Privacy/Security: How to change my IP address daily or weekly on DSL

Hi Dana, I'll give you a real life, albeit embarrassing, reason for changing a MAC address.

When I was in high school, a student made a lot of fun of my body. Said I was a "twiggy" (those old enough out there will know what that means).

Well, recently I was back home, and I saw her, and she looked positively huge. She must have doubled in weight. I wanted to get her back. So, I logged into NetZero from a blocked phone line, and I sent her a message calling her all sorts of names to get her back. I even said I was a "friend" of hers way back when but I thought she looked like a pig now.

Point is, I figured the only way they could track that email I sent her was through my MAC address since the IP address would have been registered to NetZero and the phone number I called from would have been blocked.

Isn't that a case where the MAC address change afforded me some privacy? Or did I give myself away even then?

Hi Dana, I think you are making my point for me (I think).

If I had the lease on an IP address for, say, the past three months, then you could find all my posts (no matter which pseudonym I chose) for that three-month period, simply by searching for one line in the nntp header.

If I had the same IP address for, say, six months, then I just doubled that vulnerable tracking period.

Likewise, if I held the lease only for a day, then you'd only be able to track my posts for one day.

Arent' you agreeing with me then on the need to change the IP address periodically for those of us whose ISP lists the IP address of our routers?

Hi Mark McIntyre,

Wanting privacy doesn't mean you're clinically paranoid. Are you saying everyone who closes the bathroom door is clinically paranoid? Or that they have a guilty conscience?

Are you implying that everyone who pulls the voting booth curtain shut has a guilty conscience (maybe they are a tax evader?).

And, everyone who licks an envelope shut has a guilty conscience?

I like you (and I appreciate your help) ... but I think you are stretching the situation to say that everyone who desires a modicum of privacy has a guilty conscience or is paranoid except you.

All I want to do is figure out a way to tell the router to wake up and dial into the DSL PPOE (or whatever it is) when I give it a command from the computer.

But if someone was to check on that IP address, they would find it belonged to your ISP. It would be one of many addresses in a block that your ISP was assigned. Unless of course you went out and had your own IP address assigned, which we know is not the case.

It is your ISP's address. Unless you go out and get a static address from your ISP, than yes that IP can be associated with you. But if you just use your cable modem like most everyone else, you are only being assigned an IP from your ISP, it is your ISP who will be identified with that address.

As a test go ahead and do a whois lookup. If you do not know what that is, do a google on whois.

Once you get to a whois lookup site, type in the IP address your computer was given by your ISP. Do an ipconfig /all at the command prompt. You will see that whois returns your ISP as being the owner of that IP address. Hence all your work of trying to change your IP is doing nothing for your privacy.

Just using your name in Google group search would show all your posts, would not even need your address.

And the only way to do that is by using a proxy server.

This will not protect your privacy one iota

Yes. As a test run a whois on the ip assigned to your computer right now. You will find that it is assigned to your ISP and your name will be no where to be found associated with that IP. Now if you do a graphical trace route on that IP, it may get you down to your town and that is about it.

Google search can do that just by typing in the name you post under.

The person would have never seen your MAC address, unless they got a court order for your ISP to show it to them. The only mac address a station will see, is the next station upstream.

So you are an abuser of the system, or else you would not have to change your pseudonym all the time. People who do that is the newsgroups are either spammers, or people just trying to disrupt the newsroup, or people who keep getting blocked by their other ISPs from posting to newsgroups.

No.

Hi Duane, I thank you for the suggested URLs which I read with interest. Please don't feel I am picking on you when I report the following information. You happen to list your NNTP posting host, as do I, so you are just easily tracked, that's all. YOUR NNTP POSTING HOST: 4.252.215.137 YOUR APPROXIMATE LOCATION: Chicago YOUR ASSUMED ISP: EarthLink Inc. in Colorado YOUR ASSUMED NEWSREADER: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869 YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft Windows XP (based on the above newsreader) You're a programmer by trade having started in 1971 as an IT employee. You write insurance applications, among other tasks since 1980. You've contracted with Maine, and Ohio, Minnesota, and Illinois on taxation software in the past, mostly on Microsoft platforms as you're not a friend of Linux. Your posts: many hundreds each of which supplies a bit of your personality

Not true. I go into my newsreader and change the name for each topic that I ask (I ask about once a month or so to solve a particularly vexing problem).

I never use the same name twice. I just randomly pick them.

Just like I pull the curtain shut when I dress in the dressing room, I enjoy my privacy even when I try on clothes.

The usenet analogy is I change my pseudonym even when I ask a question that can be seen by ten thousand people for ten years or more. I don't want one of these questions embarrassing me in the future, for example, with my kids (I post to more than just the technical groups).

I think you've agreed with me that the IP address is the only other factor that can easily trace me with a simple search.

