Why is it bad for someone to have your ip address? What can they do with this information?
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First there are two types of IP addresses. Private and public. Public ones are the ones that let the internet work. Everyone has 1 public address. If someone got that, they could scan your ip and possibly your whole network (based on if you are protected or not).
Your private address usually doesn’t matter much any more. Back in the day web forums often allowed admins to ban by private IP address. This could ban multiple people for 1 single IP address.
Story time: back in the early 2000s I was on a forum that allowed banning by IP address. This forum had everyone’s IPs shown. I made it a point to pointing it out. First I changed my IP address to match one of the mods. I kept at it until they banned that IP. So then I moved on to the next mod’s IP. Once all the mods were banned I changed it to match the admin trying to banned me. He then banned himself, and I simple again changed my IP. After a week or so the admin emailed me and I explained exactly what happened and how to unban himself. After he did, he changed the IPs to be hidden.
They could put it in a reverse IP website and find the state and or maybe the city your IP is allocated to. Outside of that? Basically nothing.
They aren’t going to find your name, or your address or hack you because of it. They also aren’t going to get any information about your network or what websites you go to by just knowing your IP. No idea why there are multiple responses alluding to it, I’d guess it’s people who think port forwarding for a Minecraft server makes them networking engineers.
That’s for normal people, which is what I am guessing is the question here. If you want to get into what do companies and or law enforcement do with your IP it gets a bit more interesting. Your IP can be tracked between services and link you back to behavior or interests, think how google makes all it’s money. It’s a means of tracking you around the internet if you’re in a position to trace such things.
Many responses here. Let’s simply.
With your IP they *may* be able to know your locale (within a hundred or few hundred miles).
Otherwise, there is 99.999% chance you have a router between you and your Internet IP which means there’s nothing someone can do with your IP.
Yes, there are fringe cases, but for the vast majority, having an IP does nothing.
Think of your IP address like your home address. It’s a special number for your computer on the internet. Just like you don’t want strangers to know where you live, you don’t want them to know your IP address either.
If someone knows your IP address, they might try to do things like find out where you are or maybe even try to do bad things to your computer. It’s important to keep it a secret, just like you don’t tell strangers where you live. Your IP address helps keep your computer safe, so it’s best to keep it private.
If someone knows your IP address, there are a few things they could potentially do:
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: They might send a lot of traffic to your IP address, trying to overload your internet connection or the services you’re using, like a website, making them slow or not work.
Hacking Attempts: Some people with bad intentions might try to break into your computer or devices if they know your IP address. They might try to steal your personal information or mess with your files.
Location Tracking: With your IP address, they can sometimes get a general idea of where you are located, although it’s not super precise.
Privacy Invasion: They might use your IP address to find out what websites you visit or what you do online, which is a violation of your privacy.
That’s why it’s important to keep your IP address private and secure to protect yourself and your online activities.
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