One link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

MCH- my thoughts exactly.

I’m not gonna go there. I am so goddamned mad about this. How could you, Glenn?

I told you I saw this coming. I saw it. The frustrating, the anger, the dealing with idiots. You can’t let them bring you down.

Oh no, it’s not Glenn, Pinko.

Oh no no. It’s…some other person.

You can’t let them bring you down.

Wait a sec, Pinko. I thought it was Greenwad’s 5-member, sycophantic, Brazilian man-harem that was bringing him down.

Travis G. so strong, and smart, and everybody likes him.

Why thank you, Polly Prissypants, how nice of you.

That Big Worm guy gets me so hot!

I breathlessly await the revelation that all copies of his best-selling book were bought by himself. Can it be far behind?

It’s already been alleged over at ‘lil Patty’s place, ambigirl.

I breathlessly await the revelation that all copies of his best-selling book were bought by himself. Can it be far behind?

And that his real name is L. Ron Hubbard.

Ah, Phinn, might have thought I’d find you on this thread rather than on the “pwnage” thread you so mysteriously abandoned after I asked you about Greenwald’s book. I see you’ve dropped the ass-wipe theme and gone for teh gay. Nice move, though I’m disappointed you seem to have left off the use of your killer “ha!”

Oops, looks like I’ve blown my cover by using another computer and not checking the setting. Oh, well, might as well come clean. I’m not schitzophrenic, I just sometimes use psuedonyms. So, Conan = [XXXXXX]. Google away, Phinn, and tell us what you come up with! And don’t forget the “ha!”

[presto changeo! -the mgmt]

ambigirl said,
July 20, 2006 at 20:03
I breathlessly await the revelation that all copies of his best-selling book were bought by himself. Can it be far behind?

Big Worm said,
July 20, 2006 at 20:04
It’s already been alleged over at ‘lil Patty’s place, ambigirl.

Just like they say, the Right has utterly killed irony.

And other times I use pseudonyms. How demeaned of me.

Since the “ha!” bothers you that much, John, I will make a special point to use it to its greatest effect.

Gavin r00lz!

k1 p2 makes an ugly-ass skinny rib. Instead try(4 row, 12 st repeat):
k; *k2tog 2x, (yo, k1)4x, k2tog 2x*; p; k;

No, I like it Phinn! I only wish I could tell my readers when I’ve made a joke with a “ha!” like yours. Something keeps telling me to let the joke indicate itself. But I guess your usual readers can use the help.

okay. maybe someone can educate me, but do ip addresses really point a finger to ONE particular user? With my website (now defunct, but anyway), I was on a shared server, so I shared that address with more than one user. I think. I’m a big internet noob for the most part…hoping someone can straighten me out on that…

Wow, amazing find by Patterico. What with all the effort he devotes to patrolling liberal blog comment threads and defending J Goldstein’s c*ck-slapping, sister-molesting comments, it’s a wonder he was able to find the time to play Nancy Drew.

So is Gavin gonna come clear here, or have people smarter than me, which is to say just about everyone, already figured this out?

See, I’m not even smart enough to know the difference between “come clean” and “come clear”.

There’s a person who comments under one name, who seems actually to be another person. If that’s vague enough for the time being.

We don’t care about that sort of thing, usually, but there are extenuating circumstances.

ooooh did Patterico find a bunch of 127.0.0.1s belonging to “greenwald” et al?

[looks (extremely grudgingly) at post]…

oh (after using rwhois)… that’s funny or sad or something…

Wow, Patterico’s detective skills sure are amazing!

I think Travis is a big fat piece o’ crap!

The sheer number of gay jokes in the Patterico thread is very telling.

My goodness!

Could it be that we are soon to discover that the bulk of Patterico’s fan base somehow magically lives with him and shares his computer? And looks just like him, except for the evil-indicating pencil mustache?

Some days, I think I have the best life ever.

I don’t get it, either, Vladi G, but that’s nothing new. Internet meta-talk usually leaves me baffled. I can’t decide if Hugh “Juggs” Hewitt is supposed to have a point or if he himself has been pwned, as it were. (See? I get the lingo!!1!!one! Can I sit with you guys at lunch?)

I think the best solution would be to ignore Patterico, Ace and Hewitt altogether.

Can I sit with you guys at lunch?

Only if you lock a freshman in a locker and drink a chocolate milk laughed out of Brad’s nose.

Oh yeah, and don’t fall for the “elevator pass” thing…

Since 5000+ people are behind my proxy…nevermind.

Patterico, Ace and Hewitt? Fuck those lowlife 5-tooth-per-household grabastic pieces of amphibian shit!

I am not an IP address! I am a free man!

Hey, new contest idea!

