so i was checking out my web site today to see what people had said in my guest book and there was a new comment. seems someone took offence by something that i said on my web site. they then took to thrashing me about it and then left. i guess they didn’t see the warning sign on the main page or even the comment on the journal page about being offended easily. to top it off, the person didn’t even have the self respect to back up their comment by giving a name or an email. when someone signs my guest book without entering a name for themselves it automagically gives them a name of anonymous coward. this person purposely did not enter a name or an email address, just a shallow message.


so why do i care? well like all things that come from anonymous people, i don’t. in one ear out the other. yet something settles in and makes me uncomfortable. when other people visit my site they could get the wrong impression after reading this message. so i feel that i need to say something.


first the vent, you ready for this …. breath .. and … go. little does this person know that i am an engineer, either that or they neglected to think that mattered. well i have a few resources up my sleeve. so lets begin shall we. i went to my site, looked and the logs, and saw that only one person accessed my web site at that time that night and low and behold, they visited the guest book and made an entry. so what right? well no, a little bit of detective work showed me a few things.


first the person entered my site from directly typing in my address in their web browser, not from a link. i also know that they entered from the ip addresses 24.4.252.128 and 24.4.252.129. doing a simple tracert at a dos command line told me that they actually were accessing me from proxy1-external.rdc1.mi.home.com and proxy2-external.rdc1.mi.home.com which are @home network proxy servers in michigan. if it wasn’t 2 people surfing the site on 2 different machines then it was one person being redirected from one proxy server to another mid query. i know this because the query goes from one server to the other within 1 second while constructing the main page. since these servers are regional i know that this person(s) has to be from michigan and they are accessing the web through the default @home network web browser, version 4.5 on windows 95. i know this because those browsers are set to go through the proxy server by default. i also know a few more things, they first accessed my site from typing my url directly into the @home networks location bar. this is not the netscape address bar, but a custom form that redirects via a script to the url that was entered. i know this because of the first line in the log file i am attaching below.


so do i know anything else? of course i do. i know that very few people outside of friends and family know the url to my web site. i have posted it on message boards but almost always as a link, not spelling the url out. i also know what pages the person visited, here is a list:


/index.shtml

/main.shtml

/mind/index.shtml

/mind/2000.02.28.shtml

/mind/2000.03.03.shtml

/mind/2000.03.05.shtml

/etc/index.shtml

/etc/allguests.shtml

/etc/guestbook.shtml **

/body/index.shtml

/body/thank.shtml

/venting/index.shtml

/soul/index.shtml

/whoami/index.shtml

/resume/index.shtml

/resume/standard-resume.shtml


that is also the order they viewed those pages in as well. you can see that they judged my entire site, the people i thank, my life change, and the people i love after viewing 8 pages and 3 journals. they spent 10 minutes before they judged me. in all they spent 24 minutes surfing my site.


so does that sound fair? to judge someone without getting the whole picture? before you know that my loved ones use this site to know what i am up to in life. for my friends to see what i am doing and what i am thinking. for others trying to make life changes to get inspiration or guidance. no, they didn’t care about these things, all they cared about was their view on my 3 journal entries. doesn’t exactly sounds like the person even thought about anything, they just react like most people do. i can hear them now “who cares about the others, its all about me me me”. not exactly a person i want to call a friend.


so i bet your asking now if i know who it is? well i only have 2 friends from michigan on the @home network, they do live together, and their computers are in the same room. but, i know it was not them though because they are both running windows 98 and the browser that these requests are coming from are windows 95. i also know it is not them because they would confront me on the phone or in real life and not anonymously over a web site, thats why they are my friends, we respect each other enough to do that. what i really want is for the true “anonymous coward” to respond with some dignity and give me the respect of a reply.


so did i accomplish anything going through all this crap? maybe yes maybe no. i was trying to show you how we are all really an open book if you look into it. through simple computer tools i was able to find out information about a person surfing my site. their life was as open a book as my web site is an opening into my life. except of course i voice my opinion with honor and in my name, not the name of an “anonymous coward”.


but that’s just my opinion, for what its worth …


note to others - i have never actually done this “cyber sleuthing” before on my web site nor do i plan on doing it in the future. there is no point taking this any further unless the person decides to respond.