did harbourne ever register at the ToE forums that you know of, neilo (or motti)? and do you have a way to check IP addresses? that's be the most logical (in my mind) way to confirm things one way or the other.
i just checked and "player sg1" submitted a few games midway through last monty. all pretty low scoring and on cakewalk. thing is, he (or she) could've joined us noting that we've got some of the strongest players in the MV. this is a tricky issue. we've made some allies and done some good (and by "good" i mean helpful, not saintly) things for the community, but we've also made a few enemies. i don't want to alienate potential new allies, but i'd also rather keep our own ranks free of "spies" as nielo put it.
now i know how the colonial fleet must feel!
I don't recall Harborne ever registering with the ToE. As far as IP addresses go, yes, we could check them, but if someone wants in, they could just spoof the addy or use a proxy. There are other ways of checking out potential problems, but I only look into things when a request is made or something is glaring on the radar. In player sg1's case, it was by request and then only did a cursory check to see that things appeared legit.
A certain amount of trust is warranted and we should always be aware that there's no such thing as a private conversation on the internet. Be it email, PMs or IM, it's all subject to interception. That, and we're not exactly guarding state secrets there. 
