Forum:Should IPs sign posts?

I'm aware that it's proper Wiki etiquette for registered contributors to sign their posts when leaving messages, but what about IP addresses? I've been curious about this for quite some time. A few months back, Nitrome Wiki had an "IP scare" where users began scoping other users' talk pages to remove signatures (ex. here) of anonymous contributors. There was a concern that an IP address could be traced to a location that could reveal a person's whereabouts, so all evidence of an IP signatures on talk pages is usually erased on Nitrome Wiki. 07:25, September 20, 2012 (UTC)


 * IP addresses are rarely accurate enough or consistent enough to give a reliable location. IPs should sign their posts. --Callofduty4 (talk) 07:33, September 20, 2012 (UTC)


 * IPs should sign their posts - it's still recorded in the page history revision, so there is no point in removing it from the current revision Any users who are concerned should simply register an account. It is very easy for anyone to obtain someone else's IP address regardless. -452 02:32, September 22, 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. As stated by Callofduty4 and 452, it is generally recommended that IPs sign their posts because - although it is recored in the page history - it makes things easier for the receiver of the message so they know whose talk page they should leave their reply on. On Message Walls, however, you don't need to sign; it is automatic.  Love and Lust  22:57, September 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, many if not most ISPs these days use dynamic IP allocation, so if the user is with such an ISP (as I am, I'm on Three UK), posting from there is the equivalent of phoning from a public call box; the post can be accurately traced back only as far as the ISP, not to an individual user thereof. -- RobertATfm (talk) 13:09, September 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * It's worth noting that your ISP keeps logs, so a court order could reveal your real details if there was a legitimate complaint, although this won't happen unless you do something that might be illegal. If you have an account, the court would also have to ask Wikia to reveal your IP details.
 * If you edit on Wikia in any way (comment, use a talk page, whatever) without logging in, your IP address will be revealed permanently - it doesn't matter that it's not on the talk page because people can see it on the history page and on Recent Changes. The suggested way of working around this is creating an account, which will make your contributions anonymous, with an account, only Wikia staff and Volunteers have access to this IP data, and the lookup of such data is logged and only used in certain circumstances (for instance, abuse of multiple accounts or cross-wiki spam or vandalism). --  Random Time  14:35, September 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * How is it possible then, that a user on Nitrome Wiki was able to trace an IP address to deliver the results of a street address the user lived on? 06:44, October 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * Dear Random-storykeeper, I would like to express my concern about your revealing of this event on a particular wiki. Perhaps it may have happened, but by quoting details, such as Nitrome Wiki, IP address, street address, "IP scare", history revisions et cetera it makes it easier for an individual to search for the event(s) in question. Everyone has the (read) right on Community Wiki. It would be unfortunate if, in addition to busybodies, this forum attracts the attention of evildoers who may in the future use this information here to their advantage.


 * In reply to your question: As stated above, many ISP allocate dynamic IPs to their subscribers. The user whose location was traced could have been using a static IP address. Another possibility is that the IP address is common to residents of the street, which made the user easier to track down. SQhi(talk)Ruby 07:13, October 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * I am very interested in the real answer to Random-storykeeper's question. If indeed it was possible for a user to "trace" an IP address to a street address, I would love to know how exactly they made fiction into reality. (edit: Narrowing it down to a neighborhood can sometimes be easy, but getting an exact address is something else. I just tested a bunch of IP geolocation lookups on my own IP address, and they are guessing I'm 30 minutes down the highway.)
 * I would offer some theories into how they really obtained the street address, but I don't have enough information on the subject. -452 21:42, October 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * SQhi - I know you are one of the editors of Nitrome Wiki, and are "concerned for the safety of the Wiki", but I felt it was necessary to ask such questions to see how other members outside of Nitrome Wiki dealt with situations such as this. I wanted to know if users on Nitrome Wiki were being paranoid about that one instance of the major issue, and if it is needed to "destroy all evidence" if a user accidentally forgets to log in.


 * If I didn't care, I would have revealed all usernames and restored deleted revisions of the user who chose to reveal their IP address openly. If IPs could really reveal that much information and harm, then why are unregistered contributors permitted to edit? 05:40, October 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not, so they are. I'm not aware of ANY residential IPs being traceable down to even the street level without assistance from an ISP. For example, if you look my IP address, 24.3.15.243, you will see an address listed, but it is for the office of the ISP. Even looking at where it originates, the city (Pittsburgh) is over 80 miles from where I live. Unless you live next door to your ISP (not entirely implausible for some DSL users, but still improbable), there is no danger of finding out where someone lives just by finding their IP address. Wikis have some of the most heated debates on the internet; if it was possible for someone to hunt down other users and injure them, you'd have heard it on the news by now. Registered users who link to a Facebook account with their real name are in far greater danger than anonymous users.I am not me (talk) 08:34, October 14, 2012 (UTC)


