This whole approach is just bad for security, unreliable, foolish, and needs to stop now.
Since people use BrowseDNS on their Nintendo Switch, trying to track users by their IP address is even harder than usual. Nintendo's network stuff uses things like CGNAT, shared IPs, and routing that makes it look like many different people are using the same IP address, or one person is using many IPs.
And that's before you add in bots, VPNs, or other tricks to hide your IP. There's just no reliable way to trace anything back to one person using just their IP. Trying to ban the main account based on IP is pointless and easy to get around, especially with bots consistently making account most likely through a script targeting NodeBB forums.
Worse, IP addresses were shared with someone who wasn't really a moderator by you apparently. That's a failure in checking who has access to what. Also, who knows where those IPs even came from? Without real logs and controlled access, that data is garbage and shouldn't be used to make decisions.
Basically:
IP addresses aren't a person's identity.
CGNAT and shared IPs mess up simple IP tracking.
Sharing IP data outside official channels is a security risk.
Acting on bad IP data can lead to wrongly punishing innocent users.
Only authorized staffers using the right BrowseDNS tools should be looking at or using network data. Any IP info that comes from outside those tools is no good and shouldn't be used.
If you think there's automated abuse going on, the right way to handle it is by looking at how people are behaving on the platform: watching for suspicious activity, limiting how fast people can do things, tracking sessions, and using device info (within the platform's limits). Don't go wild chasing IPs.
If this keeps up, the team will take action against your account, all the way up to banning it.
This isn't some genius move. It's a misunderstanding of how things work that creates security, privacy, and legal problems through your own inexperience and foolishness when it comes to internal investigation and techniques that the cyber security field brings.
In a short summary, tracing IP's to their main source in impossible when it comes to possible botnets and scripts used to target NodeBB forums through advertisement bots.
Thanks,
Raven
BrowsrDNS Co-Admin