I think the wingers need to hold a competition to see who can come up with the koolest gay/hanging/douche slogan for these kids to spraypaint on their artillery shells.

Then they could offer a prize to the blogger who came up with the first one to hit an American in his living room while he’s waiting to be airlifted out.

It’d be just like the pizza thing, only funnier!

It doesn’t surprise me one bit to find out that Glenn Greenwald is gay.

I visited his site today and, he tried to bugger me in the eyes with his inaccurate representations of the philosophical genius, Instapundit.

I wouldn’t have minded, but he didn’t even say please, he just had at it with giddy abandon. I’ve a good mind to look up his IP address.

The trolls! The trolls! Their logic hurts!!!!

If I were the angry yet rather obscure Patterico about now, I’d be aching for more of that sweet nectar of getting Hiltzik knocked off the Internet.

Question is, is “Patterico” falling into the Powerline Trap, of trying to replicate his greatest blogging success, to the point of obstinate idiocy or deception (how was the kerning on those Terri Schiavo talking points?)

Like Gavin, provided no-one else comes forward, I’m going to suspect that Patterico and Ace decided to falsify their server logs to impugn Greenwald. I don’t know what they’ve done to merit trust.

But damn, is “Ace” longwinded.

Hello? Is this thing on?

maryc scripsit:
okay. maybe someone can educate me, but do ip addresses really point a finger to ONE particular user? With my website (now defunct, but anyway), I was on a shared server, so I shared that address with more than one user. I think. I’m a big internet noob for the most part…hoping someone can straighten me out on that…

No, not necessarily. Your IP adress and your website server are two different things and don’t normally have much to do with each other. The IP is a unique, 12-digit number assigned to your computer when it connects to the internet. Depending on the specific setup of the internet connection, some computers always use the same IP number (static), while others vary within a given interval (dynamic).
If, however, your computer doesn’t connect directly to the internet, but through an other computer, using that as a gateway (a proxy server) it would use that “gateway computer’s” IP, as would any other computer connected through that same proxy, as MCH alluded to in his first comment.

So theoretically, it’s possible both for two computers to have the same IP, and for one computer to have a new IP every time it connects to the internet. But if two different personas show up at the same blog with the same IP, there’s at least reasonable cause to suspect sock-puppetry.

(I’m not particularly computer-savvy, either, so none of the above should be taken as the final gospel, but the general gist of it should be right)

I deny everything except setting the record!

Oh, and now that I’ve read Greenwald’s comments I should add that IPs of course points only to computers, not users.

Glenn Greenwald is gay? Really?

Do you have his number?

Bistroist,

You forgot the part about how the internet is made of tubes.

Rather interesting that Pattycakes Xlderrrr and the Ace of Sockpuppets have been silent as freshly fucked nuns hereabouts. The ol’ “three people can keep a secret if two are dead” thing, no doubt.

Screenshots prove nothing other than a basic understanding of Photoshop.

Really, unless the messages are posted within minutes of each other, an IP address doesn’t tell you jack shit. Ignoring the fact that sometimes people share a computer, ignoring the fact that VERY OFTEN several computers share an IP, home internet (which is I assume what Glenn’s using) VERY OFTEN uses dynamic IPs, which means that the only information Patterico has actually managed to extract with his crack investigative skills (man if he’s really a prosecutor I’m gonna go do some crime down in his neck of the woods. What the hell, not gonna go to jail for it) is that Glenn and the other people he names are on the same subnet, which means that at a minimum there are 256 different dsl lines (cable modems, whatever) that those messages could have been coming from, distributed over a wide geographical area.

Of course, as I’m sure P. Ricky’ll point out, if he ever gets over for being outed for projecting, he wasn’t trying to claim anything as fact, just make insinuations. Which, the right being the right, instantly take on the appearance of facts, get added to the enormous pile of non-factual facts already in use, and further divorce wingnuts from reality. That’s some sleuthin’.

There’s a person who comments under one name, who seems actually to be another person. If that’s vague enough for the time being.

Oh, that’s just Michelle Malkin’s long-suffering husband.

Gavin, don’t tease so. Who’s been playing sock-puppet over here from Right Blogistan? And is now (shockingly!) hypocritically whining about Greenwald?

On second thought, I just don’t know if I have the energy for another onslaught of trolls over here. So maybe you should just keep knitting…

I don’t understand none of this. That’s all.

While identical IP’s is not proof of anything, defenders of Greenwald with different names using the same IP as Greenwald and having roughly the same talking points looks pretty bad. Glenn also pretty much admitted someone in his house did it. May not be him, but embarrasing none the less. Sure would like to see a hypocrite outed though. That would be some fun.

