eli5:what is an ip adress and why is revealing it bad?

Question

eli5:what is an ip adress and why is revealing it bad?

In: 3

Answer 1

An IP address is just that, an address.
It’s how you get stuff sent to you online.
Like an address it will include some hints on how to get to where you are. Though pretty much only your ISP can trace it down to a specific real world address.
Revealing it is rarely bad, you have to reveal it to someone in order to get anything online. Though if someone had a court order they could force your ISP to tell them where you live.

Some companies host a service called a VPN where you tell them your IP address and then go though their servers, so everywhere you visit gets their IP address instead of your’s.
They say they don’t record, though they’re often lying.
They also usually have you encrypt everything, which means they aren’t a total waste of money.
But at the same time they often want to scare up some business, so they scaremonger saying that revealing your IP is bad.

Answer 2

An IP address is just that, an address.
It’s how you get stuff sent to you online.
Like an address it will include some hints on how to get to where you are. Though pretty much only your ISP can trace it down to a specific real world address.
Revealing it is rarely bad, you have to reveal it to someone in order to get anything online. Though if someone had a court order they could force your ISP to tell them where you live.

Some companies host a service called a VPN where you tell them your IP address and then go though their servers, so everywhere you visit gets their IP address instead of your’s.
They say they don’t record, though they’re often lying.
They also usually have you encrypt everything, which means they aren’t a total waste of money.
But at the same time they often want to scare up some business, so they scaremonger saying that revealing your IP is bad.