Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 02:33:41 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: tech_info@threespace.com (Technical Information) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Chat) Subject: Re: tracking a computer via IP address Message-ID: <200002250233.TAA11369@usr02.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20000224003858.00bf99c0@mail.threespace.com> from "Technical Information" at Feb 24, 2000 12:43:27 AM
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> How can I locate a particular computer via an IP address? I have an IP > address for a computer, and I want to find out what computer it may be. Is > it possible to trace a computer with a non-fixed IP address such as one > that gets its address upon making a dialup connection? Give it a cookie, and ask for the cookie back. If the person on the computer has stupidly left his browser set to accept cookies, then you will recognize the computer when it comes back. If you are talking just in general, with no client participation, you can get the ethernet card address (MAC, not IP), IFF you are the next adjacent system/router in the network, but not otherwise. If you are talking dialup, you do it by recognizing the username and password as belonging to a particular person. These last two assume you can correlate ethernet card with PC (and that they are not using the ifconfig option to change their hardware address on you, or running DECNet, which sets the last part of it to the DECNet node identifier), or correlate a person with a PC. Basically, there's no reliable way to do what you're asking to do, if you want to identify a particular instance of a PC. If you could tell us why you wanted to do this, we could probably tell you some other way to accomplish it. If you genuinely want to identify a particular PC, then you are SOL. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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