As a webmaster, how can I investigate within the law, the identity and
source of ip addresses who malicously submit false card details, or
insulting or offensive postings to a site? How do you get round the ip
addresses that are used by multiple users?

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 22 Jan 2006 01:06 PST

Dear Nourbutblueskies, 

I'm afraid that in most cases, this is not something that you can do
on your own: it would require the cooperation of te ISP (assuming that
the offender hasn't used proxy IP). Would you like more details? If
so, could you please tell me the jurisdiction in which you operate?

In addition to collaborating with the ISP, you can find out the
location of the IP address by using the Yahoo Widget
(http://widgets.yahoo.com) called IP Locator. You can find that widget
in the gallery section of the Yahoo Widgets. This will give you a good
start on the source country of the IP. Further you can find more
details of the IP address by visiting website for American Registry
for IP numbers (www.arin.net) and querying the IP in question.

A single IP would never be used by multiple users. This will happen
only with ISPs servicing home networks. Once you have the IP address
you can find out the ISP from the above site and then can contact the
ISP to find the person(s) in question. Hope this helps.

"A single IP would never be used by multiple users"

Really? Except for people surfing from libraries, universities, and Internet cafes.