When pony was in mefi's land LOG MY PONY OUT

April 20, 2012 9:57 AM

PONY TIME: Can we have a "manage active logins" page?

Can we have a page that lists all the IP addresses where we are currently logged in to metafilter, and from which we can end any of these sessions? Not precisely like the gmail "most recent IP addresses" feature, where you can see from which IPs your account was last accessed, but a list of any IPs where your account is currently logged in, so you can, via phone or similar, log out (for wholly theoretical example) from your work computer that you have foolishly left open while at lunch.

Or is this something that already exists in a way that I am unaware of? Does logging out of the site from any location/device/browser automatically log you out from all locations/devices/browsers/etc? I am testing this between desktop and phone right now and logout is not persisting, but as always this may be user error.

posted by elizardbits to Feature Requests at 9:57 AM (51 comments total)

The quickest way to do this is just to reset your password, it logs you out from all browsers.
posted by Think_Long at 10:04 AM on April 20, 2012

What Think_Long said, as far as the current way to handle sort of "oh crap did I leave myself logged in at the library / the cafe / my mom's laptop" situations. Right now that's pretty much all there is; I'm not sure what we'd (a) want or (b) be able to reasonably add as far as this stuff goes, but we're picking pb's brain a little bit over email.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:09 AM on April 20, 2012

Does logging out of the site from any location/device/browser automatically log you out from all locations/devices/browsers/etc?

Nope, I don't think that's ever been the case. So one can stay logged in at home and/or phone, while logging in and out at work/parents/dealer's/Apple store without affecting the home login.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:11 AM on April 20, 2012

Yes, Think_Long has it. You can change your password. But it's not quite as simple as logging you out everywhere.

There are two states of being "logged in". State A.) we know your name. State B.) You can post/comment/favorite. So if you reset your password, all of your browsers will remain in state A, but not state B. You'll need to manually log out of each browser to remove both states.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:12 AM on April 20, 2012

Huh, ok. But. Does mefi have any kind of cruel oppressive password rules like "when you reset your password you can NEVER AGAIN UNDER PAIN OF DEATH use a password you have used before"? Because that would suck.
posted by elizardbits at 10:16 AM on April 20, 2012

No, it doesn't.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:18 AM on April 20, 2012

yay
posted by elizardbits at 10:19 AM on April 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think the only rules are that the password has to contain at least one number, one symbol and in iambic pentameter.
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on April 20, 2012 [4 favorites]

TIMING
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on April 20, 2012 [7 favorites]

I haven't checked, but I'm guessing either Batman or that cabbie murderer from CSI.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:23 AM on April 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Excuse me, I'm pretty sure Batman's equipment spoofs his IP to make it look like he's always connected through an internet cafe in Pakistan (Legends of the Dark Knight #462/Birds of Prey #57/Batmanwallah one-shot.)
posted by griphus at 10:26 AM on April 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

Batman's not actually doing that, he just put it out there as bait in case any supervillains got genre-savvy and started reading his comics.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:28 AM on April 20, 2012

I'd guess Anonymous. That Mefite seems to get about a lot, based on their questions.
posted by subbes at 10:29 AM on April 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nice car, though.
posted by maryr at 10:30 AM on April 20, 2012 [7 favorites]

I'll make sure the faq is a little clearer on this, but yeah you can just change your password to something else and this will functionally do what you want. To get more complicated would be adding more cookies and would seem to really overly complicate things from our vantage point.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:30 AM on April 20, 2012

I would like this mostly because I'm curious to see if there's some computer out there in Chicago somewhere that I never logged out of like six years ago.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:36 AM on April 20, 2012

Everyone knows elizardbits's password.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2012

it is neither lolbutts nor buttslol

hdu sir
posted by elizardbits at 11:04 AM on April 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have a dirty, dirty mind.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:05 AM on April 20, 2012

what's a butt slol?
posted by shakespeherian at 11:06 AM on April 20, 2012

twenty buckss, ame asint own.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:33 AM on April 20, 2012 [10 favorites]

What's the secret of comedy?
posted by yaymukund at 11:34 AM on April 20, 2012

Measure twice, cut once.
posted by griphus at 11:39 AM on April 20, 2012

twenty buckss, ame asint own.

