Why is it bad for someone to have your ip address? What can they do with this information?
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It is much like a real address in that respect.
It isn’t a secret, and a lot of people have it. You need to give it out for many purposes.
However, if someone you do not want to have your address gets it, they might send you threatening messages, egg your house, knock over your trash cans, try to spy on you, or break into your house and try to murder you in your sleep.
With an IP address, most of this is limited to the digital world. It is difficult to get a full address from an IP address and, if a person is that determined to get your address, probably easier to do another way.
So they might use it to ping flood your connection to make your Internet slow or crash your router. They might hack your router or your computer. They might use it to determine your general location, but this usually only gets to within several blocks to several miles.
The upside is that it is much less potentially dangerous to you for angry strangers to have your IP address than your physical. It is difficult to beat someone up or shoot up their house online. The downside is that, unlike a physical address, people with your IP address can harass you from another continent.
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