Someone is Tracking my IP address

First off, I'm not sure if this goes here as I never posted on these forums before, and I also looked through the descriptions to see which one best fits. This one does.

Now there is this guy on SL that says his friend has my IP address and is going to track me down.
I am wondering:

How they got my IP address.

Can I report them for this?

Is there anyway I can make it so they cannot find my IP address?

Thanks

Talk to your ISP. They can change it for you.

Abuse report them.

I've never really bought that people can do much of anything with an IP address but it's harassment with RL overtones and should be discouraged. Preferably with a spiked club.

kk

Chances are he's saying it just to get a reaction from you. There seems to be a lot of asshats in SL that get some feeling of superiority from scaring people, especially women with this claim. Even if he can, which isn't terribly difficult, your IP address is usually a general location, with a several mile radius. He would need to do some additional social engineering to locate you. Tell hime to piss off, and if he persists, AR him for harassment.

I prefer my shotgun.

THIS!

Shotguns end the karmic payback too quickly.. To each her own, though.

I don't have time for Karma. Let God sort that stuff out.

I'll still be checking this thread to see if anyone else has more information on this matter.

It totally depends upon your IP address! I had a "stalker" on Yahoo 360. I was able to install "Stat Counter"and grab his IP address. As luck would have it, the IP tracked back to a small non-profit organization in California. They had only 10 employees at the location it tracked to, and using the limited info I had about him, I was able to find his identity. Took me less than 24 hours. Once confronted with his real identity, amazingly the stalking ceased. Other IPs Stat Counter grabbed at the time from people visiting my blog traced back to military bases, school districts, etc. Of course some of the IPs were AOL, Comcast, and other mass service providers, but the specific ones were WAY too revealing!

Get him to log into the radio or voice, you might be able to see his that way.

That's how they get your IP. If they host their own radio stream then they can get your IP if you are on their land.

Well, I was on their land for about 30 minutes to an hour, but that was few days ago..

They really can't do much with your IP address except find out who your ISP is. I'd AR them for harassment as the implied reason for saying they will track you down is that they can harass you in your real life. Just tell them that the Lindens can pull up a log of everything they say in chat, IM, groupchat, and check their transactions, teleport logs, purchases on xstreet, etc.

Bree, this may NOT be true! It totally depends upon her ISP. Read my post above.

So just listening to music on a sim, the sim owner can get your IP and track you down?

I thought it had to be streaming video.

How about if you speak on voice on a sim? Same thing?

How can one tell whether their (own) IP tracks to a wide or to a specific area?

It's obvious that it can be fairly specific. The recent Craigslist Killer was tracked right to his apartment, through his email IP I think.

I'm not very techy, but it seems obvious it's easier than many realise. As for social engineering some are very good at/sneaky with it. A couple questions like is there a mall near you, can narrow it down a lot. Those seem 'innocent' at the time. A lot of people will chat about things like that. How close are you to the freeway, do you have trouble getting to work on time, etc.

Give someone your email and soon they have an IP, same with just listening to radio/live music/and maybe voice too? On a sim. And people wonder why I say don't give out any RL info.

Then again a lot of people make such threats just to get off on thinking they are scaring people. It still is not pleasant either way. SL should be fun, not cause lost sleep.

they will know your ISP and maybe with google will get an idea where you live (now with AOL you will live in VA USA no matter what and others are like that) ISPs wont give any info without a big court battle and maybe just maybe if your running on a ISP like mentioned above a static one and just you or 4-5 employes they can do something.

I can see anyones that listen to my stream, then do the google app that will pin where in the world they are its pretty cool .. but the last guy was in London and the ISP popped up in some UK nature preserve closer to Scotland near no roads for miles LOL... they aren't like GPS..

Don't worry to much, unless you have given them RL info that could help.
and AR them for harassment if they keep it up.

Heck We used to use this js stuff that would show whoever looked at your post in a forum what their IP and browser etc was..

there is no harm 99% of the time just some fool trying to act cool and say they are special and a hakker spy LOL

want to see what your says?

goto http://www.whatismyip.com/

and take that IP # and run it in http://www.whatismyip.com/tools/ip-whois-lookup.asp


you will see it all and I bet it will say your ISP (comcast,roadrunner,att, aol etc ..)

edit heres mine I live way way North of TX like 2000 miles?
IP Address: 76.202.210.219
Source: whois.arin.net
Prefix: 076/8
Designation: ARIN
Status: ALLOCATED

OrgName: AT&T Internet Services
OrgID: SIS-80
Address: 2701 N. Central Expwy # 2205.15
City: Richardson
StateProv: TX
PostalCode: 75080
Country: US

you can go here with it as well (like I was saying the old js scripts that pull this up
http://www.whatismyip.com/tools/user-agent-info.asp
User Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

But YES if they DJ they can see it "IF" the server they run allows them to open the shoutcast admin panel some rentals dont.

I think the RL info provided is often the key. Stat Counter has traced IPs back to hospitals, colleges, etc. If you tell someone that you are a dietician, then the IP traces back to a specific hospital, you are leaving yourself open to being "identified." Colleges are a little trickier, but it's not impossible. School districts are the easiest. Stat Counter picked up my IP from the district where I work. Just on a whim, I Googled the IP addy it picked up. Low and behold, the results that were returned included a number of posts I had made, using my real name, on a number of educational websites/forums where I am a member. It's frightening how easy it can be to find out someone's true identity, and it's good to remember that you're never TOTALLY anonymous! Needless to say, I have stopped posting ANYWHERE from work!

So agree.

With so little info now - can find almost anyone, in a matter of seconds. Food for thought.

well stat counter is a web site stat provider we use it on web sites so in theory if you post as your avatar on someones web BB or Forum that uses it they can see a lot more but will really have to do some work to track you closer than a city.. but like you said give enough info and a real freak can find it with out even that.

but we can't track to an address from an IP from an e-mail/ or whatever that is reserved for the police and feds well the ISP can but even the feds have to have court ordered warrants

here is the one that can get you tracked .. have a website? advert it and they only have to go look at the whois and it can get them right to your door or Phone if you don't pay to list it privately

Most businesses and schools have static IP addresses because they specifically WANT to be found or be easily accessible on the internet. So don't do anything bad if you are using one of those.