 * That's the security risk, I am not me. Because quite a number of registered account holders on Wikia has linked their profiles to their other accounts on other forums, networking sites et cetera, their wikia account is now linked to their online identity. This is where loopholes or methods to track down a person becomes dangerous. SQhi(talk)Ruby 10:06, October 14, 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) There's a point where a user's safety becomes their own responsibility. We can inform users who link their personal identities on their user profiles of the dangers of doing so, however, it is up to them. If they choose to ignore the warnings, then that becomes their issue to deal with. 00:43, October 15, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if somebody doesn't care about privacy, there's no need to stop them from doing so. I'd rather not link my profile to Facebook and the like (though I don't even use Facebook) but I wouldn't stop somebody else, if they are willing to take the risk. Cat (meow ∙ hunt) 01:20, October 15, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll say it doesn't matter if IPs sign posts because, they're anonymous anywway. Perhaps the real danger is when someone forgets to sign in and signs as an IP. In this case, a user may have unwittingly revealed his/her IP, which will be permanently stored on Wikia. SQhi&bull;(talk)Ruby 16:36, October 20, 2012 (UTC)


 * The point of anyone signing comments is so you can follow a conversation. If someone doesn't sign a comments, you don't immediately know whether the comment came from someone already in the conversation, or someone new. Not signing at all can cause confusion, and is pointless because the IP is still recorded in the history for all to see. -452 22:16, October 20, 2012 (UTC)


 * It's a lot easier to copy and paste an IP from the page onto a search engine to find the location than to check the history. The less easily your Ip is accesible, the less risk of danger online. Your location is always going to be at risk when editing as an IP, but making that info less accesible would help. The discussion can still be followed easily, and from responses, it is fairly easy. If the page was full with IP postings, it would be harder, although on most wikis, I don't think lots of IPs are active participants in forums. - Takeshi64 (talk) 21:17, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * "The discussion can still be followed easily, and from responses"
 * Incorrect. I post anonymously in the comments of many sites, and there have been many times I have posted a comment in an on-going conversation and it has been assumed I was same person as earlier. Additionally, if an IP user were to reply in this thread, there would be no immediate indication whether or not it was me forgetting to sign, or someone new.
 * I can think of one case where revealing your IP online would still be a bad idea: criminal activity. Although the police in general have historically not really been interested in pursuing leads based on IP addresses.
 * "The less easily your Ip is accesible, the less risk of danger online."
 * Yes, but there is virtually no danger, as it is not possible to find a street address from an IP. If this were 15 years ago, yes, there would be a danger of being "nuked" offline if your revealed your IP address, but in 2012, almost everyone accesses the internet through a router, so there is a very low chance that targeting your IP address would be fruitful, unless someone with a botnet decides they don't like you. Owning a facebook account is a much greater risk - and target - than an IP.
 * "Your location is always going to be at risk when editing as an IP"
 * Yes, but only your approximate location, such as the country and the nearest city. (and in many cases, such as comcast, a proxy nowhere near you)
 * Since you keep claiming there is a "danger" and a "risk", I want you to show it to me. I've edited here in the past from 110.175.150.220 - it's a static residential IP which has been the same for at least 2 years and is still active. I challenge anyone to tell me the street? The town? The nearest post office? - I doubt anyone will be able to guess within 100 miles of the location. (To save you wasting your time time, I've never discussed my location on wikia or anywhere else with this username, so you won't be able to find my current location, nor the location of that IP address any other way.)
 * I've given you an IP which you will be unable to trace, so please give me an example of an IP which can be traced, and specific instructions of how to trace it to a street address.
 * If the "risk" you keep talking about is real, then the onus is on you to prove it. -452 21:56, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * I should probably add that I realise that if you did guess the location, I could just lie and say it was wrong, but I want the risk to be real: it would be great if it were possible to trace IP addresses, however, I know that it is simply not possible. -452 22:11, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with all said, except a user on Nitrome Wiki managed to track down the exact street a user lived on by using his IP. (This was just a demonstration to hide your IP, not phishing. He removed it at request of the user.) I don't know what program/site he used, but from the sites I've seen that do it, they're accurate only down to a city. Even if it's only accurate to that degree, we can't take it for granted that all IPs will be comfortable with that. There will always be some user who is going to be worried about their location to the point that they won't want people seeing what city they live in. I wouldn't think it a great danger, but that doesn't mean everyone would. As for the program used to find the user's location down to his street, I'll try to ask the person who used it about it. - Takeshi64 (talk) 20:25, October 23, 2012 (UTC)

(reset indent) The person who was tracked down to there exact street was me, but, as you said, it was actually quite far away from where I actually lived, not on the exact street. --— NOBODY (talk) 23:02, October 25, 2012 (UTC)
 * Great news, thanks for the clarification! -452 23:22, October 25, 2012 (UTC)

I notice that the nitrome wikia has a blank MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning-notice. If you want to ensure anon users know their IP is being recorded, you should create a notice like they have on wikipedia. Note that Wikia wikis use MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning-notice instead of MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning. There currently appears to be a problem with not being able to view the notice after the first time it is displayed, I've reported the bug, but the notice does appear the first time you edit a page while logged out, so that should be enough to warn new users for now. -452 01:06, November 16, 2012 (UTC)