Now the technical question really is how to force the router to do a PPOE dialup on command without having to unplug it and plug it back in. Is this the right newsgroup to ask that technical question?

Yes if that is your ISP. and if you change your computers mac address, they can track that as well. And unless there is somekind of court order, ISP's do not track or give out the surfing patterns of their users.

Not really, because the ISP still knows, and if required can be told to give out that information.

Hi Dana, Sorry to keep hammering on this but the question I asked was "didn't changing the MAC address add a modicum of privacy to my email"?

For example, if she had a packet sniffer or if she got a court order to track the email, wouldn't the MAC address have been a key component of the traceback?

And, if it was, wouldn't the bogus MAC address I provided have added an extra level of privacy to that traceback?

Yes or no is what I'd expect the answer to be.

Hi Dana, I do appreciate your help ... and this conversation will help many others ... but I must wonder why you instantly assume anyone who wants privacy is an "abuser of the system".

Am I an abuser of the system because I close the bathroom door? Am I an abuser of the system because I lick my envelopes shut? Am I an abuser of the system because I participate in anonymous surveys?

Of course not.

Please don't assume that a sincere desire to remain private is an automatic conviction for system abuse.

I have posted to many alt.personals groups, for example, and I don't want my kids to see them. Are you saying that I'm an abuser of the system because I don't post using my real name? Or that I don't use the same name for the personal posts vs the technical posts vs the work related posts?

Which of my actions above caused me to be condemned as an abuser of the system?

All I want to know is how to wake up the PPPOE part of the linksys router so that it dials back into the DSL ISP with my login and password so that I don't have to unplug the router to force it to do so.

No. There are other parts of the header that can be used to track you. As it is IP addresses are the most common item that people change, followed closely by their email address, and their posting name. Google groups search function makes it easy to track a poster. And if people really wanted they can run programs to search for your posts based on your language style. It would take time, but it can be done.

Doing that will not give you the privacy you think it would. It seems you have other reasons why you may want to hide yourself, kind of like what spammers, and mass mailers, and other unsavory people try to do.

Hi Dana, I must say, I both appreciate your help and I don't understand your answers.

May I ask again?

TEST: Assume this scenario:

- I change my MAC address to 00-00-00-00-00-00

- I dial into NetZero from a blocked telephone line

- I send a personal note to an old friend that I don't want easily tracked back to me

- I disconnect from NetZero

- I change my MAC address back to 00-24-43-55-F4-F8

QUESTION: Did changing the MAC address make it a wee bit harder for the big bad brother authorities to identify me should they so desire?

This should be a YES or NO kind of answer. I assume YES based on the fact that nothing in the IP packet header was true. But, you seem to be saying my original MAC address (which can be tracked back not only to the manufacturer of the PC but to the owner based on store records) is also appended to the packet.

Are you saying BOTH the original and the bogus MAC address are appended to the packets?

No.

Your ISP will always have whatever MAC address you use, hence if they were given a court order, they would have to give it up.

No, because your isp would know it is associated with your account, hence they would have to give that info out if there was a court order.

Hi Dana, Now we're getting somewhere useful!

Your answer is the kind of meat that gets us somewhere (as opposed to instantly and publically stating anyone who closes their front door, lowers their window shades at night, and at any time flushes the toilet is a despicable drug runner trying to hide their nasty drug habit).

WHAT else in my header gives away my privacy other than: IP address (changed daily), email address (spoofed), posting name (spoofed)

Here are my header lines (which of these give away details about me)? Path: Newsgroups: User-Agent: MIME-Version: Content-Type: Content-Transfer-Encoding: References: Message-ID: Lines: 28 NNTP-Posting-Host: X-Complaints-To: X-Trace: NNTP-Posting-Date: Organization: X-UserInfo1: Xref:

I presume the most important header line is the "X-UserInfo1" line. It seems to uniquely identify me.

Are you saying that, since the "X-UserInfo1" line uniquely identifies me, all other attempts at securing a modicum of privacy are for naught?

But you do not want privacy, you are trying to circumvent the system. For all we know is maybe you harass people on the newsgroups, hence filters were put in place against you, and you are trying to get around them.

It seems you may have different motives for masking your location

Nope. There are many different screen names running around the internet

Nope, again that is common practice

Your insistence on trying to hide you Mac address. Since you use DHCP your IP address is not important. Your Mac address is what identifies your computer. While people from the outside, except your ISP cannot see your MAC, the fact that you want to change it, indicates you may be up to something that forces you to want to hide. Just like what mass mailers, spammers, and phishers do.

And your friend has the mac address you changed via a court order. As the changed mac address still is associated with your account with net zero. It would be no different if you used a different computer to log into your netzero account.

No, because it is still associated with your account with net zero.