Would you recognize me?

Susan, I would recognize you even if your nickname were changed to something like mordor_kid18 or something like that :) glad you are back

Maybe. Perhaps you could PM the Flutherers you particularly wanted to know.

I’ve thought of changing my name to Dave – when I signed up, it was taken – but now I notice that user registered in October and never asked or answered a question. Could be a spambot for all I know…

I think I’d recognize you, but not right away. I agree with Marina about Pm’ing your friends here to let us know who you are if you do this.

Why would you want to hide?
Also, if you did change your name to hide your identity from people who know you, won’t it make you have to be more careful about what you post in your questions and answers? And won’t that become a bit of a hassle?

I think you should just be you :) and your kids should be proud of you!

I have trouble following people as it stands to be honest. Someone changes an avatar, that’s me confused for a week. Now admittedly I am very easily distracted, avatars and shiny things can completely mess up my day.

Don’t think I could handle anything as complicated as trying to figure out writing styles.

That’s alright, osullivanbr, we can just follow you….
<.<
>.>

Wha? Who’s that?

Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that…..just keep following them shiny things ;)

Wildfl. helped me figure this out. I’ll create a new identity at times when I need to ask Fluther a question I wouldn’t want to ask my kids. They’re excellent advisors but not always who I’d choose.
I agree with o’sullivanbr that it’s difficult to know writers from the way they write, with a couple of vivid exceptions. Just curious about this.

I can understand why you’d want a private user name, sometimes it’s nice to be able to hide and not have to explain yourself to people you know. The only problem with this, is now that you’ve asked this question they’ll know to keep a look up for an alias. The game would just be figuring out who the other you is.

As far as the question at hand, I’m still very new to this site so I cannot say if I would know you. But if I were cyber stalking my mother online, I’d know her anywhere regradless of her user name. Then again she just has one of those personalities that you cannot hide no matter how hard you try.

@susanc: Unless you started rite like pathfind, I id you write away. Yew have unik and suey generus stile.

Susan, I don’t know if I would recognize you or not, but I had a similar thought a few weeks ago. Still debating whether its worth it or not. In addition, with IP tracking, you won’t be completely anonymous, FYI.

Do any flutherers actually track others’ IP’s??.......I mean I’m interested in you lot and all, but that’s just a tad stalker-ish.

I think the way to go here is just carry on as you are. Now in the future, if you feel the need to ask a question like “Why is my son so gosh darn ugly?”, you might consider creating a new account for that one.

@All potential IP trackers: It is more than a tad stalkerish! Please don’t.

osullivanbr, that reminds me, haven’t seen much from fabulous lately….have there been any interesting Q’s posted about husband’s chasing shiny things in the last few days?

Well, let me clarify. Other users can’t track IPs, but the IPs of users are logged onto the Fluther servers. This is one way that the mods can identify spammers, trolls, and people who create multiple accounts to self-lurve.

self-lurve? Doesn’t that sound dirty?

I know what ad hominem (and ad hoc) means. But I just googled IP, clicked on the first hit and ouch not only did my very own number come up, but also a nice street map with my house flagged.

@Gail. It relatively straightforward to identify your own IP address. It is more difficult to identify someone else’s, particularly on a system such as this one. Only the mods and Fluther founders have access to that information (I hope).

You’d certainly have to find a way to get behind the scenes to get others’ IP’s. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious way to see connection information on users – other than when they last logged in – on the surface.

Would that be true also when the API becomes available? (Mock me not, techies, I admit to total ignorance in this area.)

I don’t think I would recognize you personally susanc, but I think I would some of the other Flutherites I’ve gotten to know. The more I talk to you, the more easily recognizable you’d become.

OK Let’s put this to the test so.

Who am I. Well? Answer me damn you!!!!
Hmm. I wonder.

Bloody collective

Susan? Zack?

Eh. no, wrong my dear man.
Question though. How did I get a cat type thing as an avatar?

