Does IP Address Reveal my Physical Location?
"Can someone track a user (name, home address, etc.) simply by having their email or IP address? The reason I ask is my kids play some games online, and these sites sometimes have a chat area, where the players can talk to each other while playing. Can my kids be tracked down in any way?"
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Are You Invisible Online?
It's true that your IP address is no secret. It's a basic part of internet communication protocols to send your IP address whenever you connect to another site, request a web page, chat, play an online game, etc. Without your IP address, the computer on the other end wouldn't know where to send the reply.
But that doesn't mean that Evildoers can find your house if they know your IP address. Each time you go online (if you have dialup) or each time you start your computer (if you have cable or dsl) you will be assigned an IP address, randomly selected from a pool of IP's assigned to your Internet service provider (ISP).
WHOIS Your ISP
So a person MIGHT be able to get a general idea of your geographic location, based on your IP address, by doing a lookup on the WHOIS database, but that will only tell them the physical location of your ISP -- not YOUR home address.
And if you use a large regional or nationwide ISP, the IP lookup probably reveals nothing of interest. For example, if you are an AOL subscriber, your IP address lookup will show the location as Dulles, Virginia -- regardless of where you live.
When The Law Comes A Knockin'
Of course there is an exception to every rule. If Joe or Jane User calls your ISP and wants to know who was using a certain IP address last Tuesday, the ISP will tell them to go away. But if an officer of the law hands your ISP a court order to reveal that information, they must do so. Your ISP's logs will enable them to determine which customer was using a certain IP address on a certain date & time, and they must reveal that information if a court has found probable cause that a crime was committed by that person.
But for the truly paranoid (or the criminally inclined) there are ways to surf the web anonymously. The Anonymizer service will act as a proxy between you and your ISP, and they claim that your information cannot be subpoenaed because they do not store it.
What About Email Addresses?
The same concepts apply to your email address. The part that follows the "@" sign is your ISP's domain name. And given the domain name, one can determine the ISP's physical location, but nothing personally identifying about the email user without a court order.
Web-based email accounts are not truly anonymous, either. Even if you don't provide your real name when signing up, they can capture your IP address and track you through your ISP if necessary.
Other Considerations
It's much more likely that you or your children will reveal your physical location the old fashioned way -- by just blurting it out. Kids who chat or play online games should be reminded often that they should never reveal any personal information, including their last name, phone number or home address.
Oh, and if you have any spyware or viruses on your system, all bets are off. These things are designed to violate your privacy. If you need help with scanning your system for spyware, adware and other unwanted pests, see my article on free anti-virus and anti-spyware software for details on how to protect yourself from those risks.
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Check out other articles in this category:Posted by Bob Rankin on October 27, 2005 10:41 AM
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Most recent comments on "Does IP Address Reveal my Physical Location?"
(See all 25 comments for this article.)|
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Hey Bob, EDITOR'S NOTE: I think PeaceFire would be the best place to look for that. |
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i have yahoo im messenger and i also have a web cam and this girl got pissed off at me cause i would not let her see me on cam. so she told me that she was going to report my ip address to the cops... IS THAT POSSIBLE???? EDITOR'S NOTE: Of course it's possible. But it's also laughable. SILLYGIRL: Hello, police? I was chatting online and this girl wouldn't let me see her face on the webcam. POLICE: Uhhh, your point is...? |
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It is very easy to find out your IP addres you dont have to do that stuff just go to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ its pretty easy. |
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So I'm curious, about how long do most ISP's store information on customer IP addresses? (e.g. date and time IP address was used) Is it just forever or after you quit using their service? EDITOR'S NOTE: Neither... most likely something in between. Figure on something between 18 and 36 months. |
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Hey Bob, I have a similar problem like the guy with the drugs, I was on youtube.com, I asked a question about drugs and this cop started arguing with me. He then threatened me saying he was going to find my IP address and try and bust me. Is this possible? I am very nervous, and yes, he is a cop for sure. EDITOR'S NOTE: It's not possible for him to find you, unless he gets a court order. If this all happened on Youtube, it's probably not possible for him to even get your IP address. But even if you exposed your IP (via email or chat) the likelihood of anything happening to close to nil. Can you imagine what a busy judge would say if a cop petitioned him on the grounds that "some kid on youtube was talking about drugs" ?? It's absurd. |
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