Yes I realize that the information that gethostbyaddr() retrieves is far from 100% accurate and has very little usefulness for tracking visitors from small companies or consumers.
However if you are, for instance, an international mining equipment manufacturer, you would be very interested to know if you get multiple hits over several days on your conveyer systems pages from a specific mining company in Denmark. Even if you don't know the exact company, it may be worth sending out some promotional material to mining companies located in the region. marty --- In [email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > > > Hi Marty, > > I'm afraid that this information is becomming more and more > useless and irrellevant ! > > Reverse DNS will in most cases only give you the ISP's gateway > adress and you have no way of knowing who is behind it - unless > there is a http or mail service running on the connection. > > Counting users is pointless, because 129.42.17.99 only gives you > www.ibm.com while others will talk with you from several adresses > as myself, that if i'm in my office, will talk with you with > 212.242.242.230 = port537.ds1.hhl.adsl.cybercity.dk and, if > home, will talk with you with 212.242.251.247 = > port680.ds1.hhl.adsl.cybercity.dk. > > My company wil give you my homepage by entering > http://port537.ds1-hhl.adsl.cybercity.dk, my homeadress will give > you nothing. > > Furthermore I can or may establish a VPN (as many employees do) to > their own or others companies and you vil see "me" as those companies > IP or ISP-gateway adresses. > > Many consumers also connects to you by a private network and a > common ISP gateway adress, that is, if they are living in a building > where people has made their own network and estabished an agreement > for a common shared internet gateway. > > Add to this, all the growing WIFI zones, in airports, in trains, in > cafe's, in tankstations - the same user will give you different > connections and adresses all the time. > > And add then all the different devices (as mobiles) the specific user > can establish connection with you via different gateways. > > You will end op with only some mid-between named communication points, > most useless for statistics and most useless for marketing and a pain > in the a.. in a security perspective. > > Never trust a "unique users" statistic again, unless it is based on > counts behind an user/password shield, it may look nice, it may look > depressing, but it is false, if it is based on a reverse DNS lookup. > > Actually this is also for the moment the big issue in Denmark, where new > terrorlaws are in focus, because the internet trace ends at the ISP's > gateway adress ... if there is something suspecious, do you or don't > you trace and read maybe 4000 people's private emails or internet search > and traffic behind such an ISP adress, with a firewall and NAT translations > behind it, do you or don't you have the rights to obtain a log of visitors > to a public web-site, do you or don't you have the right to push your > marketing people at them, just because they visited your homepage ? > > The one and forever ongoing question on how many white pigions we will > accept to compromise to catch one black ! > > Of course you can make som "dirty" code retrieving the "local host" name > and adress behind the firewall, you can even make som more "dirty" code > to retrieve the MAC-adress (MS-IE) when people visit your homepage - but > I don't think you will find the answer in IBM's "Business Conduct > Guidelines" ;-) > > But even if you succeded, isn't it just letting management and marketing > chasing "tecnical inventeted statistical" gooses, instead of chasing real > "interested" leads, who maybee had found your website so interesting so > they responded to it by themselves ? > > Rgds > Henrik > > > > > > > > > "itpweb1" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > da.com> To > Sent by: [email protected] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc > ogroups.com > Subject > [Easy400Group] Re: gethostbyaddr() > 21-11-2005 13:53 : why not add to CGIDEV2? > > > Please respond to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ogroups.com > > > > > > > Giovanni/Rich > > I had the opportunity to use the gethostbyaddr() API to gather IP host > name information on visitors to an iSeries based web site. > > This is a useful tool for analyzing security issues as well as being a > great potential resource for corporate marketing departments. > For marketing, it allowing staff to discover potential customers and > test efficiency of advertising and marketing campaigns. > > Adding gethostbyaddr (and gethostbyname) support to CGIDEV2 as a > procedure would make a good addition to the CGIDEVS toolset. It is > already pretty standard in other CGI languages like PHP and even java > supports it through a class. > > Leif Guldbrand at http://www.think400.dk/ has a good RPG example of > using gethostbyaddr(). (ref:http://www.think400.dk/adhoc_3.htm#eks0018) > > Scott Klement also covers this api at http://www.scottklement.com/ > > I'm not sure who is responsible for additions to CGIDEV2 anymore so I > am posting the request here. > > marty > (my example ref: http://as400.liberty-i.net/mycgilibp/pgm31.pgm) > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "Rich Diedrich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Thanks for the correction, I did mean gethostbyaddr() > > > > Rich > > > > --- In [email protected], Scott Klement <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > The getnetbyaddr socket API can be used to look up the name > > information > > > > of a host given its address. > > > > > > Do you mean gethostbyaddr()? > > > > > > I thought getnetbyaddr() only looks up data in the network table? > > (i.e. > > > the table maintained by the WRKNETTBLE command). I didn't think > it was > > > capable of anything else. > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > ------------------------ Yahoo! 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