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 addresses by themselves don’t really have a huge effect in terms of doxxing, but are more like a piece to a puzzle. Doxxing in a way is sort of like piecing small bits of information together to build out information on somebody. Typically it’s all done through publicly available information vectors.
As an example, let’s say you are trying to find out the address of a long lost cousin of yours. The only thing you have to go on is their name, and perhaps their parents names in this case. You also know what state they live in.
From this information, you can use what you have to find out info and then pivot into other pieces of information. This cousin is a registered voter and lives in a state where that is publicly accessible? You have a potentially easy vector to an address, but a bunch of information you’d need to filter down. Other clues can help too, especially social media presence. This sort of stuff is easy if the person is pretty typical and doesn’t do much to hide their online presence.
Where an IP address could come into play is with your example. Occasionally the geolocation of the address is actually accurate and may give the doxxer information like the country or state they live in. It’s not concrete evidence, but it could narrow down results. It provides pieces to the puzzle but isn’t entirely helpful by itself.
Stuff like this is why it is incredibly important to hide identifying information about yourself online. A social media presence is an incredible attack vector for bad actors. Unfortunately in some states even just registering to vote puts your name and address out on publicly available lists.
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