CSI Show got me scared... I do have a question I promise.

Let me preface;

I have been threatened by a stalker in SL, just in SL as I play a safe game and dont give out much RL info (Never my name, etc). He has been muted and as I have heard through the SL grapevine he has moved on to stalk someone else. Good for me but bad for them.

Anyway, the CSI episode of a few weeks ago got me thinking. In-game, is there anyway, even lets say a hacker, can get my IP address? Like in the show how they got his IP adress then found his RL address.

Excuse my naivety, but I really have no clue about these things.

Kisses,
Jez

I'm not entirely sure. I know, for example, that I can see the IP addresses of visitors to my website (by checking the logs), and obviously LL would have access to what your IP address is. But whether or not someone inworld would be able to find out that information--I can't say for certain they can't, but I can't figure out how they could, either.

Short answer, no.

Long answer, yes, but not directly through the client. But even if someone got your IP address that doesn't correlate to your home address.

Doesn't the IP address correlate to the ISP's substation? ie, where the ISP servers are for whichever internet service you use?

That would mean the only thing they may gain is a broad geographical reference to your location. My ISP handles tens of thousands of clients, and I'm in a small town.

or am I totally off-base here? (wouldn't be the first time)

~Jessy

I know you guys know the long answer! P:
Only if you're on his land and connected to his audio or video stream. For now P:
(I think)

Oh, geez, I hadn't even thought of that one. Yes, I suppose, you could detect IPs via a stream, but you'd also have to know exactly which IP corresponds to which avie, and I think the only way you could effectively do that is by either deduction or perhaps if there was only one person listening at the time.

There are ways to get your IP address.

If you listen to streaming music or video, the server that sends the stream to you has to know where to send the stream to - the stream goes from that server to you, so that server knows your ip address. I think that's how it works.

I believe the web tab and other places where the mozilla browser is used will also provide a chance for people to grab an IP address.

I think that your IP address can be found if you have image display turned on in these forums. If you are seeing the images that people put on Photobucket and Snapzilla and such, then Photobucket and Snapzilla have to know where to send the images to. So if your were seeing images that were stored on a server I controlled, my server would need to know where to send the image to.

The IP addresses of people that posted in the old support wiki - not the current wiki, nor the old LSL wiki, but the old not real popular but still official one from a few years ago - used to be posted in a chart in the wiki itself.

I think my IP address only reveals the city I live in, and to get my street address one would have to subpoena my ISP or something

I think that's about the only way that someone other than LL could determine a client IP address.
I'm not sure if you would have to actually play one of the streams before the streaming server gets a connection from the client IP. It's possible that the client software would ping the servers to see if the addresses passed to it by a land parcel are valid.
Someone who knows the client source code would be able to tell us that.

The location information available from an IP address varies in quality. For most personal users, the address only indicates a general area. For large corporate and educational users, the IP address could indicate the organisation or even a sub-location within that organisation.

Perhaps the 'real' danger of someone getting an IP address is that they can then probe the IP address with various hacking tools. If they crack the PC, then they have something way more useful than just a geographical location.
This is where a good firewall and intrusion detection package can help.

In general, it is wise to assume that one's PC is being subjected to probing all the time. That's because it generally is
Mostly it's completely impersonal, as blackhats run constant automated scans of IP space.

SO:
IF someone with a streaming server in SL determines your IP address, you are not probably not in much greater general danger than you were before.
You should already be running firewall and intrusion defence as a matter of good practice.
If anyone is concerned about specific targeting of their IP address, they should *definitely* get protection.

It's my understanding (I'm no expert) that most ISP's of any size use "dynamic" IP addresses, meaning you're assigned at random to one of a number of servers each time you log on, and only someone who had access to the ISP's records of who was logged on when and how could figure out that it was you.

I figured out how to protect yourself. I got all my information from CSI. In order to get an IP address the policeman (or stalker in your case) has to talk to you for a few minutes while their buddy finds your IP address. The best way to avoid this is to walk or run away from that person. I guess there's something about proximity to your avatar that is needed to get your IP.

I think that idea this is an "escapee" from the movies, where the good (??) guys try to keep the bad guy on the line while the geeky guy/gal runs a trace of the telephone line.

