An interesting end to the Craigslist hoax story over the weekend that left an Oregon man minus his stuff: A couple named Brandon and Amber Herbert apparently placed the ad as a cover to a planned theft of two horse saddles. They placed the ad on Craigslist, which said that all the belongings were free for the taking at an abandoned house. They then joined in the mob that showed up for the goods.
Their IP address was tracked by police through information supplied by Craigslist.
It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.
Photo via The Raw Feed.
“It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.”
ROFL
CEO commenters should know better! A bit funny, and nice to see Michael calling some of you out. TechCrunch helps, but doesn’t make or break your company…you, the CEO and Founders do.
No one is immune to being tracked down, heck, even Google Analytics does this out of the box.
IP identifiers are standard on any server.
Scary (and dangerous) Craigslist scam btw, it’s comforting to see Craigslist and law enforcement actively pursuing these criminals.
“For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.”
So are you going to make shamecrunch.com ?
Where you expose them and shame them into publicly ala Valleywag?
Did you have the programmers create an automated tracking system plug in for wp ?
should read “shame them publicly”
Come to think of it, the plan, would’ve been cool had they not been caught with their IP. I mean, arrange a mob, then participate in the mob. Genius I say. As for CEOs using anonymous names ha ha I suspect a few from this thread… http://www.tech...hance/#comments
who cares……….another hoax online…woohoo
god this sounds all so petty.
this couple arranged a mob, to steal their stuff…as an alibi to steal a couple of horse saddles?
lol
“who cares……….another hoax online…woohoo”
This one is not a hoax my friend, it is in fact…FACT. Sorry for the Foxnews link, they were the only ones that didn’t have an April 1st dated story that I could find (quickly): http://www.foxn...,341089,00.html
Aren’t we lucky that idiots like this don’t understand they can be tracked when on the network.
Once that becomes common knowledge then the bar for law enforcement goes up
(
Cheers
Shane
@9, most real bad guys use at best web proxies such as proxified.com, browseatwork.com, ect… or at worst they own botnets with computing power equal to bluegene. It’s one thing to call up an ISP, it’s another to subpoena worldwide where some of them wipe out the logs daily as a feature.
I guess I’m a culprit (CEO of sniveling little start up) – I’d hope there’s was no harm in if you’ve got some stuff to say that’s relevant – it’s better than saying chris (radioshack) – but back to the point – scams on craigslist and ebay are a blight on the web – I think they should take more responsibility for what’s posted on their site – what about that girl answering the ad for a nannying job and wasn’t seen again?
9 times out of 10 the hoaxers get away with theft and so on – it’s rare when people as careless as these two get apprehended
“It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.”
Haha! Priceless.
They deserved it, stupid of them not thinking that they wouldn’t get tracked down.
-Michael B, Check out my site for ways to make money online http://www.mike...ub.blogspot.com
It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP. it is crazy
http://www.meta...ssfurniture.com
Dont people know how to use TOR ?
If you dont know how and are a CEO posting under a another name you are stupid and should ask your developers\staff what the hell TOR is .
Somebody I know came to me the other day and asked me if I could help him set up a blog but wanted to “protect” his identity – read hide his identity. I really did not want to know about what he wanted to do, but, I told him to contact somebody on the eastern block. And I could not help him with that.
There is no privacy guys!!
This is craig calling michael… come in michael
Michael, it looks like your summary of the article isn’t quite right. The article indicates that the couple stole the items several days prior THEN arranged the mob.
“Jackson County sheriff’s deputies arrested a Medford couple Monday and said the two stole horse saddles and other items from Robert Salisbury’s home.
Then, deputies said, the couple tried to cover up their theft by posting a notice on the Web site Craigslist that said Salisbury had to leave the state and his belongings were free for the taking.”
Which is a slightly smarter plan than showing up with the mob (and dozens of witnesses). Of course, they’re still enormous @$$holes.
Totally great observation about lack of awareness of IP addresses. I did some moderating in forums last year, which mostly involved removing ‘anonymous’ posts by large retailers.
One CEO first denied it, but then threatened to sue us for ‘breach of privacy’ when we explained how we knew it was him.
just embarrassing, i’d rather get the chair then have that embarrassing post on tech crunch with my picture.
was this stuff tracked by IP? the article mentions ‘computer files’ – that has nothing to do with IP addres.
what i want to know is, what was the exact investigative process used to get this information? did craigslist and the local ISP just give up these folks information voluntarily? was the Patriot Act used? something else?
