ljtoys

[aroraborealis]

Several of you have been curious about how I identified my troll (*wave* Hi, Rosie! I see you're still reading through dakotakym's friends page! Having fun?), so I want to write a little blurb about the tool I used, with thanks to spike, who pointed it out as a fun toy a few months ago: It's LJToys (http://ljtoys.org.uk/) and it allows you to see who's reading your journal, how they get there, what their IP address is, etc.

I initially found it a little disconcerting quite how much information can be gathered about me from my web surfing habits, but now, I'm glad to have a sense of the sorts of information that pretty much anyone can have about me, with little or no work on their part. It is, in fact, a fun little toy, with, in my case, a nice side effect of confirming a suspicion I've had for a while. If it's the sort of thing you might enjoy, check it out.

Comments

[inahandbasket]

neato keen.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Cool!

And, er, now you know how often I refresh my friends page. How embarrassing...

[coraline]

...ding! (that was my thought... oy.)

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Yeah. But you know what? Almost everyone's refreshing the same amount :)

[trom.livejournal.com]

That's because you are so refreshing.....

Cool

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

I think we share the troll!

me loves my own bigbrother tools

[medyani.livejournal.com]

Wow, and the directions were easy to follow. 'Cept now it seems I've got to set a mood for each entry? Meh.

Re: me loves my own bigbrother tools

[laurenhat.livejournal.com]

or you can follow the optional steps instead -- just customize your journal so that it inserts their little blank image in every one of your entries.

Re: me loves my own bigbrother tools

[medyani.livejournal.com]

Oh, nifty - thanks!

[cos]

I think this is the kind of stuff I get to see every time I post something with a picture, because I host those pictures on one of my web servers and I usually have a tail -f going watching the server log.

[scherzoid.livejournal.com]

The really nice thing about LJToys is that it's trivially easy to block in Firefox... :)

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Please say more.

[scherzoid.livejournal.com]

Tools -> Options -> Content
Check "Load Images Automatically"
Click "Exceptions..."
In "Address of web site" enter [ljname].icons.ljtoys.co.uk [ljname].icons.ljtoys.org.uk
Click "Block"

An even easier solution, which allows wildcards, is the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox.

Edit: Mistyped the URL -- it's ljtoys.org.uk, not ljtoys.co.uk.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Heh-what a neat way to limit the number of comments to next year's Valentine's Day confession post!

So, out of curiosity . . .

[rigel.livejournal.com]

What do you use it for?

I ask because my awareness of the site is completely new, and I'm still trying to sort out what my thoughts are on the topic. Would you use it to smoke out a troll? For everyday curiosity? Would you use it on the confessional poll, for example? (Just because it says IP logging is off doesn't mean you couldn't use that, technically . . .)

To note, none of my questions are intended to presume you would do one thing or t'other. I don't know you well enough to say. But I figured I'd sate my curiosity and just ask.

Re: So, out of curiosity . . .

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

I, of course, can speak only for myself and how I use it, which is:

I use it for entertainment and curiosity, primarily, and, secondarily, to smoke out this pesky troll. Having done that, it's just for entertainment.

Would I use it to figure out who said what on the confessional post? To the limited degree it's even possible, I'd only use it in the case of abusive comments. Could one use it more broadly? Yes, to whatever degree it's possible to know who's at a particular IP address (which I have no idea about).

If the question is whether I used ljtoys to figure out who said what on the confessional, the answer is no.

Re: So, out of curiosity . . .

[rigel.livejournal.com]

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity, and informing me of some valuable things besides.

[cinnabarine.livejournal.com]

A common friend let me know that the guy I just went out on a date with might be your troll. Eeep! :( I'm horrified by the notion, and I just wanted to confirm that it is in fact the same person. Do you know his name?

Let me know if you'd rather discuss this by email.