If I were being attacked, especially by people who think “Faaaaaag!” is a reasonable debating style, I would certainly not be amazed that my housemates, including, you know, anybody in my house who might also be offended by the “Faaaaaaaag!” thing, would want to say something about it. They’d probably say something pretty similar to what I had to say, in fact, which in no way means they’re just using my “talking points”, but instead probably just have the same sort of view of the challenges our relationship has faced.

How is that somehow fraudulent? If your sister thinks the same way you do, there’s no rule that says only one of you gets to express an opinion in any given venue.

And, c’mon. Glenn has been lauded and applauded for months at least by prominent bloggers who have well-established online personas. So either he’s stupid enough to decide he needs *extra* agreement in the form of sock-puppetry, or he’s been spending a couple of years running dozens of blogs under other names just so he’d have those platforms to pretend to agree with himself.

I know we’ve talked about the logic thing and how the right wingers seem to be allergic to it, but, jeeez. Get a grip, folks. As they used to say in geometry class, show all your steps.

What would be really nice would be for Patty to dispute the factual content of the messages, from whatever IP, and then to talk about Greenwald’s book, you know, lawyer to lawyer. He sneers at GG’s legal skills by calling him “Constitutional scholar.” This seems to imply that he, Patterico, can tell who’s a good scholar and who isn’t. The way he can prove that is by talking about GG’s book, or about substantive legal issues on his blog.

I just attempted to trawl through some 400-plus comments over at Glenn’s blog. Feh.

I love you S, N! guys, I really do. Thank you for giving me something to look forward to 😉

I’m voting for the photoshopped evidence myself. I mean, look at the awesome photoshop goodness that is served to us here at S,N! Perhaps Patty Cake and his ilk are just trying to figure out how to use that amazing technology.

**Please note my IP as it may change with my next comment, but it’ll really still be me, unless I’m not, then you won’t know.**

pattycakes claims to be a lawyer? even though he is really a 13 year old girl? damn, she has some nerve.

I call dibs on Sifu for my team, be it techno-debate or just general rationality.

I call dibs on Sifu for my team, be it techno-debate or just general rationality. – kathleen

I wouldn’t be so quick to do that if I were you. First of all, it’s already been established that the posts were from the same IPs. If there were dynamic IPs at work the chances that all those commenters would have the same one is too remote to consider reasonable. Oh, and considering Greenwald has claimed that other people at his house in Brazil have made said posts, the information provided by this Situ character is pretty much worthless.

For it to be an Interwebz joke, shouldn’t it be “Knit one, PERL two, knit one, PERL two…”?

Bill,

1. “First of all, it’s already been established that the posts were from the same IPs. If there were dynamic IPs at work the chances that all those commenters would have the same one is too remote to consider reasonable.”

I have no idea what that means. “If there were dynamic IPs at work”: what? Who? Who’s work? Make sense some and we’ll talk.

Incidentally, if there are two people on the same (class c) subnet, and one comments, and then disconnects from the network, and the 2nd then connects to the network and comments, the probability is close to 1 that they will have the same IP address, because DHCP servers generally assign IP addresses sequentially. The more people connecting and disconnecting at a given time, the less likely this will be the case, but, given the precondition of the first person leaving the network, the chances are hardly “remote.”

2. Yes, it probably was somebody using the same LAN as Glenn Greenwald. He did suggest that was the case. This was not my point. My point was that “they used the same IP address!” is a pretty lousy standard of “proof” no matter how you cut it. It is an OK standard for wild conjecture, and this is the blogosphere, but it doesn’t prove shit. You’ll note that I mentioned TWO OTHER important considerations (proxies, shared computers), but took them as a given because EVEN IF those were true, it still doesn’t particularly mean anything.

3. Spell my title right. It’s “Sifu.” With an “f”.

Oh, and *why* is it that wingnuts think an effective way to attack people when commenting on leftblogistan blogs is to “accuse” them of being gay? Um, wingnuts? That is a non-issue with the vast majority of us. We. Don’t. Really. Care. One. Way. Or. The. Other. It’s you who have, as they say, issues with that. Duh!

I have no idea what that means. “If there were dynamic IPs at workâ€?: what? Who? Who’s work? Make sense some and we’ll talk. – SiFu

Dynamic IP means a different number is assigned with each connect (Dynamic IP at work). Your claim that the probability of different commenters having the same number on subsequent connects (4 or 5 times at least!) is close to 1 is pretty far fetched, unless you’re talking about a home network (I think that’s what you implied in your initial post). In that case the chances are indeed good that the same number will be assigned, which has already been established is the case
Given the facts we have, and had prior to your original post, this and the other information you gave, in particular that at a minimum there are 256 different dsl lines (cable modems, whatever) that those messages could have been coming from, distributed over a wide geographical area, is completely useless information.

