Howard, I'm not sure what the issue is. The reality is if that you use your real name and give any indication of your locality then unless your name is Smith or Jones, you probably will count on one hand your matches. For instance I usually say I live in the Southern Highlands, but anyone can find my real number and address without any trouble.
If I was an ISP I would be wanting to use geo-focused names for my routers and DSLAMs so that I can easily find correlation of network issues. I am not sure that it is the ISPs responsibility to obfuscate mail headers and the like. And it really would make troubleshooting hard. (I get frustrated enough working with customers that refuse to populate their DNSes with names of their network equipment and such - having to keep a "telephone book" IP addresses in my head is pretty painful). If you really want to be private I think people will use email anonymizers or even just a gmail or somesuch account. Martin Visser Technology Consultant Consulting & Integration Technology Solutions Group - HP Services 410 Concord Road Rhodes NSW 2138 Australia Mobile: +61-411-254-513 Fax: +61-2-9022-1800 E-mail: martin.visserAThp.com This email (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify HP immediately by return email and then delete the email, destroy any printed copy and do not disclose or use the information in it. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Howard Lowndes Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2006 4:59 PM To: SLUG Mail List Subject: [SLUG] ISP info leakage Out of curiosity I looked at the source of a recent email and discovered that the sender's ISP had identified the suburb in the FQDN of the DSL IP that the sender used to connect to that ISP. A quick look in Sensis against the sender's name and I came up with a name and address match only one suburb away. The moral of the story is - Don't trust Optarse... -- Howard. LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people <http://lannetlinux.com> When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux; When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. -- Flatter government, not fatter government; abolish the Australian states. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
