What is comment IP logging?
Comment IP logging means the IP address of the computer that was used to post a comment is displayed in the comment. The IP address is a number which partially identifies a computer posting to the Internet. When you comment on an entry, you will receive a warning notice if IP logging is turned on. Your IP address will not be displayed publicly. Only the person who posted the entry and the community's administrators (for community entries) will have access to it.
To log IP addresses of people commenting on your journal, or stop logging IP addresses, use the Privacy section on the My Account Settings page, and set the option for IP Address Logging. If IP logging was previously turned off, turning it on will display IP addresses for future comments, but it is not possible to find out the IP addresses for comments made while logging was turned off.
IP addresses are not uniquely identifying — you can't say for certain that a particular IP address belongs to a particular person. At most, an IP address can confirm that a particular comment was made by someone using the same Internet connection as the person who made an earlier comment that came from the same IP address. You can't use IP address information to prove a negative: two comments coming from separate IP addresses do not necessarily mean they were made by people using different Internet connections, since some Internet providers assign IP addresses dynamically and IPs may change.
Based on how your Internet provider assigns IP addresses and how those assignments are reported to the Internet as a whole, your IP address may let others know your geographical region, through a process known as "geolocation". The degree of accuracy will depend on how your Internet provider assigns IP address; with most Internet providers it will be accurate to the city or suburb level. If your physical safety can be compromised through others knowing where you're using the Internet, you should always use an anonymizing proxy whenever you browse the Internet. It isn't enough to simply avoid commenting in journals that have comment IP logging enabled, as your IP address is sent to the remote server with every page you load on the Internet, and if you browse with images enabled in your browser, someone can include an image from a server they control and obtain your IP address that way.
To log IP addresses of people commenting on your journal, or stop logging IP addresses, use the Privacy section on the My Account Settings page, and set the option for IP Address Logging. If IP logging was previously turned off, turning it on will display IP addresses for future comments, but it is not possible to find out the IP addresses for comments made while logging was turned off.
IP addresses are not uniquely identifying — you can't say for certain that a particular IP address belongs to a particular person. At most, an IP address can confirm that a particular comment was made by someone using the same Internet connection as the person who made an earlier comment that came from the same IP address. You can't use IP address information to prove a negative: two comments coming from separate IP addresses do not necessarily mean they were made by people using different Internet connections, since some Internet providers assign IP addresses dynamically and IPs may change.
Based on how your Internet provider assigns IP addresses and how those assignments are reported to the Internet as a whole, your IP address may let others know your geographical region, through a process known as "geolocation". The degree of accuracy will depend on how your Internet provider assigns IP address; with most Internet providers it will be accurate to the city or suburb level. If your physical safety can be compromised through others knowing where you're using the Internet, you should always use an anonymizing proxy whenever you browse the Internet. It isn't enough to simply avoid commenting in journals that have comment IP logging enabled, as your IP address is sent to the remote server with every page you load on the Internet, and if you browse with images enabled in your browser, someone can include an image from a server they control and obtain your IP address that way.
Last Activity: August 31st, 2015 (kaberett)
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