How lenient should we be to JohnL?

[sojourner]

In all this confusion I called a buddy of mine who calls himself The Geek Interpreter. His expertise is in computers, routers and satellite uplinks. I sent him the link to this thread because the whole thing just confuses me about IPs and the whatsits. He sent me an email with the info explaining about how they work written in lingo I can understand. Maybe this clears things up. I’ll paste what he said here.

John, I took a look at that forum and I can tell you that someone doesn’t understand IPs and their limitations. The claims there don’t really line up with how IP addresses work. Here’s an excerpt from an introduction to IPs, etc. in an article my team and I wrote. Hopefully it clears up how IPs, ISPs, and any other internet aspects function. This isn’t copyrighted so you can share it publicly.
____________
An IP address uniquely identifies a network interface on a network, serving as a digital locator for routing data packets. However, it does not directly identify the specific individual user or their precise physical location on its own. 

* Device Identification: An IP address acts like a return address for data, ensuring information is sent to the router. 
* User ID: Because many devices share a single public IP address via a router, the address identifies the connection point, not the person behind the screen. 
* Geographic location: The IP identifies the general area, like the city or country where the IP address is based.
* Device type: Sometimes, advanced tracking can reveal whether the device using the IP is a mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer, but it won’t provide the phone number associated with that mobile device.
* Limitations: While an IP address can reveal generalized geographic location (such as a city or ISP region), it does not provide a street address, phone number or personal identity without a subpoena served to the ISP provider.
* IP addresses alone do not give you access to phone numbers, specific computers or any other highly personal details about the user behind that IP. 
* It’s important to note that this is as far as public data goes. Even though there are websites that offer to trace IP addresses, they won’t provide specific details like the phone number, name, or address of the person using the IP. The more personal information, such as phone numbers, is only known by the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and they are legally bound by strict privacy laws to protect that information.

It appears that the computer you bought at that yard sale was used by the previous owner in your general IP location. That’s where someone is getting the wrong signal, pun intended.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Wow, this is written in lingo you understand? Seems quite complicated to me.
I am confident that there are plenty folks here that understand the tech end of it just fine.
What a convenient time to bring up a yard sale computer.That would have been useful information a few months ago. Now I find it suspicious. You now have me convinced that you really are MacPC.
Boy this facade can be stretched quite thin…

[Pelerin]

In all this confusion I called a buddy of mine who calls himself The Geek Interpreter. His expertise is in computers, routers and satellite uplinks. I sent him the link to this thread because the whole thing just confuses me about IPs and the whatsits. He sent me an email with the info explaining about how they work written in lingo I can understand. Maybe this clears things up. I’ll paste what he said here.

John, I took a look at that forum and I can tell you that someone doesn’t understand IPs and their limitations. The claims there don’t really line up with how IP addresses work. Here’s an excerpt from an introduction to IPs, etc. in an article my team and I wrote. Hopefully it clears up how IPs, ISPs, and any other internet aspects function. This isn’t copyrighted so you can share it publicly.
____________
An IP address uniquely identifies a network interface on a network, serving as a digital locator for routing data packets. However, it does not directly identify the specific individual user or their precise physical location on its own. 

* Device Identification: An IP address acts like a return address for data, ensuring information is sent to the router. 
* User ID: Because many devices share a single public IP address via a router, the address identifies the connection point, not the person behind the screen. 
* Geographic location: The IP identifies the general area, like the city or country where the IP address is based.
* Device type: Sometimes, advanced tracking can reveal whether the device using the IP is a mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer, but it won’t provide the phone number associated with that mobile device.
* Limitations: While an IP address can reveal generalized geographic location (such as a city or ISP region), it does not provide a street address, phone number or personal identity without a subpoena served to the ISP provider.
* IP addresses alone do not give you access to phone numbers, specific computers or any other highly personal details about the user behind that IP. 
* It’s important to note that this is as far as public data goes. Even though there are websites that offer to trace IP addresses, they won’t provide specific details like the phone number, name, or address of the person using the IP. The more personal information, such as phone numbers, is only known by the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and they are legally bound by strict privacy laws to protect that information.

It appears that the computer you bought at that yard sale was used by the previous owner in your general IP location. That’s where someone is getting the wrong signal, pun intended.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

(Sigh)

Your friend's doesn't understand IPs as well as he lets on (his team must have done most of the work). There's at least one other, much more obvious and likely explanation for why you might share an IP with Max that I would have thought would have occured to The Geek Interpreter first. I would have thought he would have at least mentioned the bespoke networking setup you and Max must have had for the laptop for his interpretation to be correct.

