[Vile]

Originally Posted by quintin3265

I disagree, however, that public posting of IP addresses is a huge security risk.

I would like to disagree with you there. A list of IP addresses means active ones to port scan. Generally someone will ping an IP before port scanning, and if the router doesn't respond to a ping (as most have the option not to nowadays), then they won't scan for open ports. Having a public list of IPs, which can be grabbed by any old bot, is just a bad idea.

Also, I believe the privacy statement on the site clearly states:

Originally Posted by Privacy Statement

We will not disclose personally identifiable information about individual users such as names and email addresses with any third parties, except when legally required to do so, at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our website and applicable laws or to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our website.

I do think your idea about analysing the distribution of votes is a good idea, but I really think the only way to run the competition in the future would be with a panel of judges. A way I've seen work in the past has been:

4 judges and 1 guest judge (generally the winner of the previous competition). Each listens to the songs and give their top 5 (or 3, depending on the amount of entries). Winners are worked out from that.

It might be somewhat difficult to pick 4 unbiased judges, but it would be no where near the headache you probably have over trying to ensure there's no cheating with public votes.