Does IP Address Reveal my Physical Location? - Comments Page 1

Note that for full anonymous Internet it's hard to avoid paying for an account, since the free services are limited. You can also get anonymizing software for your computer which passes you through a network of proxy servers. Access a dozen anonymous surfing services from this page: http://www.space.net.au/~thomas/quickbrowse.html

You may also be interested in checking out the Tor network, designed for high anonymity and security (hosted by the Electronic Freedom Foundation): http://tor.eff.org

sir,i want to ask u a seriours matter.i am in serious trouble , if someone has my ip address and he wants to detect me seriously,would he go to the ISP to find the line(telephone)which was assigned the ip address at that time and date.if they have the information ,how long they could keep that record.i was connected through dial-up process.

EDITOR'S NOTE: They could, but the ISP should not release that info without a warrant signed by a judge. At least in the US...

Switch on full header view in emails, pick up the IP address where it first hit the Internet (top of the list) and put it into something like Geobytes - presto, good proximity. Surfing is safer..

EDITOR'S NOTE: This only gives a rough estimate of geographic location, and results vary widely depending on the ISP. For example: If you're an AOL user, these tools will ALWAYS say that you're in Virginia, where AOL is located.

Being a developer, I can tell you that based on the IP Address and the provider, it is possible over 70% of the time for us to pull a latitude and longitude from an IP address, based on a host of factors. I've been writing applications that used both simple and complex Geo location based on a person's IP address since 2003. Take a look at something as commercial as IP2Location.com, which is distributed as a web service to applications. The results might surprise you.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sure, this works in some cases, but it will NEVER pinpoint an exact street location, unless you live in the same building as your ISP's local switching facility. Not likely. For some ISPs,it will get you within a few miles, others could be wrong by several orders of magnitude.

Does anybody know how long isp keeps the record of the ip address lets say for a sent email???

EDITOR'S NOTE: It could be 7 days or 70 years, depending on the ISP, and the phase of the moon. I doubt they would ever tell you.

Mr. Rankin, are you sure The Anonymizer service claim that they do not store IP addresses? I did not see any mention of this on their website.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I didn't say anything about whether or not Anonymizer stores your IP address. I did say that it HIDES your IP from the target websites.

Do you know of any case in which a judge has issued a warrant for an ip address in a civil suit, i.e. for defamation? X says something incorrect about Y on a blog, Y is angry and demands that the blog company give the ip address X's statement came from, blog company refuses, Y sues blog company...

EDITOR'S NOTE: I can't think of a specific case, but I'll bet it happens every day.

I have a laptop from work. If I bring it home and surf the web utilizing my home ISP (rather than the company's network), would they be able to trace me comings and goings? Also, does the IP belong to the individual, discreet PC, or to the ISP address servicing a particular address? For instance, a laptop using s wireless connection: is the IP of that laptop always the same, or does it change as you change from one one wireless connection to another?

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you use your laptop at home, and connect to your home ISP, the only way for your employer to see what you've done online is to peek into your history or cache when you return to work and connect to the company network. To clear your browser's tracks, see http://askbobrankin.com/clearing_browser_history.html

My computer was stolen about a week ago. Last night the guys used my iTunes account from that computer to download a bunch of stuff costing me money. I contacted iTunes who were able to give me an IP address as well as the exact time the download took place. I filed a police report for the stolen computer. Will the police be able to find the exact location with this information?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Possibly, but only if the ISP will cooperate and supply the name of their customer who was assigned to that IP at that time. However, if it was a wireless connection in a public place, then you're probably out of luck.

So, if someone told me they received "nasty" e-mails and that they had a computer tech breakout the e-mail trail and they found an ISP, does that mean "they got me"? Is a name of the person who sent the e-mail revealed or just the service provider?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Only the name of the ISP is revealed.

why ISP keeps the record of the IP address for a sent email? if it is a legal obligation then how long?

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm sure each ISP has a different policy on data retention...

If someone has your IP, and tells you where your internet provider is located online (what city)... should you be worried...? It was kind of creepy, Bob.

EDITOR'S NOTE: No, the mapping of IP to geographic area (of the ISP) is public data. There are websites where you can see this in action. See http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm

if someone sent a nasty email to someone else, and they said they would press charges against the someone sending the email.will the police be able to track the email sender through the ip address...especially if the email sender lives in another state of the one he sent the email to?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's possible (in most cases) from a technical standpoint. But you'd need to convince a judge that your squabble is a criminal affair, and get him to order the sending ISP to reveal the sender's info. Even then, if the email was sent from a public terminal in a library or school, it becomes impossible to identify who sent the message.

In response to my last question -- So, in them being able to say the physical location of my ISP, and where they are headquartered, from getting my IP from a forum, I should be okay, then? It's really weird that they can find that kind of thing out.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Internet was designed this way. The ability to correlate an IP address to a geographic location is a good thing.

Yes, your kids can be tracked down, but only if your kids know your home ip address and willingly give it out. To find out what your home ip address is, simply go to your start menu, click on Run..., then type in "cmd". The command prompt will come up, type in "ipconfig" without the quotation marks...and after about 1-5 seconds it will display a list of your connection-specific dns suffix, your home ip address, your subnet mask, and your default gateway ip address. If you're wondering I am 17, and I have no idea how I learned all this stuff, I just know it...

If you want you can of course keep changing your MAC address (physical address) every few days. For more info follow this guide http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/change_mac_w2k.htm

Hi, is there a way from the ip, to find someones user name that uses to connect to the internet through dial-up,adsl?

EDITOR'S NOTE: No you can't obtain a username from the IP address. Only the ISP could tell you that.

Hello, what about some ip scanner tools that claims to resolve-discover from an ip, the host name , mac address , computer name , user name , TTL , country , alive host or not ...etc... Does this user name that these tools discovers is the user name that someones uses to connect to internet with a dial-up or adsl line?.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Definitely not. Many years ago, some ISPs were putting the username in the dynamic hostname assigned to the IP address for a dialup session. But I'd be schocked if any are still doing that.

Good day sir bob, well in greece the ISP and generally the internet technology is about 10-20 years old in comparison with yours in usa, so dont be schocked that many greek ISP still doing it.

So its very easy for a bad hacker to find someones user name from an ip if he/she do a scan of the ip or even attack the ISP databases and so he/she can combine the ip with the specific user name and send out viruses or threatening emails to this user.

a while ago i asked a question regarding drugs online. one guy answered by saying that he tracked my ip and is going to report me to local authorities. that would be very unfortunate, considering i've been in some trouble with drugs before. what can i do to avoid all of this?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Most likely he's lying, unless he happens to know you personally. Nobody (except your ISP) can find out your personal identify given only your IP address. Visit http://www.geoiptool.com for some fun.