UP, New Thread and the obvious solution

Paul,

I am not certain on this one. The Path statement says Supernews.com for NNTP service but backtracking I see you are routing through some backbone servers (apparently) to my NNTP Server. Your gateway is masked similar to Googlenews. I would need to research this a little more but (off the wall) I'd say you were using some VPN service/software though 4ax.com. Possibly a web based VPN (aka: Virtual Private Network). You are using Knews 1.0b for the news reader this time.

How close was I? Was I correct on your first one? I am better at backtracking email routes. But I notice nntp seems similar.

Art

I am incorrect on 4ax.com, it appears to be a message sequencer service. Am researching now.

Some of us can really have some fun with this. Find everything someone posted by using an email account or name.

Kinda need this

The reason I made the tie-in to JRsTrains, is actually quite interesting... It was based on a previous enounter where he was tied in to - you guessed it... ;-)

Note the mailing address for a "John Richards" which was believed to be an alias at the time.

--Joseph

You are making this way too complicated.

The first one was correct. BUT, I posted the second one from the same machine, I just went through my DSL provider instead of comcast. All remotely, I wasn't at the actual location of that machine. No rebooting, nothing more fancy that starting the news reader and point it at a different news provider.

A VPN is involved but, only to get remote access to the machine from which I posted. The posts via comcast & the other ISP were done in the clear. What connection the ISP uses with supernews ??? I have no idea. I'm sure he would tell me if I asked.

I could post from dejanews (google). I could have connected into several friends machines and posted from there. If you tracked those down I would have been bouncing around all over North America (it's a pain in the neck to do that since each VPN link gets slower & slower).

The original point was that; just knowing where the ip addr is (even if you correctly nail that down) doesn't necessarily tell you where the carbon unit is actually located.

I don't see wetware in the path anymore? I wonder if they renamed themselves or went pooof with Worldcom??? It used to be a T3 in a living room located in Fremont, CA.

Paul

Geesh!

This lame company is so bad off that they have to offer loans and performance goals to the execs to get them to buy/keep stock. No wonder the great railroads of the east haven't split and/or bought up this lame company yet. The eastern railroads must just be watching them hemorrhage like a wounded animal with it's head cut off...

Sorry for this weak attempt at being a troll. I'm sure a true troll will show me how it's really done.

Well, for STARTERS, I should think that a TRUE troll would be a little more precise and incisive with his or her lame-ass metaphors. An animal whose head has been cut off is unlikely to be 'wounded' so much as actually dead, and will have achieved that state in so rapid a fashion as to have precluded a great deal of watching them 'hemorrhaging.'

Since you asked.

Dunty Porteous, Human Sacrifice

-- "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

-John Adams

"Facts are stupid things."

-Ronald Reagan

"And in typical troll fashion, he posts a few times, and then is gone... "

-John H. Schneider II, 8/28/2001

he meant the little head

Unless its a chicken, which can survive without a head until it starves to death.

I wish Republicans could do that.

The little... ? Oh. OH!

Well, yes, assuming that the severed arteries have been cauterized. Otherwise the chicken will still bleed (hemorrhage!) to death. The question is whether or not it will bleed to death in a leisurely enough manner for the original metaphor to have been apt if, in fact, it would have been apt in the first place. I contend that a) it would not and b) it wasn't especially.

Dunty Porteous, Human Sacrifice

-- "It was a just and marvelous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers."

-Raymond of Aguilers

ALSO SPRACH William Barwell:

If at first you don't succeed, try try again.

Kali Yuga! Ptngh! Ptngh! Nhghee! Chop! Flop!

"Dang, failure 1,231. Maybe we are using the wrong ritual chant?

I wouldn't say you are a troll. But I don't see the same bad news in the article that you see. It says origianal loans were about $40M and by the end of the month they will be paid down to about $1.5M. That sounds like the program worked well. I think the UP is doing a good job of attracting investors. It will be okay, just hang in there. Everything will be back in the black as soon as these model railroaders pay the license fee on their toys. Jerry

From the article: "Union Pacific, according to the Corporate Library, had outstanding loans to 62 executives worth just under $40 million. Davidson was listed in the report as owing $10.97 million to Union Pacific."

Are you implying that they are trying to make up for a lot of the $40 million through trademark royalty fees?

Not so much paid down as written off, the article says two thirds of the loans have been written off after targets were met, ie converted into gifts. Maybe one of those targets was to get the licensing scheme up and running

Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

Paul,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I started a new project on Tuesday and startups usually go a minimum 20/7 until we identify the problem and get the solution Okayed. I have 24 hours or so free now so I can chat.

As I said, but should have elaborated further on, I know how to back track email to the extent possible, but this was my first attempt at NNTP. I made a few assumptions which were only 50% correct. I assume you are knowledgeable of NNTP so the following is for public usage.

1. I assumed that the Path statement could not be forged as it is stamped by hardware at each step of the transmission process. This is the same for email. The Path statement is read from right to left (from your service to mine) with each "!" indicating a new piece of hardware passed through. Yours was;

Path: newsspool2.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!elnk-pas-nf

1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews .com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail

Here is mine for the reply message:

Path: newsspool2.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.n ews.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!198ceba4!not-for-mail

As you can see mine never left Earthlink and your message traveled through several (Internet???) backbone relay servers. I am not sure how the NNTP service interrelates to the Internet service structure. I think I ought to study up on this at some point. The guys who post from Australia really take the scenic route to our west coast servers.

1. The second item that is difficult to forge is the address fro the Posting Server (a server not the computer that originates the message). Your post did not list this item so I assumed your use of a VPN tunnel. This NNTP area I am not familiar with and found that there can be several other factors causing this omission. Here is my host server;

NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.47.74.214

This is the static IP assigned to my firewall by Earthlink and is located more than 50 miles from my PC's location so can only be used to determine my region, not city or town)

1. The last area I was unaware of is the fact that the originating computer does NOT date stamp the NNTP message (post). The relaying NNTP Server does this chore and so is difficult to forge.

Of course

I did think I mentioned a gateway server and not a user's computer. It would be extremely difficult to track down an individual computer without major resources.

Most likely an URL or static IP address linking the two but I do not know either.

Yes, if you had control over another computer you could potentially mask your original region/computerbut using VPN creates a trail that is easy to follow. There are much better methods. But you would have to tweak his or her computer to not record connection information. As well as possibly the servers associated with that computer. I have found more than one hacker due to their carelessness or ignorance in this area.

No but using the Path and Host information we can sure narrow it down to a few hundred square miles or so. While a little more involved, I think the message ID and the references could be used to further isolate the originating computer. That is supposing that we could get cooperation from the owner of the server used to originate the post.

My point in using Jerry's information was there was absolutely no economical way to isolate his location as he posted via a web service. He could be literally anywhere in the USA.

Could this be them? If so they moved to Livermore.

Here is a start for those who wish to know more about reading headers (email or NNTP) Take care and thanks for calling me out on my statements.

Art