I am *really* not a computer guy, and this question has kinda been on my mind since I found out about doxxing/IP grabbers ages ago. I didn’t really care too much, since I am not a fan of putting people in danger over twitter like a dickhead, but can someone tell me generally why it’s a serious issue if someone leaks your IP?
Since this sounds as if I’m trying to doxx someone: I’m posting after searching my own IP & I found that most websites pinpointed my address to a different country entirely?? (Still a country next to mines, but definitely more than far away enough for me to care if mines were leaked). Famous people who get doxxed online always move away for safety, so I’m really confused why that is when the website I used to check my own IP address on a bunch of places online at once usually all ended up being a whole country off.
Even though I shouldn’t need to state this outright; **don’t give a step-by-step guide on how to doxx people**. I don’t want to know that. I just want to know why IP grabbing is such a big deal and how doxxing is possible vaguely in a way that forces people to move cities.
In: Technology
An IP is a unique identifier (mostly). It’s similar to your house address. The difference is that IP addresses can change, but only in certain situations. For most people that use their network connection frequently, they’ll keep their IP for a long time. Your computer will be the only one using that address (it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist). You can’t have two houses with the same address, you wouldn’t know which one gets the letter.
That means it can be used to forward messages with harmful content, or so many messages at once, the desired ones don’t get through. It can also be used to narrow down where you are to a certain point.
IPs are assigned in blocks to ISPs by a governing body, so if you fall within that block, you can generally figure out what city the device is in. For example, your local cable company might be assigned anything that starts with 123.456.x.x, so anyone with those numbers will be within their area.
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