But even in his version of the world, I have to say it's quite a remarkable coincidence that you happened to live near Max at his passing and picked up Max's laptop, presumably at his estate sale, and then just a few months later stumbled across the very same small Mennonite web forum he used to post on frequently, posting with some of the same habits and mannerisms (the ones not part of the personalities).

I'm not entirely sure why you want to play a character. It obviously beyond just a private joke to amuse yourself since you are (and Max was) obviously invested in keeping the character going no matter how obvious it is that no one is buying it. (Presumably you've seen the poll at the top and noticed that as yet no one, not even you, has voted that they believe you are telling the truth about your identity.) But we don't need people playing characters. A good portion of what you post doesn't depend of being in-character anyway. So like I said:

Drop the facade. Post as you are.

[ken_sylvania]

In all this confusion I called a buddy of mine who calls himself The Geek Interpreter. His expertise is in computers, routers and satellite uplinks. I sent him the link to this thread because the whole thing just confuses me about IPs and the whatsits. He sent me an email with the info explaining about how they work written in lingo I can understand. Maybe this clears things up. I’ll paste what he said here.

John, I took a look at that forum and I can tell you that someone doesn’t understand IPs and their limitations. The claims there don’t really line up with how IP addresses work. Here’s an excerpt from an introduction to IPs, etc. in an article my team and I wrote. Hopefully it clears up how IPs, ISPs, and any other internet aspects function. This isn’t copyrighted so you can share it publicly.
____________
An IP address uniquely identifies a network interface on a network, serving as a digital locator for routing data packets. However, it does not directly identify the specific individual user or their precise physical location on its own. 

* Device Identification: An IP address acts like a return address for data, ensuring information is sent to the router. 
* User ID: Because many devices share a single public IP address via a router, the address identifies the connection point, not the person behind the screen. 
* Geographic location: The IP identifies the general area, like the city or country where the IP address is based.
* Device type: Sometimes, advanced tracking can reveal whether the device using the IP is a mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer, but it won’t provide the phone number associated with that mobile device.
* Limitations: While an IP address can reveal generalized geographic location (such as a city or ISP region), it does not provide a street address, phone number or personal identity without a subpoena served to the ISP provider.
* IP addresses alone do not give you access to phone numbers, specific computers or any other highly personal details about the user behind that IP. 
* It’s important to note that this is as far as public data goes. Even though there are websites that offer to trace IP addresses, they won’t provide specific details like the phone number, name, or address of the person using the IP. The more personal information, such as phone numbers, is only known by the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and they are legally bound by strict privacy laws to protect that information.

It appears that the computer you bought at that yard sale was used by the previous owner in your general IP location. That’s where someone is getting the wrong signal, pun intended.

Bwahaha!!!
What a bunch of baloney. Your guy might call himself the Geek Interpreter but if he thinks that you can buy a used computer at a yard sale, connect it to your internet router, and somehow get the same IP address the previous user had... he's nuts.

Remember,

User ID: Because many devices share a single public IP address via a router, the address identifies the connection point, not the person behind the screen. 

So a used computer isn't going to drag along a public IP address ....

[Bootstrap]

John, I took a look at that forum and I can tell you that someone doesn’t understand IPs and their limitations. The claims there don’t really line up with how IP addresses work. Here’s an excerpt from an introduction to IPs, etc. in an article my team and I wrote. Hopefully it clears up how IPs, ISPs, and any other internet aspects function. This isn’t copyrighted so you can share it publicly.

Where can I find a copy of this article? Can you tell me more about "my team"?

An IP address uniquely identifies a network interface on a network, serving as a digital locator for routing data packets. However, it does not directly identify the specific individual user or their precise physical location on its own. 

Strange that a general article on IP addresses would start with those two sentences. I would have expected some kind of introduction to IP addresses.

* Device Identification: An IP address acts like a return address for data, ensuring information is sent to the router. 
* User ID: Because many devices share a single public IP address via a router, the address identifies the connection point, not the person behind the screen. 
* Geographic location: The IP identifies the general area, like the city or country where the IP address is based.
* Device type: Sometimes, advanced tracking can reveal whether the device using the IP is a mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer, but it won’t provide the phone number associated with that mobile device.
* Limitations: While an IP address can reveal generalized geographic location (such as a city or ISP region), it does not provide a street address, phone number or personal identity without a subpoena served to the ISP provider.
* IP addresses alone do not give you access to phone numbers, specific computers or any other highly personal details about the user behind that IP. 
* It’s important to note that this is as far as public data goes. Even though there are websites that offer to trace IP addresses, they won’t provide specific details like the phone number, name, or address of the person using the IP. The more personal information, such as phone numbers, is only known by the ISP (Internet Service Provider), and they are legally bound by strict privacy laws to protect that information.

