competitor's IP address is an AOL one

[jcmoon]

We baited a competitor to land on a specific page, so we could get their IP address. That way, whenever that IP address visits our site, every page request is logged, and we can (if nothing else) see what they're up to.

But in this case, this competitor's IP address is AOL. The hostname looks like cache-mtc-****.proxy.aol.com (specific-looking bits starred out) and the user-agent contains AOL 9.0.

For our purpose here (watching their movements on our website), have we been foiled?

[jcmoon]

For the record, one email from them came from imo-***.mx.aol.com ...

[gregbo]

My guess is whoever it is that you're trying to catch is smart enough not to use addresses that are easy to track. You could try contacting AOL and see if they'll disclose the identity of the account holder.

[bobothecat]

We baited a competitor to land on a specific page, so we could get their IP address. That way, whenever that IP address visits our site, every page request is logged, and we can (if nothing else) see what they're up to.

AOL generally uses dynamic/proxy IP's... you're probably going to have a very difficult time tracking anyone, as one user visiting your site could easily come from several different IP address in one session.

Peter
(still stuck at 574 posts)

[larryn]

jcmoon,

AOL uses proxy servers, so you will always see different hosts for pretty much every request. Also AOL caches pages behind those servers if they tend to be popular. These techniques are not to thwart you, but instead to give AOL subscribers what AOL thinks the best service/respond for their customers. Also, dynamic proxies and caching are not limited to AOL, many other providers are adding such features as they net gets bigger and slower.

If you want the best tracking, for whatever purpose, I suggest you need to:

1) Look into using session cookies (to get past the multiple proxy issue) to track a specific visitor though thier visit to your site, or URL re-writing if you don't want to create a site cookie.

2) Use a cache defeating scheme on your page or a page element to get information on every hit.

Personally, I suggest using Apache's USER_TRACK module to create session cookies (you can do the same, but with a bit more work, in IIS; PHP might also be make it a bit easier), and I use a web 'bug' (a small do-not-cache GIF image with tracking information attached to the URL) to try and get information about cached pages, be they in the browser (think back button) or in AOL's cache.

Feel free to get back to me if you want more specific info.

Good Luck,

Larry

[thegypsy]

on a side note most BH/Script kiddies/hackers use cloaking and fake proxy anyways....

If it was a dufus great..but it may be impossible.