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
So an IP address in the most simple terms is just a house address for the internet. And just an address on its own really doesn’t mean anything. I can just grab a map, put my finger anywhere randomly and have an address. And similarly for IPs you can just put in some random numbers and you got one most likely.
The real danger comes when you can link it with other info. Like you know the IP of a specific person. Again compared to house addresses it’s a lot more sensitive if you know that an address belongs to a specific user.
A lot of tech exists to make it a lot harder to do anything with an IP. For instance VPNs tunnel your data to a completely different place (often even different country) and uses the IP of the VPN.
And your IP is thrown all over the internet already. When you visit a website, it’s like you’re sending a post card asking for their catalogue. And on the back you write your home address so they can return send something. But this company only really knows your address and that you sent them a card at that time. (I’m not doing anything with cookies which would be equivalent of putting a code on the envelope that identifies who you are globally).
Simply said: IP itself is really nothing sensitive. It becomes scary when you don’t have any security and it is linked to any other info.
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