This is very strange in an article that claims to be a generic introduction to IP addresses. What's all this stuff about phone numbers, names, and street addresses in the very first part of an article on IP addresses? I agree that the IP address does not reveal these things. Is anyone claiming it does?

Network engineers don’t usually say an IP address is “based” somewhere. This is also odd: “advanced tracking can reveal whether the device using the IP is a mobile phone, laptop, or desktop computer” That’s a strange claim in an article supposedly about IP addresses. Device type is generally inferred from browser fingerprints, user agents, etc., not from the IP itself.

This looks rather like ChatGPT output, not a general article on IPs. It seems to be tailored to this particular dispute, uses ChatGPT formatting, and uses that ChatGPT voice. I agree that people in this thread are sometimes getting things wrong about IP addresses, but there are times you can identify patterns that are hard to explain as coincidence.

I think the moderators know that.

[Bootstrap]

It appears that the computer you bought at that yard sale was used by the previous owner in your general IP location. That’s where someone is getting the wrong signal, pun intended.

Wait, what?

Can someone spell this out for me? How is this supposed to work? You buy a laptop at a yard sale - just the laptop? Nobody has bothered erasing the hard disk, apparently.

And you then start using the same IP addresses as the original owner when you connect to the Internet? Can you say more about this? Take me from the used laptop to the shared IP addresses.

[barnhart]

This looks rather like ChatGPT output, not a general article on IPs. It seems to be tailored to this particular dispute, uses ChatGPT formatting, and uses that ChatGPT voice.

It looks like AI drivel to me.

[mike]

It appears that the computer you bought at that yard sale was used by the previous owner in your general IP location. That’s where someone is getting the wrong signal, pun intended.

Wait, what?

Can someone spell this out for me? How is this supposed to work? You buy a laptop at a yard sale - just the laptop? Nobody has bothered erasing the hard disk, apparently.

And you then start using the same IP addresses as the original owner when you connect to the Internet? Can you say more about this? Take me from the used laptop to the shared IP addresses.

Not only that, but the laptop was clearly not password protected, and JohnL was able to log in and access the previous user's personal information including browser shortcuts, and used all of that information to find the same internet forum, mennonet.com, and for some reason start prolifically posting there just like the previous owner.

It just isn't believable.

[JohnH]

From what I hear in some Anabaptists “as long as the Bishop doesn’t find out”. I think really there is more deception & lying in the circles than one cares to admit, this was told to me so I’d take off my rose colored glasses-

Valerie, in my church, we both hear from the pulpit and it is taught at home that God sees everything, and it doesn't matter if men don't find out or the church or ministers don't know - we will be judged by God himself.

Intentional lying is taught as a very serious sin - one that will keep us out of heaven.

A brother was expelled for the exact sin a few years ago, but it was a joyous time when he repented (he repented as part of confessing his sin, but had to be expelled for a time because of the duration of time of the lying) and was reaccepted into church fellowship.

The intentional lying was that he created a fake social medial profile online and had been conducting it for several years.

[Wesleyb]

This fiction about IP addresses illustrates my concern about letting an account like this continue posting. Some of us have experience with network technology and see it for what it is and maybe even find it entertaining. Others might read it and think it sounds plausible. Those who know the truth should expose it, and I think that has been done, but how many times does this need to happen?

[Bootstrap]

This fiction about IP addresses illustrates my concern about letting an account like this continue posting. Some of us have experience with network technology and see it for what it is and maybe even find it entertaining. Others might read it and think it sounds plausible. Those who know the truth should expose it, and I think that has been done, but how many times does this need to happen?

And each lie gets covered up by another lie, and on and on. There's always a new lie. And there are always people who are convinced by the old one and irritated at the people who expose the lies. Or who think we simply shouldn't be so rude as to tell the truth.

It's like the alcoholic aunt in a family where you aren't supposed to question what she is drinking out of her teacup, most people probably know, others would be shocked to find out, and the whole family revolves around that lie in strange ways.