On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 10:33:20PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote: > On Jan 24, 2008, at 8:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:39:53 PST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: > >>What we can do with IP addresses is conclude that the user of the > >>machine with an address is likely to be one of its usual users. We > >>can't say that with 100% certainty, because there are any number of > >>ways people can get "unusual" access. But even so, if one can show a > >>pattern of usage, the usual suspects can probably figure out which of > >>them, or what other "unusual" user, might have done this or that. > > > >And oddly enough, license plates on cars act *exactly the same way* > >- but > >nobody seems at all surprised when police can work backwards from a > >plate > >and come up with a suspect (who, admittedly, may not have been > >involved if > >the car was borrowed/stolen/etc). > > In order to be using the license plate, you had to be physically > present in the car. > > >You can work backwards from a phone number to a person, without a > >*guarantee* > >that you have the right person - but I don't see anybody claiming that > >phone numbers don't qualify as "personal information" under the EU > >definition. > > In order to be on the telephone number, you (almost always) need to be > present > at the site where that phone number is terminated. > > I don't know about your IP addresses, but, people can use my IP > addresses > from a number of locations which are nowhere near the jurisdiction in > which > my network operates, so, I don't really see the correlation here with > license > plates or phone numbers.
In order to be using the IP address, your packets (almost always) have to pass through the device allocated that address. - Matt