Sorry about the formatting. I used word and apparently the paragraph breaks were lost. Here you go:
So, I was on this site a few weeks ago and a guy was complaining that they were “auto editing” bad words. The entire word would be replaced with asterisks. I posted and told him that you could always misspell the offending word and gave an example. I said you could spell the N word with three “g”s and their software would not touch it. But I didn’t say it that way. I actually posted the word to prove it. Keep in mind, I posted the word with no context. Just the word as an object, much as someone could post the word “bitch”. In fact any context was not even about the word, but about the concept of words in general.
The funny part was I continued to post on the site for a couple of days and then decided I needed to spend my time in more productive ways (it’s why I haven’t been here for a few weeks as well), so didn’t bother going there until today and found that I’m in the last week of a month long ban, and didn’t even know it. I also didn’t even have to log in for the message to show up. And the threat was included that if I ever used that word again I would be permabanned. On a side note, I was never warned nor have I ever been warned or banned before.
The interesting part is this: I’m posting from a computer in a VERY large organization. I figured I’d just go on the site and lurk without an ID. I figured they wouldn’t ban an IP address in case other users are also here. So to be safe I cleared all history, cookies, etc., shut down my browser and opened it up again and hit the page cold. It STILL said I was banned and I could not even view the site. Out of curiosity, anybody ever heard of such a thing? Can they ban via mac address or ban your hardware in other ways?
Just curious. I don’t really need to go back there and the ban is only temporary anyway, but it does beg the question regarding how I was banned and how they know even my computer is banned.
I also find this whole thing a clash of cultures. I don’t consider the N word to be a dirty word, but it “can be dirty”, depending on how it is used, as with the word “bitch”. But perhaps I’m coming from a different paradigm or I’m not niggardly enough with my definition scope.
Great story. No really. Fascinating.
They must have been using some Of Obama’s ‘editing’ software.
He borrowed it from Putin.
That’s a bitch.
If you switch PCs does it still give you that notice?
They may be using the companies IP address and may also be using the MAC address.
This is an excellent thread to remind everyone that substituting letters or symbols to mask profanity is prohibited on FR as well.
You can use a proxy server.
You need to start writing blogs for fun and profit. No, really!
1) Is your IP address the same every day?
2) Are you sure that the actual site is banning you and not work software banning the site?
3) Try different web browsers.
Never heard of what you are experiencing.
My Mcfee blocks my computer from many sites unless I remove them from its list.
Try using an anonymizer, you can surf it that way
You will find that if you are banned from a site on the internet... you will live. Probably even prosper.
You will find that if you are suspended from a social site on the internet you might find real conversation outside with a real person. But stick it out man, you will survive.
if you send a nasty letter to obammy and call him one of the banned words you will get a warning real quick about pedophile sites you may have visited
Sounds like they are being niggardly.
Annoying Person
I’ve been banned from little green footballs (for a positive Glen Beck remark) and Lucianne.com for calling Condi Rice a lesbian. No swearing involved.
So, out of all the “curse” words you could choose to illustrate your point, you picked the one that, regardless of the context, would label you as a racist? Why not the “F” bomb wuth two K’s or the S word with a $ instead of an S? Seems like you were destined to fail by choosing the word you did, that doesn’t really have a harmless context.
Word of warning to you my friend, if your company is VERY large, chances are they have an IT department that handles all your computer needs and problems.
If your company was like mine was and has policy regarding employee internet activity, every month they provide all dept. managers with a print out of every employee's internet activity, be it browsing, or posting or shopping.....EVERYTHING. If they don't do it now, they certainly have the ability to do so......
So just be careful.....
Probably because your support for that site was niggardly little.
To the question in the original title: No, a website should never be able to "detect" your MAC address, under any circumstances. The MAC address only identifies your NIC on the local network segment, it isn't passed upstream to a website that you're accessing via intermediate routers.To the question in the post body: The website many be able to uniquely identify you, and it may not. There are certainly ways to try and fingerprint a repeat user (cookies, flash cookies, browser profiling, IP address logging, etc.) that allow for various levels of confidence. As Rory mentioned, using the same base VM potentially leaves you vulnerable to browser fingerprinting, but eliminates the threat from cookies.
However, To be relatively confident in your privacy, I don't know that I'd bother with the "new VM every visit" and focus on more traditional privacy-protecting measures such as turning off your browser plugins, using your chosen browser's private browsing mode, and most importantly, using Tor.
There are other sites??