router|Tor}} in the first place and you'd simply change your exit node.  
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:Links for your edification:
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:*https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/why-ip-addresses-alone-dont-identify-criminals
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:*https://www.eff.org/pages/tor-and-https
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:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]])  18:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Revision as of 18:26, 12 December 2012

My IP address got logged when I was editing this page, since I got accidentally loged out in the proccess. May someone fix this? I feel nervous. Greyson (talk) 18:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no way, short of going to a MySQL prompt and manually editing values, to change the logs that MediaWiki records. However, your IP address is not private information, nor does it personally identify you. It is merely a number in a block of IPs that your ISP pays money to use. An IP address is a temporarily assigned name that your computer uses to communicate with the Internet. Even if you were using a secure connection to a website, your IP address is still transmitted in the clear, otherwise the server could not reply to you. I know there's a lot of scare campaigns that make it sound like you need to protect your IP address like your Social Security Number (or other similar "unique" identifier your government uses to make sure you pay your taxes). If you really are scared that your IP is now "out in public" (which it always has been) unplug your modem long enough for the capacitors to drain (milliseconds probably) then plug it back in. It'll send out a DHCP request to your ISP and they'll give you a new number from their pool. But keep in mind, if you were really scared about someone finding your IP address you'd be using Tor in the first place and you'd simply change your exit node.
Links for your edification:
--lcarsos_a (talk) 18:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)