Member Avatar for Ragnarok

Hello, I have a problem with a person who cause a large problem on my forums. I banned him think this would solve the problem, however this failed misrobaly. I then banned his IP, not relising at the time it was a proxy, and he has been changing proxys ever since. He had signed up for new accounts (at least 18 that I have found so far). I have now turn off registration so that he cannot start any more accounts

He had mentioned that he had had the same problem at other forums and I was talking to another webmaster who had had the same problem within hours of me banning him from my site. He had tried the same things as me and like my forums his registration is now turned off. As you may expect this is a short turm solution. Infact the other webmaster allowed people to create new accounts and within 10 minets the person had started another account and was raigning terror on his forums once again.

I am still trying to track down his ISP but some of the proxys are being difficult so I was wondering if I could legally change the registration terms and conditions so that it stats if you start a new account on my forums with the intent of millisus or corrutive I can then find that person money (a lot of money).

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 102 Views
  • 22 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by Ragnarok

Dani AI

Generated

For — and following 's useful reminder about terms — treat this as two parallel problems: preserving legally useful evidence, and stopping further damage with technical and procedural controls.

Start by freezing evidence. Export raw server logs, mail headers, timestamps, user-agent strings, database rows for the suspect accounts, and full-page screenshots. Record where proxy headers (for example X-Forwarded-For) appear. Store copies on write-once media or in an access-controlled archive and note who handled them. Do not publish the alleged offender's personal data on the forum (risk of defamation and data-protection issues).

If the behaviour crosses into criminality, report it to the police (UK victims use Action Fraud or local police) — police can request subscriber details from ISPs under proper process. Relevant statutes include the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990. For reporting and data-handling guidance see the UK police reporting services and the ICO guidance for organisations: Protection from Harassment Act 1997, Computer Misuse Act 1990, Action Fraud, ICO guide to data protection.

On terms and conditions: an AUP helps demonstrate expected behaviour, but it does not avoid the need to identify the person and obtain a court order to recover money. Clauses that demand arbitrary “huge” penalties are unlikely to be enforceable — courts expect a genuine pre-estimate of loss. A solicitor can advise about cease-and-desist letters, civil claims, or a Norwich Pharmacal order to compel an ISP to disclose subscriber details.

Short-term technical fixes that work while you pursue legal remedies: require verified email (block disposable providers), add CAPTCHA, throttle account creation per IP, moderate new accounts, block known open-proxy/Tor exit lists, and consider SMS verification or invite-only registration for a period.

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Member Avatar for DMR

...I was wondering if I could legally change the registration terms and conditions so that it stats if you start a new account on my forums with the intent of millisus or corrutive I can then find that person money (a lot of money).

You can change the conditions in your Acceptable Use Policy and other such statements on your site, but there's nothing to say that they will be legally binding to any of your members.

For one thing, you'll still have to find and identify the offendng members before you can take any action against them. Additionally, you may quite well find that the laws in your area don't even apply to the members in question anyway; there's really not much in place yet in terms of global law regarding any of this.

Member Avatar for Ragnarok

I know the identity of the individual that I am talking about at the moment, he is under UK law

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.