TylerDurden said:
BigFail is
"NutsandVolts"
(not to be confused with newer member "Nuts&Volts")
That's certainly a possiblity.
@methods: If I were BigFail, and wishing to confuse people trying to find my identity, I'd do what he appears to have done: change writing styles, word choices, spellings, etc. Or have several people type up posts, like a room full of friends all having fun and games. That plus an anonymous IP would make it tough to figure out who it is (but not totally impossible, if one or more of those people frequently posted here).
deVries said:
And in this case do the mods REALLY know conclusively who's double account it is ?
No. There is no way to tell.
Probably the IPs used (50?), if the same as Adrian once, was used may put the finger on your region of the world maybe? What about the other 49IPs? Does the number system do a region... hey, you can plug-in the IP address & it will put a dot on the map where 'that' is from.
With 50 IPs, then one might be able to peg this with these odds.
8)
There is only one IP for Bigfail, as posted.
It is possible to accurately physically locate an IP address just as it is a phone number, but it is not quite as simple as just going to a website. You would need to contact the holder of the IP range, like an ISP/etc., and find out who that IP address was assigned to, and where physically on their system it was assigned at that specific time. It is highly unlikely that anyone will give you that information without a court order, and possibly not even then (as they might not log that kind of info, but probably do).
adrian_sm said:
But to play devils advocate. How do we explain that apparently one or more (not sure) of my posts were from this same anonymous IP address.
Only one post of yours matches Bigfail's anonymous IP.
In PHPBB's moderator panels, there's no link to the posts that an IP address was used in, only a list of IP addresses a user has posted from, and a corresponding list of other users that match any of those IP addresses. I wish it did list other *posts* that match those IP addresses, but it does not.
Theoretically it is also possible for someone to change which username is on a post, and thus for Bigfail (if a moderator or admin) to have assigned one of his own posts to *you* just to throw off the trail, but this is unlikely for at least this reason: there are no logs of any such action, and this is AFAIK a logged activity.
gtadmin said:
with all the references to sheep, it has to be a kiwi, so that put's the location in Sydney doesn't it
No, it could be Texas, too.
(having lived there as a kid, and heard all sorts of inappropriate discussions of their uses that I would like to forget)
gtadmin said:
Who can manipulate the IP of incoming posts (or change the IP record of somebody else's posts)?
No one, AFAIK. Only the username on a post can be changed (at least with the moderator panel), and even that activity is logged.
deVries said:
Ok mods, what is the IP for eBike Sarah
Irrelevant, as the only IP available for Bigfail is via an anonymizer, and thus location-independent. IP trail is dead cold. Unless you know someone that can force the anonymizer site to give up their logs.
dogman said:
Solar something or other? The Aussie who had trouble shipping what was paid for after something went on with an employee?
SolarBBQ, aka Brett White.
I doubt that one, as I doubt he'd come back to ES for any reason, but you never know--when it comes to fights and destructions of groups they dislike, some people hear about them and come running to watch or help the destruction. It's happened in clubs I've been part of before.
No mod will fess-up to where eBike Sarah's IPs originate from 
