The discussion centers around enabling anonymous mode while addressing security concerns. nobodyfrm asks if administrators can identify the original user in case of spam or nonsense posts. HAWK suggests IP matching as a possible solution, but nobodyfrm raises concerns about users sharing the same public IP.
pfaffman advises against overpreparing for potential problems and suggests addressing issues as they arise. In contrast, RGJ provides a Data Explorer query to accurately retrieve the real user behind an anonymous post, stored in the database, rather than relying on IP addresses.
Hi,
we are considering enabling anonymous mode, but have security concerns.
Is it possible to find out the original user if someone spreads spam or other nonsense via anonymous mode, at least as an administrator?
It makes no sense to sanction the anonymous account.
Yes an admin can almost always find out who the anonymous poster is using IP matching.
What about users with the same public IP e.g. in the same apartment or school class? Is there a possibility to find out, who created the anonym Posts?
I think that’ll make it harder. You can delete stuff that’s bad, and if it happens much you can stop allowing anonymous. Do you have trouble weet people misbehaving now? If not, then you probably won’t have trouble giving them this ability. Don’t try to solve problems that you don’t have.
That information is stored in the database and you can use the following data explorer query to retrieve the real user behind a post. Using IP addresses to find the user is not accurate.
-- [params]
-- int :topic_id
-- int :post_number
SELECT u.id AS user_id, p.id AS post_id
FROM users u
LEFT JOIN anonymous_users ua ON ua.master_user_id = u.id
LEFT JOIN posts p ON ua.user_id = p.user_id
WHERE p.topic_id = :topic_id AND p.post_number = :post_number