Re: question about ip addresses

needahookup <mike37922@xxxxxxxxx> (07-07-09 23:05:57):

hi, does anyone know if its possible to obtain the ip address of a
person by their email address or their id in a chatroom or ng posts? i
had someone claim they got mine this way and i have heard of this
before....is it possible? thanks for your help

To understand this, it is advantageous to know how communication over
the internet works. You are using a program to communicate to someone
else, who also uses a program, maybe the same, maybe something similar
or at least compatible.

If you are communicating to some other user in the internet, then both
end-points are called peers. A peer always knows the IP address of the
other peer. Peer-to-peer connections are typical for all sorts of
instant messaging programs, where it would be unnecessary and too
expensive to route all the user traffic through some central entity.

Much more common, however, is the client/server-model. Again two
programs are connecting together, but this time, one of the programs is
a client program (the user), and one is the server program. This is
common for situations, where multiple users connect to a central point
(a service) to communicate to each other, or to just send and/or receive
some kind of information. This is common for web-browsing, emailing,
chatting in chat-rooms, and so on.

In the latter case, it really depends on how much information about you
the server sends along to other clients. In many cases, your client
does that as well. This is neither unreasonable, nor a security issue.
It's just a matter of how things are specified. For example, your email
server is supposed to attach host-name information to the message (this
includes your IP address).

To your second question, your IP address itself does contain a certain
amount of information about you. It contains information about your
provider, your country, and likely one can deduce some more accurate
location information from it. How much information is disclosed really
depends on your provider, but at least the provider itself and your
country will be known. Though for most providers that's about it.

More information can be found out by actually doing something with the
IP address. For example, tracing it will give information about where
the nearest router is from you (this can be as inaccurate as a country,
but also as accurate as a city). Scanning your host may even provide
information about your operating system or programs you are running.

Now don't panic. These informations are no security issues so far.
Just as well as other people can look at what clothes you're wearing,
other internet users can (likely) find out your operating system. And
as with clothing, there's little you could do about it. They will not
know your name or your home address, unless you tell them yourself.


Regards,
Ertugrul Söylemez.


--
Security is the one concept, which makes things in your life stay as
they are. Otto is a man, who is afraid of changes in his life; so
naturally he does not employ security.
.

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