welcome back. i'm releved to learn about your safety. rgrds

Good to know you're alive and well.

Wanted to also let you know, a WHOIS Database Search (http://www.arin.net/whois/) reveals that the IP address 192.132.208.7 belongs to "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa" in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!

If you contact the IT System Administrators in ECA (either through your contacts or by emailing directly to sysadmin@uneca.org), I'm sure they will either tell you the exact identity of 'alexander' or might action disciplinary procedures against 'alexander' for misusing Internet resources.

Andrew,

Obviously, 'Alexander' is wrong, and he may have any sort of motive.... but you did much worse than him by making his IP address public! You could have just proved him wrong by posting a simple note, instead of using this "communist"ic tactic of revealing someone's identity!

Anonymous,

Hi Andrew,

it's good to hear from you. We missed you very much. Please keep on posting ! Thanks for all your work.

Tyrel

Hi Andrew

I am glad you are back, but your response to alexander was disappointing. There was no need to reveal his IP address.

Andrew

You over-reacted by revealing alexander's IP address. Two wrongs don't make one right.

I'm a big believer in even numbers of wrongs but I think trying to get the guy fired would be going too far. That said, I'd be curious to know which posts from here on come out of New York City (5 birr on "Anonymous" above - any takers?).

Moving on... I hear now the opposition may or may not show up for the opening of parliament on Monday? Personally I hope they do. Good luck everyone.

Hi Andrew it is nice to hear you back, i hope you had a wonderfull holiday.

You did good job by reavelling the IP address of the above mentioned person. People has to learn the hard way to respect other people, and live by the rule of the law. Well at least in civilaized world, we live by these dogma,and a lot of people are having hard time to learn, these simple modes operendi of civility in that part of the World. Personally i will not have any sympathy if the poor fellow ,got fired from his job for misusing workplace computer. So next time he will think of the consequenses before he acts.

For whatever it is worth, I think it IS completely appropriate that Andrew posted "Alexander's" IP address. An IP address is not private or personal information - it is attached to everything we do on the internet. Besides, "Alexander" repeatedly posted statements that Andrew was dead, and argued with those who said he was still alive. This clearly caused a lot of people real distress for absolutely no reason. Having your IP address "revealed" is really getting off easy by comparison. But doing so does probably teach "Alexander" a good lesson: you're not nearly as smart as you think you are.

No, posting alexander's IP address is wrong. It is going too far. I am not condoning what alexander did. In fact I was one of the few pepole who challenge his cruel joke. But what Andrew did in retaliation is as bad if not worse than alexander's nasty prank.

Those of you who are complaining about Andrew publishing "Alexander's" IP address consider the following:

You move to another country, publish a website which attracts a fair amount of interest. At the same time, it's also something that your friends and family back home have a look at.

Six months on, you go away for a few weeks and some guy posts a comment about you dying in a car crash.

Result, said friends and family back home get in a panic about what's happened and start sending emails and calling to see if you've really died.

Come off it guys. Alexander didn't just make a run of the mill rude remark, he actually made a claim that Andrew was dead knowing it was false and knowing the anxiety it would cause.

Publishing someone's IP address is something you should only do in exceptional circumstances. Having someone falsely broadcast around the fact that you are dead is one of those situations!

Dear all, thanks for the comments. Just to put your minds at rest, I think Alexander's job is safe. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa runs a bank of computers used by every journalist in town. Students, UN workers, security guards and visiting dignitaries also use them regularly to check their emails, keep track of football matches and download dodgy files (they are the most virus-filled machines I have ever used). There must be more than 100 people using them every day. So tracking down Alexander would be next to impossible.

am not even going to go into arguing if revealing the ip was right or wrong. but as for the comment made that an IP address is nothing that should be private,.,,, It should definately be kept private. In these times where we have bots crawling blogs collecting such info [ever wondered why andrew posted his email "at dot com" ??]revealing an IP is a lilttle bit harsh.I would have loved to demonstrate less the ip origin was ECA an org i respect and have ties to. the author of a blog has certain rights as well as obligations... revealing an IP and inviting script kiddies for play.. well am not sure where that falls along the line. I guess after all, I got into the "its right no its wrong" part....Glad you're back.. and yeah.. the IP can stay posted.. will take a sufficient DDos to bring ECA's servers down... which the IP am sure came from a NAT in which case is a mask

Welcome back Andrew!

To those who think revealing The IP address was wrong? Are you kidding me? The guy announced Andrew was dead! He should get much more than just a publicized IP address. If it costs him a job so be it. Anyway, welcome back!