I often have discussions with people about how much The Huffington Post does or doesn't know about user identities. One issue that comes up a lot is does the Huffington Post ban you based on your IP address or some other way than your User ID? I came across a very useful little tool regarding IP addresses thanks to Nancy's input and wanted to post it here.
For starters whatismyip.com is a very useful site for seeing what your IP address is.
There is also a nice section of the whatismyip site that has advice for how to get a different IP address. Essentially booting your computer and router should do it but you can find more extensive tips here.
Another way Huffpo and other sites can track you is by leaving cookies. Cookies are the way sites store information about you so you don't have to re-enter it every time. If using Firefox you can delete Cookies by going to Firefox>Preferences>Privacy then click on "remove individual cookies". Then type in "huffingtonpost.com" and remove all the cookies from the Huffington Post. You can find and remove them using similar options in other browsers.
Notes:
1)I don't recommend removing cookies except as a last resort if you want to do everything possible to make sure the Huffington Post can't identify you. If you remove cookies you may have to re-enter things such as connections between your Huffpo and Facebook accounts.
2) In the past I was skeptical that Huffpo would actually ban people based on their IP address but I've come to realize i was wrong. They even say as much in their FAQ section and reports from various users confirm that this is the case. Sorry for doubting you.
3) There was a longer section originally here about using a tool called Tor which I copied from a comment left on this blog. It has been removed at the request of the author.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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Wonderful ideas! Thank you Red Dog.
ReplyDeleteA suggestion: How about posting about this website and the petition by starting a new Forum thread at the What's my IP discussion forum here: http://forum.whatismyip.com/index.php
I'll bet there are a lot of frustrated people banned from Huffpo who would sign the petition in a second!
Expose the Truth
Here's the What's my IP forum on "Getting Unbanned": http://forum.whatismyip.com/f6/
ReplyDeleteAnonymous thanks for the idea. However, I looked at that blog and it was pretty much free of political issues and things like petitions. Its very focused on technical issues and its also moderated and they have a pretty strong anti-spam declaration. I think they would view a comment and link to the petition as off topic at best and spam at worst. Even the general and misc. parts of the blog were still all technical issues. As always I encourage everyone to post the petition wherever they want so if you want to feel free, but my impression was that wouldn't be a great spot. I have been pasting it several places besides Huffpo though: Crooks and Liars, Daily Kos (several times), etc.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I updated the post above with some additional info from another anonymous about how to use Tor with Huffpo. I think the idea is overkill but wanted to put it out there for people who want to go the extra mile in terms of anonymity.
ReplyDeleteHi guys I knocked together a website
ReplyDeletehttp://huffpocensored.blogspot.com/
Thank you Red Dog Bear, and thank you Paul!
ReplyDeleteExpose the Truth