websites

[bubbles4920]

if someone owns a website, can they see who has clicked onto it, ie your email address?

[bednobs]

how would they be able to see my yahoo address for example? they can see the ip address i think

[beso]

The IP address of every visitor can be recorded in the server logs. They can also record the URL of the page that you were at before you arrived at their site.

If you access the site from a fixed IP address it may be possible to trace the owner. This is fairly easily done by a reverse DNS lookup if your company hosts web services such as email or a web site. They can't get your personal email address but they could get enough of the address of your website or email administrator to contact them.

Most (not all) domestic users have a dynamic IP address that changes each time they reconnect to the ISP. Unless the IP address has a DNS entry nobody would know who is there except your ISP.

However the server log can be matched with the ISP logs to trace phone line used to access a site. This is how police sometimes catch cyber criminals.

[fo3nix]

Just to add to the above: the dynamic IP address they have will probably only be enough to find where you are very roughly.

If you live in Lancashire as an example, they may trace you to Manchester. But you could well be living 60 miles from there.

[R1Geezer]

Yes and they can extract your DNA through the mouse, they have you and everything about you. Mwwhahahaha!

[bubbles4920]

mmm, not sure i understood much of that. so if i have a uk email address but i go online while i am abroad, can they therefore see that i am abroad?

[eltelioni]

bubbles - when you click on a website there is no way for the website to immediately know who you are or to know your email address unless you explicitly give it that information. The best the website can do is to know roughly where you are, possibly to the nearest big city, but it can get that very wrong. There are ways to try to trace you, but that requires the cooperation of various organisations and even then there are no guarantees they will be able to find you.

How do you plan to go online when you are abroad?

[bubbles4920]

we have a second home in the usa. to cut a long story short an ex from way back who used to knock me around has tried to contact me under another name and using a mobile number. i traced his number to a business carpentry website and i wondered if he could see that i had been on there looking. i do not want him to know where i am as you can imagine!

[fo3nix]

Nothing to worry about then, he can't find you.

Websites can find out the following things:

- Your web browser
- Your OS (Windows, Mac, etc.)
- The closest big city to you (roughly)
- The last page you accessed

Not much more really. Any personal things like name, email address, etc., are not known, without them asking for it and you typing it in.

[bubbles4920]

but he will surely see that the next big city to me is in the states?!

[fo3nix]

Yes.

But this just means that he knows someone from New York accessed the site. Nothing to do with you.

I run a website. I can read the server logs now, and see that someone from South Africa accessed the site. I haven't got a clue who though.

Unless they're the police and can get the ISP to give out more information to match your location, they won't know who you are.

He hasn't got a clue that it was you. And even if he did magically some how, it still means that you're one of several million people in that area.

[bubbles4920]

thanks for that, has made me feel a whole lot better. i just dont want my crazy ex to know where i am at all, be it in the uk or abroad.