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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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This is just objectively false.
It seems like YOU don't know how the internet works.
Logging of information is an active task, it doesn't just come with the internet as a concept. Your ISP doesn't know what you posted on Reddit and reddit doesn't know who you are behind your natted ip.
Reddit might have logs and your ISP might have other logs, and they may be able to work together with other organizations to deduce information, but that is not a given.
It is entirely possible for a website to not log ANY information about it's users. I have an occasionally online website like this, I don't even know the amount of bandwidth being used unless I actively monitor the connection. Additionally, a proper tls connection means your ISP doesn't know what data you send to a website, so if the website doesn't take logs and the ISP can't sniff traffic, how can you prove what was done?
Fundamentally, the internet is just a connection between a bunch of computers, there are no intrinsic properties of the internet that leave a trail of evidence. The computer you are connecting to may choose to log your connection and activity, but it isn't required for the internet to function.
Your statement is a conflation of what can happen and what does happen.
I could open sockets between two computers and send encrypted bytes directly between them with keys shared beforehand in person if I wanted, the only thing that can be proved is that the connection was established (and when). This method is still using the internet. Short of cracking the encryption (which would be world wide news) the contents of that communication would be not be able to be ascertained by an eavesdropping third party without express consent from a member of the conversation.
Tl:Dr, a website with tls, no logging, and no DNS, would have very limited information abailable to 3rd parties (effectively limited to ISPs only being able to deduce when and how often you access the site) and 3rd parties would not have the ability to prove any specific activity occured on the page. The internet, as a concept (interconnection, IP, tcp), is not even aware of the idea of 'proving' something, any effort done to contrary is performed on a layer of abstraction above these protocols.
People communicate in untraceable ways on the internet every single day.
data brokers do and internet providers and law enforcement buys that data.
Reddit might have logs and your ISP might have other logs, and they may be able to work together with other organizations to deduce information, but that is not a given.
Reddit might have logs ? Reddit has logs and they can see your public IP. With your public IP, they can contact your ISP and get all the details of people using their service in a household. Then its just matter of minutes and seconds to trace down who is the culprit. Just to add to this, your windows/apple machine also have logs.
Yes reddit might have logs, in fact it's incredibly likely that they have detailed logs about their users. however, it isn't an intrinsic aspect of a website to have logs.
I am not claiming that they don't have logs, I am simply refuting what you said, which is that everything on internet can be proven, which is an objectively false statement.
A windows or apple computer are not prerequisites to use the internet and there are no logging requisites for computers at all.
Again, logging is an active task, something being 'on the internet' does not mean that logging is happening implicitly.
Dear diary,
Today I forgot about how the internet functions, and have decided to ignore how a router + infinite cpu & storage works, without websites that are not documenting who their visitors aren’t, so they can’t sell advertising, nor sell to groups who aren’t affiliated with state governments.
Sincerely, Not a computer scientist
Whatever makes you happy my dude.
It's ok if you don't understand. Since you are a computer scientist, it should be trivial for you to open up a socket connection between two computers and send some pgp encrypted bytes over the wire. It's a pretty good way to see an example of what I mean. Though you probably learned about the osi model pretty early on in uni and are aware of how tcp/IP works.
🤦♂️
Whatever floats your boat 🤷♂️
IP hasn't been an admissible form of identification for over a decade now.
Now, suppose that someone hasn't been piggybacking off of their neighbor's wifi, and it leads to a household with multiple adults renting the place with internet included in the rent, how would you determine which specific person to take legal action against? Secondly, in order to actually file the suit without it being a waste of time, they would have to have independent data showing that this person did indeed do the action and aren't just making it up, in which case getting the IPs from a third party would be completely moot.
Good question, once police knows the household they will check the background on all the occupants and neighbors. If still they can't find anything and they dont feel like wasting time , they will get warrant and confiscate all laptops for forensics but most of the time they can tell just by checking the background who's the culprit.
I would suggest to watch the documentary about the guy who was behind the darkweb site - the silk road.
That's some impressive police work right there.
🤦♂️