Like Gentlewoman, I ploughed through the 400-odd comments in the thread of Glen’s post. Much of the logic being shown was of the Bellman form — “What I tell you three times is true”. People (or perhaps the same person under different noms-de-web) were repeating that “Greenwald has claimed that other people at his house in Brazil have made said posts”. Bill B, above, seems to accepted this assertion. Funny thing is, when you look back to Glen’s actual words, you cannot find him saying it.

Greenwald: IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address. In response to the personal attacks that have been oozing forth these last couple of weeks, others have left comments responding to them and correcting the factual inaccuracies, as have I. http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/07/response-to-right-wing-personal.html

That the IP in question originates in Brazil is shown here: http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=201.37.43.117&server=auto&_charset_=utf-8

Bill,

My point, really, was that “they had the same IP address,” in the absence of other corroborating information, tells you absolutely nothing. Even if you have four or five commenters with the same IP.

With that said, I will admit that the chance that 4 or 5 DSL customers drop and reconnect in the exact same order more than once is pretty goddamned far-fetched. And actually DSL was kind of a stupid example for me to use, because it usually (if you don’t have shitty service like I used to, which certainly could happen) stays conected.

With dialup it’s a different story.

In any case, I’m not trying to argue that it isn’t somewhat far-fetched in this case, but if you are trying to argue that two people are the same because they have the same IP address, it’s another layer of uncertainty added to an already very uncertain proposition The fact that Glenn Greenwald seems to have acknowledged the messages came from his house is irrelevant to whether P. Ricky &c. launched this smear with any actual proof of anything at their disposal. They did not.

How about this:

Patterico.

Petard.

Hoisted.

No assembly required.

At the rate people are putting words into Glen Greenwald’s mouth, his next book must be halfway finished already.

You know, the only thing Patty and the bunch have to go on is that a bunch of sycophantic comments came from the same IP as some “Glenn Greenwald” comments at Patty’s place. Do we know that was actually “Glenn Greenwald” leaving ANY of those particular comments in the first place? After all, the claim is that they’re dealing with a liar. Why are they choosing to believe him when he uses one name but not the rest? This could be a “Single White Female” kinda thing here, one sick-ophant who hasn’t used his real name once. Isn’t that more believable than this “Glenn occasionally doesn’t use a pseudonym” theory, where they have to cherry-pick what’s real and what isn’t to match their “proof”?

And if this is like SWF, who’s gonna get the high heel in the eye?

First of all, I applaud the right-wings commitment to ending sock-puppetry. I suggest they start here.

Second, I’m sure glad now I know that Glenn Greenwald is gay; if I didn’t know that, I’d think that he had made a number of good points about conservative hypocricy. But he’s gay. So there’s no way that can be true.

As Albert Ellis famously put it, “All humans are out of their goddamn minds, every single fucking one of them. Stop whining and get over it.”

When I add it all up the fact remains, Glenn Greenwald is cool. There are very few cool people in this world. That’s good enough for me.

it is amazing to me how much Greenwald is getting to the wingnuts. they haven’t devoted this much energy to something since the cable went down and they ran out of Pringles.

Gavvy, The Gavster, Total Gavination in the House, The Gav-Man in Effect: You gonna spill them there beans for us, babe? Or are you gonna darn yer darn socks?

Hmm… Patterico is… GARY RUPPERT!
Did I win?

Naah. Patterico is… ANNIEANGEL!!one!!! Sorry, Pinko.

Um all this DHCP stuff is beside the point.

There are several other (more likely) possibilities:

– Network Address Translation (NAT). eg. all email and web requests coming from MSN (Yahoo and many other ISP’s are similar) seem to come from the same small group of IP addresses. That’s because the ISP put’s their customers on a private network and *translates* the customers IP to the one belonging to one of the ISP’s servers.

– the complexity of the network. For example, “Ellison” has a gmail account and sent it from there. So why does it go through a Brazilian ISP who appears to have nothing to do with Google? Who knows, who cares. Maybe they’re selling some bandwidth.

– Proxy servers (already mentioned).

Similarity, or even identity of an IP address doesn’t mean a thing.

Oh and BTW – it’s pointless speculating about the behaviour of DHCP and how it allocates addresses. Address allocation is a *policy* that is set up in the DHCP server configuration. There are as many ways to do IP allocation as you want. Some ISP’s round-robin, some bind permanently to a MAC address (until they run out and have to invoke some strategy for dealing with congestion and perhaps bumping people by expiring leases).

You can tell virtually nothing from an IP address alone. [What you really need is the ability to spy on the ISP and network logs to establish both a link between the customer account and the IP address at a given point in time, and a chain through the network – something private citizens can’t readily do.]

Putz brought it up again.

http://instapundit.com/archives/031551.php

What a tool.