The typo's in that suggest a hurried 'get that joke in quick' moment. Doesn't make it any less funny, though.
posted by Brockles at 12:13 PM on April 20, 2012

If you make me explain the joke, that will ruin the joke.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:15 PM on April 20, 2012

Oh wow. You actually spent WAY more effort on that joke than I initially realised. I had you down as hurried sniggering posting, not 'moustache twiddling in a smoking jacket and chortling while crafting punctation related nuance' kind of posting.

If I wasn't such a grumpy arse I'd say I was impressed, but I will say that I am disappointed I didn't notice that until you mentioned it.
posted by Brockles at 12:18 PM on April 20, 2012

If you make me explain the joke, that will ruin the joke.

Sometimes belabored explanations make puns funnier though.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:22 PM on April 20, 2012

*twiddle smoustache*
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:22 PM on April 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: Sometimes belabored explanations
posted by The Whelk at 12:24 PM on April 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Some?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:35 PM on April 20, 2012

Sum?
posted by shakespeherian at 12:36 PM on April 20, 2012

S?
posted by The Whelk at 12:47 PM on April 20, 2012

!
posted by griphus at 12:47 PM on April 20, 2012

Some, sum, som, here it comes!
posted by SpiffyRob at 12:52 PM on April 20, 2012

Σ != !
posted by maryr at 12:53 PM on April 20, 2012

Pancakes now?
posted by Panjandrum at 1:04 PM on April 20, 2012

e_g² = Σ_b-1(n)ωiΔ
posted by griphus at 1:10 PM on April 20, 2012

Be honest: How long did you spend looking up the unicode for that comment.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:14 PM on April 20, 2012

None! I'm all about the charmap.exe, baby.
posted by griphus at 1:15 PM on April 20, 2012

Oooh, baby.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:22 PM on April 20, 2012

Because of charmap.exe, I don't have to turn o's into superscript for temperatures anymore! Thanks, charmap.exe!
posted by maryr at 1:32 PM on April 20, 2012

I'm waiting for it to evolve into charmel.eon
posted by SpiffyRob at 1:36 PM on April 20, 2012

Has this ever happened to you?

SHOT OF MAN HOLDING DOWN TEN KEYS AT ONCE, TRYING TO GET FOOT ONTO KEYBOARD

Or how about this?

SHOT OF WOMAN HOLDING KEYBOARD UPSIDE DOWN AND PRESSING AGAINST ELABORATE MATRIX OF PAPER CLIPS ARRANGED TO DEPRESS A SPECIFIC SET OF KEYS

Wouldn't if be great if you could type those 'special' characters without all the hassle? Introducing charmap.exe! The easy way to make funny letters with your keyboard!
posted by shakespeherian at 1:36 PM on April 20, 2012 [4 favorites]

I use it for work!

I use it for correspondence!

I use it to make stupid faces on the internet!
posted by maryr at 1:42 PM on April 20, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'll make sure the faq is a little clearer on this, but yeah you can just change your password to something else and this will functionally do what you want.

Does it work if I change it then immediately change it back? That is, is my cookie being compared to a hash of my password or something like that, or to some kind of change count / generation number?

I guess I could figure this out by experiment but I'd rather pester the mods.

Also "Twiddle Smoustache" is my new sock puppet name.
posted by hattifattener at 5:41 PM on April 20, 2012

Which user has accessed the site from the most unique IP addresses (and not simply different addresses on the same subnet from the same ISP)?

Within a given time period?
posted by infini at 12:50 AM on April 21, 2012

Which user has accessed the site from the most unique IP addresses (and not simply different addresses on the same subnet from the same ISP)?

I assume you mean non-mod users because otherwise I think I have this sewn up. That said I'm sure we have some users who are using Tor or some other IP randomizing option who may have more than that. I've got 1863 IPs in my list. I think we started keeping track of them sometime in 2001? And hattifattener, I'm not sure about the passwords, that's a pb question.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:28 AM on April 21, 2012

hattifattener, if your password is 12345 (warning: not a secure password, do not use) and you change it to abcde (also not secure, example only) your cookies in other browsers will be invalid at that moment. If you then change it back to 12345, the cookies in other browsers will still be invalid and you'll need to re-log in everywhere. We don't use a hash of the password alone.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:42 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

huh, thats the same password I have on my luggage
posted by The Whelk at 8:58 AM on April 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

I told you not to copy mine.
posted by infini at 9:05 AM on April 21, 2012

The password is not secure.
posted by spitefulcrow at 12:39 PM on April 22, 2012 [1 favorite]