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
“IP grabbing” doesn’t do much for most people. The basic attack is DDOS which will disrupt your internet. If this happens, you can call your ISP and they will give you a new random IP address. If you’re playing an online videogame against someone that knows your IP, they could time the DDOS to give them an unfair advantage against you – this used to be very common but videogames have done a better job at not revealing your IP to everyone over the past 10 years.
If you’re running servers at home or hosting videogames, someone could scan for vulnerabilities and, if found, potentially get into your computer – If you’re a random IP address, you will get random attacks / scans that are most likely to be unsuccessful, assuming you update your OS and browser regularly.
The danger is if someone has the ressources necessary, wants to hurt you AND have your IP – they could use more sophisticated attacks like using new vulnerabilities in your OS/browser before they are patched and get into your computer.
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