Privacy laws regarding IP adresses?

Question

I frequent a forum, and there's something I noticed is that there's a little tool at the top of the page which openly broadcasts a real time list of IP addresses of anyone viewing the site.

The issue is, its not exactly a safe place to be if your ip is available in real time to any hacker wanting to see how good your firewall is. -- and at the top of the list is a link to a list of the IP's of banned members.

This has to be frowned upon. I don't have a good relationship with the site, I am a banned member. I'm hanging around to keep up with the bits of the community I liked, and learn some contact details and reclaim some friends. not so comfortable with having my IP adress stored in a permanent list along with my region details

Answer 1

Like the man said, most IP addresses are semi-randomly assigned anymore. There is no more privacy expected/required/legislated for an IP address than there is for a Post Office box number. Just what makes people believe that you are safer routing your IP through a proxy? Who knows who is running the proxy, and why? Maybe they are running it so they can collect your data! Sheesh, people, think!!

Answer 2

An IP address isn't enough for someone to hack your computer. I'm assuming what you're referring to is the method in which hackers hack servers by first routing traffic to that address, overwhelming the server and ultimately bringing it, and any security features it employs down. Whereas an IP address may be enough for a DDoS attack, that would be illegal and easily traceable / avoided + would take hundreds of zombie computers routing packets to your address - something that most people don't have access to. Considering your IP address is most likely dynamic, people will be unable to trace it to a specific address, since it'll be assigned randomly from a pool of available IP addresses.



While giving out your IP address isn't exactly smart, as long as no name is attached, and no further personal details, you should still remain anonymous to the rest of the community.

Answer 3

Yeah it's not very smart of them to broadcast IP addresses to other network users. However I highly doubt this is a violation of any law.



I remember when the ICQ software first came out (bit like MSN Messenger), you could find out the IP address of anyone on your contact list simply by going to their profile. That feature was promptly and rightly removed as it was being used for all kinds of mischief.



So, in short, I doubt there is anything you can do legally, but you could try contacting the site owner to explain that it is a potential security hazard and that it would be a good idea to remove this information from their site.

Answer 4

Static and dynamic IP addresses are described in the link below.

http://whatismyipaddress.com/dynamic-static

If you pay for a static address you are usually a business. If you are a domestic customer then you usually will have a dynamic address which means that it changes every time that you switch your laptop on or turn your router off for a few minutes. It is therefore useless for tracing your whereabouts as it can change frequently. Anyway it an IP address can only identify a source to within a 60 mile radius;

Try this;

http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Your IP address cannot identify you.

There are other things that can though which are embedded within your PC.

Here is a clue;

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=mac+address&fr=ush-ans

Regards, Bob.

Answer 5

Do you not think hackers have better targets to go after than you computer?

Can't you protect your computer from simple port scans?



If you didn't get your self banned from the forum then they wouldn't have your IP on permanent display.

Answer 6

You can use a proxy server. A proxy server displays you in a new IP. You can feel the difference of using a proxy by testing your ip details here http://www.ip-details.com/ip-search/ . before and after using a proxy.

Answer 7

I suggest you stay away from the site or investigate how to use a proxy.

Just as you want to "learn some contact details" others may well want to do the same and the site apparently makes it very easy. There is no law that prevents them from doing so.

Answer 8

You IP tackle is "owned" by skill of your internet provider provider (ISP) and is in simple terms assigned to you by skill of the ISP. pretty much everybody on the instant, has a "dynamic IP tackle" it incredibly is replaced by skill of their ISP each 24 hours or so. So in spite of the fact that if somebody the place to renowned your IP tackle on the instant, that distinctive IP tackle could in all probability be assigned to a distinctive individual, perchance hundreds or miles away, the following day.

Answer 9

If you wanna keep using the site, just use a proxy or Tor or something.