“It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.”
Its probably true for most of the big company startups with CEO in a different office location than employee. But for a smaller startup with a cheaper T1 line with only one unique static IP, employee and CEO probably leave comments from the same office but from different computers, but the logs will show the same IP address obviously.
proxies are a secret
I think a more realistic example would be for a user to use a service like Facebook where he may reveal his real name and then come to Techcrunch to troll.
But passing personal information associated with the IP address behind the curtains between two services simply to identify the trollers would be a major privacy violation and would destroy the reputation of both Facebook and any other company that is involved in this type of personal information sharing.
This means most anonymous forums would have no way of getting the person’s real identity unless they resorted to some type of privacy violation. In case of criminal investigation, the law is on your side. There are no laws against trolling however, so if you are a forum admin and you are willing to support anonymous posting, be prepared to deal with anonymous posts that you don’t like.
What, you can track by IP address?
Those CEOs won’t know any better until such advanced topics are taught in business school.
Lame. I guess, people who know how to not expose their IP address do not steal saddles.
Don’t forget the possibility of multiple users on the same IP, such as in the case of many small companies (Router IP).
I got accused of trolling recently, after chatting to the owner of the site we determined it was a college of mine (My company uses one IP).
Just something to keep in mind…
Yea that’s one of the possibilities but still they can track the offender.
Blimey…hanging for Lambs not Sheep comes to mind.
Michael, excuse my potentially too european point of view:
Have these people lost their civil rights of protection of their identity because of the incident? Or is one to expect to be put in the public pillory with identifiable pictures on Techcrunch for committing a geek crime?
“It’s funny how few people understand how easy it is to track activity via IP address. For example, the startup CEOs who leave comments here under their real name, and then suddenly go trolling under an anonymous name, all under the same IP.”
Actually, this may not be happening. Many companies (like mine, 500 employees plus) have a single external-facing IP addr, and so while multiple people may be reading (and posting to) TC, they’ll all look like they’re from the same IP.
RE: anonymous CEOs = hysterical!
WRT startup CEO’s – just make things more transparent / open. To discourage bad behaviour. It would be great to see techcrunch publish ip addresses of people who comment.
WRT Proxies – most people know that IP addresses are not always unique to individuals. I for one would like to know when all employees from a company talk up or down a particular view point.
WRT people who will post from office, then go to the library to post and then go to their home to post – its still possible to post multiple times – but you have to work harder.
WRT spammers / hackers picking up live ip addresses for attacks use an image oriented mechanism to show the IP address or some other stronger obfuscation mechanism.
Next version of Google Maps will have IP address next to houses having internet connection!
Next version of Google Maps will show IP address next to houses having internet connection!
You would think they would be smart enough to use a library computer…-.-;
OK. So I’m posting this behind a public proxy (something a 10 year old can figure out how to do). I’m not committing any crime but I may be trolling. Sue me.
Steps to set up anonymous proxy server:
In your browser settings, configure the proxy to one of the IP addresses found on this page:
http://www.publ...roxyservers.com
Best,
John Smith
Hiding behind a pubic proxy isn’t always enough. It’s still possible to trace you.
That’s why you should learn to daisy chain your proxies so you can hide behind at least 3 or 4.
And add a VPN for good measure.
If you’re actually going to do something wrong that is.
What if the user has dynamic IP address? Like some DSL providers offer? And they don’t know?
Or, some advanced users uses services like youhide.com …
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You would think they would be smart enough to use a library computer…-.-;
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Or use the neighbor’s wireless connection which he forgot to secure it…
March 24th: http://www.foxn...,341089,00.html –> true
April 1st: http://www.tech...thieves-caught/ — false?
Happy April 1st
(little late)
–
http://hangouts.asia
this is only in Oregon but in Texas. I cannot get any help from the police dept. in Mesquite,Tx after tracing the thief that rip me off 2800.00. Even after tracing where he p/u the damn money at Walmart Neighborhood store. This is the guy that acts as a lady who has been divorce and needs money. But the car is at another location. If you have been rip of or see his ad. please call me at 682-559-0158 my is gilbert hernandez. I also, had a private investagator help me by tracing his email and name. Which fits his location close to the store. And his real email as well. ONE MORE INFO IT LOOKS LIKE HE WORKS AT A FINANCE COMPANY CALLED KPMG FROM THE EMAIL INFO.