Can someone explain IP address to me?

[The Backlash Cometh]

Does it ever change from week to week, year to year?

[RC]

1. Google is your friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address

http://www.ip-adress.com/

http://whatismyipaddress.com/

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question549.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Now I'm really confused.

It said that it is NOT a unique address and the satellite address appears incorrect.

[Hokie]

2. It is the address used to identify a specific PC on the net

Try this link:

http://www.auditmypc.com/ip-address.asp

Your public Internet Protocol (IP) address is assigned to you by your internet service provider (ISP). See why they call it the Internet? Unless you pay extra for a static IP (as in never changing) it will change periodically even if you are on broadband with a router that is always connected to the internet. This change is transparent if all you are doing is browsing the net and getting your email. In that case your your IP address is only used to route the results of your browser requests right back to you when you ask for a page or email. You might want a static IP if you are hosting a web site on your PC or network. This does not include pages hosted on your ISP's servers that many ISP's provide when you sign up for their service.

Hope that helps.

:hi:

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Sort of does.

I just don't understand why people are so mysterious about them, as if they GOTCHA if their webpages can lock in on your IP address.

[Duer 157099]

5. The IP address, on a certain date/time, does physically locate you

That's one reason people tend to be paranoid. Also, some websites can/will block users by their IP address, and it's a way to minimize people impersonating someone else.

Does that help?

Each device attached to the net *must* have a unique IP address. That does not mean that it cannot change, because they do. But, taken together with the date/time, it's a unique coordinate (location, time).

[RoyGBiv]

6. I'm assuming you mean from your ISP ...

ISP = Internet Service Provider

ISPs offer two kinds of service, one of which gives you a static IP, the other a dynamic IP. A static IP will not change, and they tend to cost a lot of money, and very few private individuals have one. A dynamic IP, which is what most people have, can change at any time. With dialup service you likely have a new IP every time you log in. (You can "accidentally" end up with the same IP as the one you had before, but this is uncommon now. My first ISP only had 10 lines, so it was fairly common to log off then log back in and get the same IP address.) With broadband, you can often have the same IP for weeks, months, or even years, but you can't count on that.

The way it works, in a typical nutshell, is this:

Your provider "leases" you an IP for a certain period of time, usually 24 hours, but I've seen other time variables. At the end of that lease, your modem or "bridge" releases the IP and, if still connected, renews the lease. Since those with broadband tend always to have their modems connected, the renewal usually results in renewing the same IP that was just released.

In practice, you can have the same IP for years. I had service with Cox in OKC for 7 years. I had three total IP addresses that entire time. I forced a new IP the first time it changed, then had it change again after I was offline for many days, and then had the last one for four years.

As was already mentioned, no two computers have (or should have, but that's a huge tangent) the same IP address at any given time. So, you can be identified through server logs if someone has your IP and a time to which to attach it. ISPs don't easily give up these logs, if for no other reason than its not the quickest process in the world, but law enforcement and more covert forms of information gathering can identify a person (or a household or office to be more precise) relatively easily through the IP address.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I'm not concerned about law enforcement tracking down the logs.

I guess we're now living in the era of Big Brother and just should assume they're cheating and peeking. I'm more concerned about going to someone's personal website and wondering how much ability they have to track me down, just because I stayed on long enough to read the website, if they don't have connections to ISPs or corrupt law enforcement people?

[Babel_17]

8. Yes, your address is visible.

http://www.admuncher.com/ips-test.shtml

I'm no expert but software and websites that would block your address used to be very popular but there are now some legal restrictions. Trying to mask it could cause some nasty problems, I suppose, depending on ones intent.

Some websites that offer free video, like the BBC, won't allow visitors from certain regions to do so. They can tell your region by your address. Trying to spoof your address is a mild example of the kind of fraud that could get people into trouble.

Another link that will tell you about what your PC is revealing: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

I'm not trying to alarm anyone and please, everyone, don't go mucking about with your settings without expert and reliable help.

[RoyGBiv]

9. You just have to hit the site ...

All you have to do to get your IP logged is hit the website. It's not a matter of spending any time there. It's trivial to keep a log of IP addresses that have accessed a website, and a lot of websites do this for many reasons, most of them perfectly legit. I have a little script on my site that simply keeps track of how many independent hits it gets per day so I'll have a rough idea of how many actual people are viewing it over time.

And you can, if you know how, get a lot of information from an IP. I've tracked individuals who were harassing people down to a neighborhood without even getting close to messing with the law, i.e. just using easily accessible, public information.

Anonymity on the Internet is an illusion.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Walk me through this then,

a person traps your IP address when you visit their site, then where do they go to input that number to find out where you live? would it be in one of those sites that someone directed me to earlier?

And what about this:

http://www.anonymizer.com/

[Babel_17]

11. Yes, the proxy servers can offer a degree of anonymity

but they "die" very fast and can greatly slow down your browsing speed. The link you gave is to a site that afaik is decent though IIRC they lock your browser into a frame.
But be aware there may be an issue of fraud with some sites if you use them. But I'm not up on those laws.

whois lookup might be the other thing you're interested in.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=whois+lookup&btnG=Search

[RoyGBiv]

12. Complicated subject ...

A primer on tracking people using an IP is not something I could even begin to cover in a single post.

A good place to start is with a whois lookup, which was already mentioned. After that, it depends on what I'm wanting to discover and why, in addition to how much useful information I got from the whois.

[Duer 157099]

13. Here's a place to start

http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm

but bear in mind that it's basically locating your ISP, which usually is somewhat physically near to you, but doesn't have to be.

AFAIK, this is about the limit without getting data from the ISP itself, to see which individual IP was leased to which customer during which period. Unless someone else knows otherwise.