What can you do with an IP address?

[Chills1994]

Hi everyone,

From another forum, one of the posters said he could sneak in a bit of code into a .jpg file that was exactly one pixel in size.

With that code, he said he gets to see the IP addresses of other people who have posted comments to blog sites.

So that got me thinking....what does having an IP address get you?

Thanks!

[Fireant]

OK, there are only a couple of things someone could do. They could locate your service provider and they could possibly find your physical location, but service providers only give this information out if they have a court order. Someone could overload your computer with data since your IP address is just a place to send the information, they still will not know where you are. There is no way to keep your address hidden since every website you visit needs this info to know where to send the data. Also, every email you send out has your IP address in the header information. The tech people I work with tell me to not worry about it and to keep my anti virus up to date.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Fireant

[chefcs5]

I wouldnt worry too much every one already sees your ip on every web page you have ever been to they have your ip. heck every forum your on your ip shows up in your post with your screen name so right now enos can see my ip when he reads this.

Like said above people could send a ton of info to your computer or do other tricky things try and hack in and such but it is very very hard to find out anything besides your provider and maybe the town you live in. other than that your ok.

[Graham Smith]

IP Address is easily tracked. If you are the only person at that address, then that IP address will be linked to you and can be used to track your visits to web sites. It's one piece of information that is known about you. I have had the same email and IP address for so long that the spammers can tell you my name, address, phone number, and probably whether I crumple or fold.

[spanky]

You can't be tracked specifically by IP without the cooperation of the ISP that owns that specific IP.

[chefcs5]

if you wanna find out what people can easily find out with your ip go here

http://tinyurl.com/yjqsmd4

it will show all the diffrent ip looker uppers..lol

throw in your ip se what it says

dont know your ip google "whats my ip"

[AlamoShooter]

So I ended up with this Image in my head of a pimp-ply face Geek in sweater - tape on the nose of his glasses . He wipes his nose and says "I got-th your IP address-th"

Edited February 2, 2010 by AlamoShooter

[Vlad]

Not to mention that this day an age an IP address might not even point to a real machine, it may be a vritual address fronting for hundreds of machines in a corporate network, or the sorta-an-ip-but-really-really-dynamic address of a mobile device, etc. Assuming the remote side and their service provider are even remotely competent and you are not out to really really break laws, the most useful thing to do with the IP address is to ban it from accessing your own services.

[-JQ-]

Does anyone use Anonymizer?

It is an IP proxy subscription - but they show little mac support.

[Graham Smith]

You can't be tracked specifically by IP without the cooperation of the ISP that owns that specific IP.

Yes and no.

Anyplace you go on the web can record your IP address and then associate it with anything your look at.

If you register on any web site, they now have your IP address plus any information you give them.

Etc, etc. Pretty soon there is a whole pile of information about you that is being used to "market" to you.

Most likely, the marketing people know more about you than the government ever will.

[Classic_jon]

Warning: the links below lead to techno-geek babble but are included for explanation.

The one pixel gif or jpg trick is normally used by spammers to be able to verify that they have a valid e-mail address.

If you open the spam e-mail, and have an HTML enabled e-mail client, then it will go out to the internet and load the one pixel image and they then "know" that particular e-mail IP is valid.

http://www.rickconner.net/spamweb/analysis02.html

The one pixel images can also be used to defeat spam filtering as well.

http://www.process.com/techsupport/spamtricks.html

In the case of what you are asking, it does not get him much other than knowing how many people looked at that post and possibly their IP.

(edited because I still can't spell... )

Edited February 2, 2010 by Classic_jon

[Graham Smith]

Regarding the IP address. If you want to see an example of how simple it is to get your IP address, go to SpeedTest (it's benign). On the left middle of the screen will be your IP address and your provider name.

If you want more information on how open your computer is, go to Gibson Research and run the free Leak Test - you may not like what you find out.

If you open the spam e-mail, and have an HTML enabled e-mail client, then it will go out to the internet and load the one pixel image and they then "know" that particular e-mail IP is valid.

Many/most email programs are set up to display emails as a list with a "preview" window below it. This is a guaranteed way to trip these pixels and can also lead to various scripts being run without your knowledge. IOW, you don't even have to open an email to give an invader a path.

Because of the huge amount of spam email (and misc cr@p) I get daily, I started using Mailwasher several years ago. It allows me to get a list of all my pending email safely and to delete all the junk without ever downloading it to my computer. Worth it's weight in {insert your favorite thing here}.