For someone to get your IP address, your PC has to be exchanging traffic with a server controlled by the perp, or one that the perp can hack into.
I don't know if Voice uses any peer-to-peer element (your PC communicating directly with their PC) , but I doubt it.

Let's not get paranoid here!

Usually people don't have a fixed IP address except in a corporate network anyway. As soon as I relog, i can have another IP if I want; I get a new one every 24 hours anyway from my ISP. It doesn't reveal ANYTHING about you except who your ISP is. Only the ISP itself can check their log to see who had a particular IP address at a particular time. You might get a general idea where someone lives, but that would be VERY general.

So in CSI, what the dude was typing furiously in the background was....

an email to his friend at the ISP?

Your numerical IP addie won't provide more than country, or region, but the reverse DNS might get more specific depending on how your ISP has it set up.

xxx.aol.com isn't very revealing
xxx.smalltown.state.isp.com narrows it down

People who are mentally unstable/motivated enough to actually want to stalk you from online to real life won't be going for one bit of information either, but rather little snippets from all over.

I had internet at my uni room while I was there, and one day someone who'd been harassing me online called me up on the phone to let me know he'd found me. Turned out that my uni's reverse DNS included both the dorm name and the room number and uni's site provided a handy dorm+room to phone number service (that was actually useful for parents/friends/etc).

That's the extreme, and hopefully rare case. If the stalker happens to be in the same area with the same ISP as you, he/she could also have a good idea of what IP blocks get assigned to which neighbourhoods.

In the general case an IP addie isn't anything to be worried about, but it's also one more piece of the puzzle in the case of an actual stalker.

Nah, they were probably already exchanging IMs! Noidea how police would do that. As I said, the IP address isn't the problem.

The IP addresses I get usually don't even get the town right- they're mostly between 10 and 50 miles off. I'm far easier to trace by my name alone...

I use Comcast Cable and have had the same IP adress for over 2 years. Comcast uses static IPs and rarely change them (at least in my area).

If you can get their IP then you can use http://www.whois.sc/ and see where it leads. For me it just says I am connecting from Spokane. No address no phone number ect...

*snorts* I thought they had contacted LL for the information.. upon which I'm sitting there going, why did they call it, "Second Life," when they'd be getting the information from Linden Labs? I could see them not having a warrant, but... hacking Second Life for the IP?

"Hey Phil, can you look something up for me? Whaddaya mean, you have no idea where to look?" *giggles*

I didn't know cable ISPs had static IP addresses-I'm on ADSL, and so is everyone else I know, as cable is pretty rare hereabouts. I do have a static IP at work though.

OTher thing to concider:

While we may say CSI is dumb for their way of "stalking" not being possible....do we really want them to show people the "right" way to do it?

I'm quite content to poke fun of CSI and be happy that they did it in a way that could enver possibly work. If they started showing how to do criminal things without getting caught (things that worked mind you), I'd like to think some cop somewhere would go "Heeeeeeey!!!".

=^.^=
~Jessy

But I have lost my shoes, I have to ask people where they are..

Now that is a good answer!!
/me looks behind her and jumps
Oh its just my fish

STATIC?! Omigod. I am a computer near-illiterate and even I know that is totally irresponsible. How much would it cost them to make the massive number of servers they must have dynamic rather than static? Hire a really good high-school kid hacker for a lifetime subscription?

For God's sake, GET ANOTHER ISP!!!!

You don't have anything to worry about. My ISP for some reason has me routed through India. I went to another MMORPG and tried to use Paypal and the MMORPG said, sorry you are in India and we do not have Paypal through India. Umm..Funny, cause I'm in the U.S. But if your little stalker comes AR AR AR and keep ARing till you are ARed blue in the face. Only way you will deal with him other than committing Avacide and remaking yourself.

Good luck,

Lucian

Aww, there has to be a funner way than that. How about ridiculing him? Diminish his perception of his manhood every time he comes into your vicinity? Not sure about stalker psychology, but there must be something that drives them away. "You will never be half enough of a man for me" should do it, I would think. Any psychiatrists here who could advise?