8 replies to this topic

[bizarrebob]

hi all, there is someone on a forum i visit who claims to have; pictures of me, my home address, family info and web accounts i have. i know he'd be able to see my IP since he'd moderating the board, but is he bluffing or do you think he's serious? thankyou, please reply asap. im pulling my hair out over this

[LDTate]

Depends on what you have posted on the internet.
Do a Google search for bizarrebob.
I see Youtube and others.

[bizarrebob]

Depends on what you have posted on the internet.
Do a Google search for bizarrebob.
I see Youtube and others.

I didnt use the username i use here on that forum.

i think he might be bluffing, i've not linked anything to my family or pictures of me.

is it possible he's just trying to scare me?

[LDTate]

Depends on what you have posted on the internet.
Do a Google search for bizarrebob.
I see Youtube and others.

I didnt use the username i use here on that forum.

i think he might be bluffing, i've not linked anything to my family or pictures of me.

is it possible he's just trying to scare me?

Sure. He could be bluffing.

[bizarrebob]

sorry to go on, but the more i think about it, the more i think he's just trying to scare me. I mean, i am 90% certain you cannot track down an IP to a physical location. (you can trace it to a city) but not necessarilly the same city the person lives in. You'd need to get the ISP involved first, Is that right? As i said, i've not left any pictures up of me etc so how he could get my family info is beyond me. Is there really anything dangerous he can do with an IP address??

[LDTate]

Your IP gives this information. IP Location: United Kingdom London Bt-central-plus I don't know how it is in the UK, but in the US, it takes a court order before an ISP gives out personal info.

[bizarrebob]

yeah, i think it's the same in the UK. But as i say, it says London, but it doesn't give my personal address, he gets the city but nothing else. I'm pretty sure he's lying. Cheers LDTate, if anyone else has some more info, do let me know. I'm more into the software side of things, not hardware locations, servers n what-have-you thanks

[Blair]

The best analogy for the average internet user, is that an IP address is like a zip code. With a little research someone might know the general area in which you live, but they have no way to know who you are. Many people get way too worked up over IP addresses. It's NOT tied to you, like say your social security number, in fact it's just about the opposite. It's an anonymous number owned most likely by your internet service provider (university, employer, etc). Individuals do not own IP addresses. However, an IP address is needed to serve you this page, or any page on the Internet. It's similar to a postal address, but temporary. Here's a simplified version of how the Intenet works. To access this site you type whatthetech.com into your web browser. A DNS server, most likely at your ISP does a lookup for whatthetech.com and find it's on IP address 72.232.218.61 (which can and does change). The DNS server forwards the request from your computer's IP address, to the servers IP address. Which responds by sending you the data. Your browser renders the data, and you view the page. Without an IP address, the server wouldn't know where to send the data (like a package with no address), and you'd be unable to browse the Internet. If you browse with a dial-up service like AOL, your IP address likely changes every time you connect to the internet, and will even change during the same browsing session. Almost all cable and DSL connections are dynamic IP addresses. While they don't change as often, they can and do change. Businesses are sometimes assigned static IP addresses. This would be for needs like a server, where the IP address can't change without warning. Some also own their own blocks of IP addresses. IP addresses are of course not completely anonymous. For legal reasons, your ISP or the entity that provides your computer with the IP address used to access the Internet is required to keep a log of it. If required by a court order, they would review their logs and identify the account connected to an IP address at a specific date and time. However, Internet Service Providers protect this information very carefully, and a court order is required. Would you be worried to give someone your zip code? Don't worry about your IP address.

[bizarrebob]

Hi Blair, thanks for your post, was an interesting read.