Internet Privacy

UltimateKirbyFan

After seeing this on Hackulo.us forums, I began to question my privacy on the internet:

UKFSign3.jpg


Supposedly, this picture only shows the IP address of YOU to YOU. Nobody should be able to see your IP address and info other than yourself. But what if people released that information to others? That could be really dangerous...

I'm just slightly concerned about my privacy on the internet now, what about you guys?
 
Those things are nothing new and certainly nothing to worry about. It's near impossible to physically locate a computer based only on its IP address. The only information we can glean from that is maybe which Internet Service Provider you are using and where their location is, to get into specifics about you we'd need the ISP's cooperation, which is not likely to happen unless we have a legitimate reason.

Privacy on the internet is always a concern, but I'm not sure you've provided a legitimate example of a threat there.
 
Whoever wrote that thing should probably fix it. It has my OS listed incorrectly.

This type of information is grabbed and logged by just about every website you visit by the way. However, you have little to nothing to worry about. Nobody can do anything based on your IP, OS, and ISP information.
 
There are legitimate privacy concerns regarding the internet. Your IP address isn't one of them.

Yes, someone could target your computer for a hacking attack if they knew your IP address. But there are far more random attacks. Unless you're rich or famous few have any reason to target you specifically. Just as long as you don't go posting your IP online saying "hurr durr u can't haxxor me I'm behind 7 proxies".
 
Internet privacy may be oxymoronic, but if you thought for a second that your IP was confidential, I don't think you really understand enough about the Internet to be making legitimate claims as to what should and shouldn't be private. All of that information is stuff that needs to be sent to web pages in order to use the Internet (and you can fake your User Agent if you really don't want people to know your OS / browser).
 
Supposedly, this picture only shows the IP address of YOU to YOU. Nobody should be able to see your IP address and info other than yourself. But what if people released that information to others?
Click to expand...

For the record, that image was dynamically constructed from the information YOUR browser told it. Your browser is telling every single site you go to this information. So, the "person releasing that information to others" is actually you. Oops.

There are options to modify so that your browser does not do this, but it's harmless, so why bother.
 
Fatecrashers said:
Those things are nothing new and certainly nothing to worry about. It's near impossible to physically locate a computer based only on its IP address. The only information we can glean from that is maybe which Internet Service Provider you are using and where their location is, to get into specifics about you we'd need the ISP's cooperation, which is not likely to happen unless we have a legitimate reason.

Privacy on the internet is always a concern, but I'm not sure you've provided a legitimate example of a threat there.
Click to expand...

Wait so if someone say, hacked into my email account and messed around in it, there would be no way to be able to tell where exactly the bitch did so from?

But I thought it's still illegal to do so. o.o
 
there is a quote somewhere that seems particularly apt - that being concerned about 'broadcasting your IP address' is on a par with worrying about your house broadcasting your street address
 
sneeze said:
Wait so if someone say, hacked into my email account and messed around in it, there would be no way to be able to tell where exactly the bitch did so from?

But I thought it's still illegal to do so. o.o
Click to expand...

There ARE ways to tell, you just don't have the resources to do so yourself. If the authorities were to investigate, they would get the proper cooperation from the ISP to aid the tracking of the attacker.
 
sneeze said:
Wait so if someone say, hacked into my email account and messed around in it, there would be no way to be able to tell where exactly the bitch did so from?

But I thought it's still illegal to do so. o.o
Click to expand...

Hacking an email account is not so easy as it is made out to be. If you are storing your username/password on your machine and a cracker has the access to it, then the point is moot. If he is guessing your password, then you need better passwords. If he is guessing security question, then again you need better question. And finally if your system has keylogger, then you need anti-spyware and also anti-virus. In all cases, prevention is better than cure and steps taken for these eliminate 99% of danger.

And you if you are worried about your IP address being seen by a particular website, use a proxy to access that website but that again has its risks.
 
sneeze said:
Wait so if someone say, hacked into my email account and messed around in it, there would be no way to be able to tell where exactly the bitch did so from?

But I thought it's still illegal to do so. o.o
Click to expand...

No, it would be very, very draconian if we could get people's exact location from their IP address. There are many, many problems with such a system that it would be stupid to think about implementing them.

You can get a general location, which is good enough for legitimate uses (hmm, pretty sure I didn't login to gmail from China...) as well as those targeted ads (find sexy singles in Troy, NY!) but not so bad as to say exactly where the user is (though anyone can figure out I go to RPI with my IP, they would need to call in with my full name to get my location).
 
crabnebula said:
And you if you are worried about your IP address being seen by a particular website, use a proxy to access that website but that again has its risks.
Click to expand...

No open proxies. If you are using an open proxy, you will be IP banned.
Click to expand...
so I wouldn't advise using proxies to access smogon

this 'internet privacy' thing has never really troubled me, I run a good antivirus program that is updated frequently, and I scan my computer frequently too

Chris is me said:
No, it would be very, very draconian if we could get people's exact location from their IP address. There are many, many problems with such a system that it would be stupid to think about implementing them.

You can get a general location, which is good enough for legitimate uses (hmm, pretty sure I didn't login to gmail from China...) as well as those targeted ads (find sexy singles in Troy, NY!) but not so bad as to say exactly where the user is (though anyone can figure out I go to RPI with my IP, they would need to call in with my full name to get my location).
Click to expand...

I think you're talking about this http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/ the best it can do is tell you the country and the city so it isn't really anything to worry about
 
Yeah, that information (ip address, general location, OS, browser) is not really that dangerous, and in fact it is stored by just about every site you visit.

If you use any social networking site you know that a large number of people are comfortable releasing information that is much more vital to personal security than these (things like name, birthday, exactly who they are friends with, e-mail, phone number, appearance).

On another note, I'm glad to see there is another UCSD student on Smogon =) Now there are two?
 
crabnebula said:
Hacking an email account is not so easy as it is made out to be.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, what is easy is faking an email to look like it came from someone else. That could make you believe (wrongly) that your account had been hacked. The forgery can usually be detected, but most users don't know how.
 
cantab said:
On the other hand, what is easy is faking an email to look like it came from someone else. That could make you believe (wrongly) that your account had been hacked. The forgery can usually be detected, but most users don't know how.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've recently received an email claiming to be from the HSBC (bank of China) asking for my account details as their server databased has 'crashed'. I noticed it was fake since the 'S' in HSBC was actually represented by a 5. Simple things like that can help you detect forgery
 
Other clues that something might be a forgery include: asking for your bank account details.

Have a nice day.
 
Lol.. and what to make of a pet organization asking you to chronologically list the names of all the pets you've ever had in order to determine what pet names are the most common? XD
 
Oregon State University?

That's where I am, we should meet up sometime.

But I think it was a prefabricated message, because that's the exact same IP address that I have. They probably just got it from someone and kept it there.
 
mtr said:
But I think it was a prefabricated message, because that's the exact same IP address that I have. They probably just got it from someone and kept it there.
Click to expand...

You must have missed the part that said it shows YOUR IP address to YOU. So no, its not a pre-fabricated message. All the site does is, use the information your browser provides it and put it on the image and display it.
 
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