Ah well.

It’s our beloved gail!!

I think the cat is automatically assigned to you. No?

@scamp I thought so too. The my dear man (unless it’s breedmitch). Oh, no.

OK look let’s make it a better test shall we.
I’ll spend the rest of the night and tomorrow answering question as asimpletest and we’ll see if it’s possible or not.

Deal? Deal!!

Okie dokie! I just added you to my fluther so I can track you. But now I am wondering if I was mistaken about you being gail, because she would never leave the (s) off of questions. hmmmm…..

It’s scary being new again. It’s weird. There’s people chatting away, and I just wanna scream out “acknowledge me”.

PupnTaco?

Nope.

“Not I,” said the fly.

Now we need to make a deal though. I don’t want anyone falling madly in love with asimpletest. She or he, or whatever is only around for a little while. Don’t want any broken hearts when it hangs up its username thing.

susanc, are you pulling a fast one on us??

As funny as it be for me to say yes and pretend I’m susan I’m not going to do it.

Imagine the damage it could do to her mental health when she saw it and started wondering if she had a split personality she never knew about.

At first I thought it was scamp..?

Are you posting just as asimpletest or as both personalities?

Not me, said the flea.

A simple test; are you deliberately changing your command of the language or your general style? If so, it’s not fair (insert whine here.)

Now that would be telling!!

Tee Hee. You called me a personality. I’ve been called worse.

Well, now we know it’s not gail, because she and asimpletest were both posting at the same time!

@gailcalled I’m doing my very best to carry on as normal.

Ok that helps because I had ruled out two people because I assumed you were only being asimpletest at first.

shrubbery? She is often cute and bubbly as well..
osullivanbr??

Gail is sneaky enough to type simultaneously from a home computer and an iPhone, I just know it!

breedmitch???

I don’t think gail has an iphone shi,

I wouldn’t recognize an iPhone if it came disguised as a Czech-Latin dictionary.

Now, unless asimpletest is being really cagy, which is certainly possible; here are some clues.

Anglicisms; “carry on”, “bloody,” “My dear man,” and “shall we” all point to an Isle across the pond. Spelling, punctuation, vocabulary indicate a careful writer?

Rchardhenry?

Chuck!

we now know asimpletest = man who is married. source

It’s a married man… Bulb, is that you??

my vote is on osullivanbr. in fact, i am pretty confident.

ooooohhh. AC.. possible. But AC is more sarcastic, not perky and bubbly.

Well I think we’ve collectively now named half the daily visitors. Should I say something as a hint? What I will say is this. I’ve been mentioned above.

If you’ve been mentioned then you should come clean. If we’ve guessed you the game is up.

i only said one name! tell me i am right brian!

shilolo?

Hmm.. I’ve never heard shi say “Tee Hee.”

i would recognize shilolo. that’s not his writing style. it’s brian!!

PnL is right.
Well done to you and Allie. So this kind of answers the question then. There’s no hiding from the eagle eyes of the collective. Oh and logging in and out all the time just sucks.

YES!!!!
I guessed you wayyyyy up there, Brian. <3

I guessed shilolo because the name was mentioned but not guessed above. Oh well.

That was fun. Good experiment!

YAY! what do me and allie get as a reward? ....this was a game with prizes right?

Y’know, the whole IP address thing is relatively easy to defeat.

I would never post this if I thought Zack was still around. But knowledge, it wants to be free.

1. Go to http://proxy.org.
2. Pick a proxy you like the look of.
3. Visit @gail’s personal spy: http://whatismyipaddress.com/
4. Note that it does not know where you are anymore.

IP blocking/tracking is a losing game. I’ve been nagging the Fluther gods to employ email verification for signup. It’s an extra step, not much work for one time, but a real pain if you intend to create multiple avatars in a short time.

You get a cake with frosting to share.

Do I get a crumb or two for guessing someone in the UK?

