Quote:
Originally Posted by Davram
The logs indicated that several IPs not his own have signed onto his forum account - yours included. You're an unlikely person to make the case for his innocence.
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One thing I'm always very careful about when researching IPs for multiple users on this site is eliminating false positives from certain types of ISPs: dial ups such as AOL, satellites such as Hughesnet, and smaller regional ISPs that frequently recycle IP numbers between users.
It is very possible, and even likely, to find IP number matches for users that don't know each other and have never logged in from the same account. One IP number match between users is not reliable. What I supplement IP number matches here with is cookie matches, which are 100% reliable in showing that two different accounts have accessed from the same physical computer.
For example, I can run an IP search on Raacs, who is on Shawcable in Canada, and it will show 12 other users on this site who've accessed from the exact same full IP number. But from other things I can check, I also know none of those people are related in anyway. You have to be familiar with the ISPs involved and understand the technology involved before you can say with statistical certainty that you have a match between different people on the same IP number.
I'm just saying, if all you did was find a match of one IP used by two or more people who accessed your site, that doesn't necessarily prove anything without more. In general, I never accuse anyone of posting from multiple accounts - or in your case accessing from an IP used by another person - without more than just one IP match, unless it was a hardwired DSL IP number to a residential address, for example.