I’ve been encouraging Mr. Montdore to join the SDMB. However, he’d be using the same computer as me and he’d charge his $14.95 to the same credit card I used. How would I prove that he’s him and not my sock? There are other husband and wife members here, so this question must have come up before.
it’s easy, look on the right side of the blue menu bar. See “Log Out”? He picks a different name and password, and you make sure to log out when you switch.
When my husband was still posting, I think the issue only came up once, and it wasn’t even by a mod. He forgot to log out and someone in the Pit accused me (or him?) of having a sock when he forgot to log out of my account. If you use the same computer that could be a problem, but you just acknowledge the mistake and move on.
Honestly I think it wouldn’t be that much an issue. Posting styles alone tend to make the difference obvious.
A sock has a different name and password, being a seperate account for the same person, not two people on the same account. 
Yes, I know. My husband will have his own name and password. My point is, if the mods see two names posting from one computer, how are they going to know that we really are two people and that one isn’t a sock?
I think Queen Bruin has got it. Posting styles are far more important than IP addresses when it comes to sockhunting.
There are quite a few circumstances where posts from two legitimate users can appear to originate from the same IP address. They could be posting from the same computer, or from different computers behind the same firewall, or in some cases they might simply share an ISP that dynamically assigns IP addresses. This latter situation can also cause a single computer’s IP address to change frequently.
The mods are well aware of this, and I doubt they’d use IP addresses alone to determine whether sockpuppetry is afoot. They probably use IP addresses as evidence, but only after their suspicions are already aroused for other reasons.
So go ahead and sign him up. Just tell him not to follow you around the board agreeing with everything you post.
Before your husband joins contact **TubaDiva ** ahead of time by Email. Just as a heads up to avoid confusion. I did this last year when I thought I would buy my wife a subscription, but then she decided she would continue to lurk.
Jim
Airman Doors and Ms. Robyn are husband and wife Dopers, I presume posting from the same computer, in fact I recall a handful of instances where one will post under the other’s unlogged-out identity and then post an immediate :smack: when they see what they’ve done. I can’t recall it ever becoming a problem.
As long as the mods have no reason to suspect puppetry, they won’t investigate. And the very fact that you’re posting this thread is probably evidence in your favor: A sock would try to sneak in unnoticed.
That said, a word of advice: Most modern browsers support profiles, and it’d be a good idea for each of you to have your own. Not only will it make it easier for you two to log into and out of the SDMB (each profile has its own cookies, so on your profile, you’d be logged in as you, and on his, he’d be logged in as him), but it also lets you keep separate histories, bookmarks, etc. as well.
As long as the alternate identity isn’t doing anything suspect - i.e., supporting an unpopular opinion in the face of criticism from others, starting provocative OPs or seemingly attacking any enemies you might have - then I imagine the mods wouldn’t have any reason to suspect sock puppetry. Do the mods even have access to the records from the billing department?
Other members have used my PC, and I’ve used the PC of other users. I always assumed that a) TPTB know people move around and access the Dope from a lot of different places b) I’m not causing trouble so there would be no reason for my posts to stand out from the thousands of others c) It seems like it would be a HUGE job to monitor all IP addresses to see if two posters are coming from the same or similar ones, and it’s not unthinkable that unrelated posters might use the same ISP or work for the same company so that could be unreliable anyway.
Not trying to stir the pot–but I think this would actually be a great tactic for someone trying to start a sock account. Then again, I’ve never really understood the sock mentality anyway, so I guess I wouldn’t know.
I’m using IE6 on a Windows XP machine. Are you saying that it is possible to do all this by simply logging out of the browswer, without logging out of the system?
When I first installed XP, I set up one user name for the parents, and another for the kids, for exactly this purpose - distinct sets of cookies, history, etc. This is not for privacy or security or kidsafe issues, only for convenience. But we found that the pain and time of exiting all the open programs and such, logging the first user out and the other user in… it simply too too much time and we all use the same username now.
If there’s a way to log out of the browser without logging out of the system, I’d love to hear it!
advTHANKSance!
This is different. They were separate posters for a while and then met and eventually moved in together and got married. Many people had met them in real life prior to that happening.
What Exit? has it right. Email Tuba and give her a heads up.
Thanks for mentioning it, Sonia, which is basically all you need to do (by email works fine, too.)
And here I thought this thread was going to be about dementia, in a “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” sort of way.
No, a sock doesn’t want to call attention to the manipulator. What good would “he’s right” posts do if we all thought the poster was the spouse of the person being supported?
Well, I don’t have any recent experience with Windows, and none at all with IE. But I do know for certain that in Windows 2000 and the then-current version of Netscape, it was possible to do so, and I’ve heard that the same was also true (at that time) of IE. The effect was that, once it was set up, whenever you started the browser, it would ask you who you wanted to be (there’d be a drop-down box listing all of the profile names). To set it up in Netscape, there was a program in the same directory as the main application called “User Profile Manager”. I don’t know how one does or did it in IE, though.
Also, you don’t have to log out of a windows account in order to swich users. You can leave the other account running and just switch. Although, you have to have the “fast user switch” (or whatever its called) enabled. The windows key + L will send you to the user login screen, then you can just click the user you want to be. Its very fast this way and there is no closing of windows or waiting for the computer to load settings and profiles while you logon or off. I find it handy to use this option so that each user can have their own windows settings such as putting the icons they use most frequently on the desktop.
I know that I was worried when my father, The Surb and I were posting under the same IP address. But then I realized that I was a 17 year old kid who posted with poor grammar, a lack of substance, and a blunt insight that left little to the imagination behind my words. My father on the other hand was 40, inciteful, and used spellcheck! :D. Its pretty apparent who is posting just by the content.
Then you have the opposite problem of people who post from multiple computers. My IP is different depending on the time of day I post. TPTB have their ways…