I’ll get you a nice cup cake.

Good way to pass the time; so much better than describing my favorite sandwich.

@Rob: Yoicks. That is scary, or is it? What if everyone does know my IP? What does that mean?

Another interesting thing that comes from this too is that it feels very very different as a new member (even if you’re only pretending).

@gail… the IP isn’t the scary thing. It’s simply like caller id. Or having your name published in the phone book.

No, the scary thing is that you cannot escape Google. Their ads are here… and just about any other for-profit site you come across. So Google is able to track you going from a to b to c to d all the live long day.

They can and do analyze that data to serve up ads targeted just for you… better advertising and all. But those records are immensely valuable and could be used to compile a very complete profile of who you are, where you are, what your income likely is, what kind of car you drive, what sort of house you’re in, whether you rent or own, what kind of movies you watch, what your work hours are, when you vacation, blah blah blah.

Interestingly, the IP-trackers that I used list my address as thirty miles north-east of Wichita.
You can all visit; I’ll be the fella in the patchy clothes in the middle of the field. Help yourselves to the corn!

@Rob: Medicare, AARP and the IRS already do that, I suspect. And they couldn’t find a more boring person to enmesh. Once, when I first learned how to use the computer, my brother taught me how to find the porn sites; once was enough. Seen one, seen ‘em all, is my motto. Google will find me driving a Sub. Forester, checking out most of the spoken languages in the world, checking out tomato worms and the difference between “which” and “that.”

Knot is really a secret agent man and in the witness protection program.

Fun little story about Google growing up to be Big Brother.

When I was an admin on a fourm I used to go to, we used ip trackers to watch the trolls. I had a really good one and I could zoom in on the roof of the person I was tracking. Showing a troll an arial view of their own house was a very good deternet.

@gail: In the flesh.

Knot; you really need to quit your day job and start writing full time. (RA was better as Mr. Bean, however. You looked similar iwriggling on your belly in the sagebrush.)

@knot has an iPhone, on which he iWriggles?!

I want some.

Yech! Typo. @Rob. you are on a roll tonight.

just for you, @gail!

Not to threadjack (much), but Rowan Atkinson is one of my favorite actors. In point- The Tall Guy, directed by Mel Smith, co-starring Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson (two more faves). Features the funniest sex scene ever, with an impressively nude Emma- for the first, and as far as I’m aware, the last time (?)

@Knot (or Node or Unit or whatever you are called in latin):I loved that scene and I loved that movie. See PM.

well do you think I’ve done a pretty good job of faking being Gail?

I think I’ve answered my own question, thanks all.

and Gail, sorry, I know it was kind of taking advantage.

Susan; truth or dare, it doesn’t matter. Imitation (said Oscar Wilde?) is the sincerest form of flattery. However, as Socrates himself was never able to answer correctly, “What is truth?”

I think the correct quote was “I drank what?”

I got here late, but I lurve that ya’ll thought it was me. That is something I’d do.

BTW, my guess was robmandu.

hey guys (thanks allie haha) quick question, what if two people use the same computer so it’s the same IP address right, but one of them is a troll and the other isn’t but the IP address gets blocked because of the troll?

@shrubbery, per my example, if both are IBM employees accessing Fluther from behind the proxy, then yes.

Or, more simply, roommates in the same house sharing a wireless router.

Okey doke… unlucky for the one that’s not a troll eh…

Or unlucky for the one that is a troll for when the other person smacks them upside the head for getting them both blocked!

@shrubbery On the forum I was on, we had a husband /wife team. The wife was as sweet as pie, but the husband was a total jerk. We talked to the wife and told her that although we thought she was great, we would have to ban the ip for the good of the board. She told him to knock it off, or he would spend many a night on the couch. He stopped, and we were able to continue our relationship with her.

Haha well that’s alright then! Glad that worked out.

Me too, because her hubby was a real pain!!