Okay - for those not into cybersecurity - a quick run down. IP = Internet Protocol and its tied to you and your online activity.
So did y'all know how easy it is to find out about each other? Perhaps not breathing easy, but
dumb easy.
tl;dr All someone needs is your IP, a litte info to fill gaps, and time.
i'm sorry. i know this is boring and no one cares, but i find this neat 2am and i have no one to talk to. help
Okay - for those not into cybersecurity - a quick run down. IP = Internet Protocol and its tied to you and your online activity.
So did y'all know how easy it is to find out about each other? Perhaps not breathing easy, but
dumb easy.
tl;dr All someone needs is your IP, a litte info to fill gaps, and time.
i'm sorry. i know this is boring and no one cares, but i find this neat 2am and i have no one to talk to. help
@
wyyrm
This is actually interesting! I'm not "techy", but I understand most of what you said. Just goes to show how easy the internet is to use sometimes.
@
wyyrm
This is actually interesting! I'm not "techy", but I understand most of what you said. Just goes to show how easy the internet is to use sometimes.
He/Him
Trans/Pansexual
18
Work full-time, not on until evenings!
That article is SO out of date, though. It was written in 2013, before encryption was used as widely as it is now. These days, Googling an IP address WON'T give you any personal data about the person/people using that IP address, because server logs are all encrypted and most sites do not publicly show the IP addresses of its users, so there's no meaningful way of tying an IP address to an email address, let alone any other personal data. When data is encrypted through HTTPS, it's literally not stored on the servers in any way that would be intelligible as an IP address or any other info.
In fact, in most countries, a court order is required for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide the personal details of a subscriber using a specific IP address. Googling the IP address alone will NOT come up with the personal info you gave to the ISP, because that information is available only to the ISP, and must be specifically requested by the police or other law enforcement agencies. And in most countries, they may only do this when they have due cause.
Googling an IP address will show your rough geographic location, though this is often the location of an exchange/node that may be many miles from your actual location. My IP address, for example, shows my location as a town that's actually 200 miles from here. Good luck making use out of that. Googling an IP address will also show what ISP you use (which is useless information anyway, because you're just one of thousands of customers using that ISP.)
Additionally, IP addresses are generally not static. Every time your router reconnects to the internet, you'll get a different IP address out of hundreds or even thousands owned by the same ISP. This means that even if your personal data could be found from your IP address alone, the fact that the same IP address has previously been used by hundreds/thousands of other people over the years would completely muddy any personal data gathered. It would just be a jumble of data all mixed up together, utterly uselss.
The only time an IP address can be consistently tracked back to a specific person is when it's the IP address of a website, with which you can get the WHOIS data - that is the information used when you bought the domain name. BUUUUUUUT... these days anybody with an ounce of common sense will opt for "domain privacy", which is where the WHOIS data is anonymised. All of the domains I own use this, where the registration information on them is NOT my personal data, but contact details at the hosting company I use. And guess what? Those hosting companies and other services that offer anonymised WHOIS data aren't going to hand over your personal information for anything less than a court order, either.
TL:DR The internet these days is actually 99% encrypted, so Googling an IP address doesn't get you any meaningful information anymore. As long as you're careful to NEVER post personal information about yourself online - no names, no email addresses, no addresses, no phone numbers, not what school you go to, not where you work, etc - and if you do need to set up a website, you opt-in to domain privacy, your personal information is actually pretty safe.
Oh, and don't sign up for social media. Using your real name on Facebook and constantly posting all the minutiae of your life is FAR more dangerous than someone Googling your IP address.
That article is SO out of date, though. It was written in 2013, before encryption was used as widely as it is now. These days, Googling an IP address WON'T give you any personal data about the person/people using that IP address, because server logs are all encrypted and most sites do not publicly show the IP addresses of its users, so there's no meaningful way of tying an IP address to an email address, let alone any other personal data. When data is encrypted through HTTPS, it's literally not stored on the servers in any way that would be intelligible as an IP address or any other info.
In fact, in most countries, a court order is required for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide the personal details of a subscriber using a specific IP address. Googling the IP address alone will NOT come up with the personal info you gave to the ISP, because that information is available only to the ISP, and must be specifically requested by the police or other law enforcement agencies. And in most countries, they may only do this when they have due cause.
Googling an IP address will show your rough geographic location, though this is often the location of an exchange/node that may be many miles from your actual location. My IP address, for example, shows my location as a town that's actually 200 miles from here. Good luck making use out of that. Googling an IP address will also show what ISP you use (which is useless information anyway, because you're just one of thousands of customers using that ISP.)
Additionally, IP addresses are generally not static. Every time your router reconnects to the internet, you'll get a different IP address out of hundreds or even thousands owned by the same ISP. This means that even if your personal data could be found from your IP address alone, the fact that the same IP address has previously been used by hundreds/thousands of other people over the years would completely muddy any personal data gathered. It would just be a jumble of data all mixed up together, utterly uselss.
The only time an IP address can be consistently tracked back to a specific person is when it's the IP address of a website, with which you can get the WHOIS data - that is the information used when you bought the domain name. BUUUUUUUT... these days anybody with an ounce of common sense will opt for "domain privacy", which is where the WHOIS data is anonymised. All of the domains I own use this, where the registration information on them is NOT my personal data, but contact details at the hosting company I use. And guess what? Those hosting companies and other services that offer anonymised WHOIS data aren't going to hand over your personal information for anything less than a court order, either.
TL:DR The internet these days is actually 99% encrypted, so Googling an IP address doesn't get you any meaningful information anymore. As long as you're careful to NEVER post personal information about yourself online - no names, no email addresses, no addresses, no phone numbers, not what school you go to, not where you work, etc - and if you do need to set up a website, you opt-in to domain privacy, your personal information is actually pretty safe.
Oh, and don't sign up for social media. Using your real name on Facebook and constantly posting all the minutiae of your life is FAR more dangerous than someone Googling your IP address.
@
Ruan
Thank you for such a detailed post! Gotta agree with ya on the social media stuff, nothing good comes from posting person infomation. And thanks for the heads up, I hadn't realized that the acticle was outdated when posting this.
heh, am just paranoid about privacy sometimes.
@
Ruan
Thank you for such a detailed post! Gotta agree with ya on the social media stuff, nothing good comes from posting person infomation. And thanks for the heads up, I hadn't realized that the acticle was outdated when posting this.
heh, am just paranoid about privacy sometimes.