[Classic_jon]

I just set my mail browser to render things in plain text and to not use HTML and you would be amazed at the number of e-mails I get that have "broken images" in them that are spam

Regarding the IP address. If you want to see an example of how simple it is to get your IP address, go to SpeedTest (it's benign). On the left middle of the screen will be your IP address and your provider name.

If you want more information on how open your computer is, go to Gibson Research and run the free Leak Test - you may not like what you find out.

If you open the spam e-mail, and have an HTML enabled e-mail client, then it will go out to the internet and load the one pixel image and they then "know" that particular e-mail IP is valid.

Many/most email programs are set up to display emails as a list with a "preview" window below it. This is a guaranteed way to trip these pixels and can also lead to various scripts being run without your knowledge. IOW, you don't even have to open an email to give an invader a path.

Because of the huge amount of spam email (and misc cr@p) I get daily, I started using Mailwasher several years ago. It allows me to get a list of all my pending email safely and to delete all the junk without ever downloading it to my computer. Worth it's weight in {insert your favorite thing here}.

[Chills1994]

Alamo Shooter wrote:

So I ended up with this Image in my head of a pimp-ply face Geek in sweater - tape on the nose of his glasses . He wipes his nose and says "I got-th your IP address-th"

I think that might be much closer to the truth than you and I realize.

I'm not worried. I have nothing to hide. And if my IP address leads them to pull right up in my driveway, I still won't be worried.

I'd love to have them/him/her come inside and we can have a talk, like adults.

Thanks for all the replies fellas.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Chills1994

[islandtime]

If you have a static IP (you have to pay extra for this) it would be easier to get info about you or try and hack your PC. Normal phone, cable, and dsl subscribers pickup new ip's from time to time. Everytime dialup connects you are issued a new IP; cable and DSL subscribers generally renew about once a month. This is because there aren't enough IP addresses to go around for everyone to have a static IP. If you really worry about it just unlug you modem and then plug it back in every day and you will get a new IP address each day.

Just because a website is able to get your IP address doesn't nessasarily mean they are doing/can do something with it. The web generally works on the you asked for it you get it basis. You send a packet requesting a web page and the server you sent the packet to sends back a packet with the webpage. When you get a page that tries to install malicious software it's because you unsuspectingly clicked on a link to go to a page that is scripted to install said malware; it's not because someone just gathered your IP and took over your PC.

Getting an Ip address, mac address, operating system, etc from a site visitor is rather simple and can be done using buit in funtionality of whatever backend language (vb, ASP, PHP and so on) you are using to program the site.

[atbarr]

Because of the huge amount of spam email (and misc cr@p) I get daily, I started using Mailwasher several years ago. It allows me to get a list of all my pending email safely and to delete all the junk without ever downloading it to my computer. Worth it's weight in {insert your favorite thing here}.

I used Mailwasher for years, it does work great. But now, my homepage is windstream.net. Before I download my email, I go to windstream.net. I can see my email on the server (just like Mailwasher), I can block just the sender or the domain it came from. Then delete the email. This is free, as compared to Mailwasher. And, as far as I can tell, it does about the same thing. I never download any spam.

Life is Good,

A.T.

[davidwiz]

You can't be tracked specifically by IP without the cooperation of the ISP that owns that specific IP.

Not quite accurate. If it is a dynamic IP address, then most likely, it is going to show the general geographical location and the ISP, but not the actual subscriber. Some of the high-speed internet providers group their IP addresses by region, so if you do a whois on it, it might say "Philadelphia" or something like that. If it is static IP, then that IP is tied directly to that computer or subscriber.

[Shibby]

If you have a static IP (you have to pay extra for this) it would be easier to get info about you or try and hack your PC. Normal phone, cable, and dsl subscribers pickup new ip's from time to time. Everytime dialup connects you are issued a new IP; cable and DSL subscribers generally renew about once a month. This is because there aren't enough IP addresses to go around for everyone to have a static IP. If you really worry about it just unlug you modem and then plug it back in every day and you will get a new IP address each day.

I wouldn't worry about it because of this. In a weeks time more than likely you will have a different IP Address.

One thing I would would worry about a trick like that is with spam email. A lot of times spammers will include things like that to see if the address they sent the email to is being checked. Once they get a hit, they'll then flood that email address with more and more spam. That's why GMail (and I'm sure other web mail providers) give you the option to block all image files in emails.