Alt sniffing, shoutcast, and other drama

I had an individual come and ask me an hour worth of questions about a particular product. During that time, another 2 ppl came into the store and bombarded me with questions about the same thing. I suspected nothing at the time because I just wanted to be helpful.

This person claimed that they were from the same town I "claimed" I was in...same zip code to be exact. Also claimed to have the same interests. After an hour and some minutes of talking she offered friendship. No big deal.

Now whenever I sign on, this girl is asking me persistently about the same product and ALWAYS has some issue although there's a User's Manual.

I removed her from my friends list, but I feel so guilty about doing so. Was that mean?

Also, she wanted me to come onto her land to help her and was extremely persistent about asking...kept sending an invite although I said I was busy. No matter what the problem was that she was having, she asked me to come help her on her land. But I have heard stuff about people using Shoutcast and broadcasting their Music URL on their land to get your IP and stuff.

I know they do it in There.com. Is this something that is done here too? I played around with Shoutcast DeeJaying before in There.com and was able to see the IP addresses of the people who were listening to my station via Web URL. Can the DeeJays here also see my IP when I am on some land that is playing their station?

Yes

Yes

Crystal. I've sent you an IM. I think I know what your problem is.

... shit. That's a scary thought.

oooooooooo K

So does this mean that when we have music turned OFF that they CANNOT see our IP address? In other words, if I do not press the lil play button, can they still see me or do I actually have to be listening to the streaming media?

That's some fuc*ed up shi* and it needs to be more prominent in the TOS and also should be put in the settings right under the Play Music Option:

/runs over to the Linden Forums with a angry yet concerned look on my face

I know all of your isp numbers!

It's nothing LLab can do. When you connect to a Shoutcast station (software not run by Linden Lab or even developed by them), the person running the server can see your IP address.

In fact anyone can see your IP address along the 10 or so hops between your computer, Linden Lab, any website you see, and so on. Actually, most websites track IP addresses for visitor logs and such. SSL-security websites track your IP address. Hell, you can use a sig image in the forums to collect IP addresses.

Now, what can a nefarious person do with an IP address? If they're tooling around on SL and bothering to run a Shoutcast station, probably nothing. If they're a teenager that wants to play script kiddie, they could possibly "haxxor your boxxor" -- but that's also EXTREMELY unlikely, especially in a patched windows system; doubly so if you're behind a firewall.

Your IP address is nothing like your email address or your home address -- most ISPs change your IP address every time you connect.

In short, they're not going to steal your credit card information, kill your dog, or even poop on your lawn. They're just being annoying.

If it makes you feel any better, your real life identity is secure. Logging (whether it be Shoutcast, webserver, etc.) can at most tell the person running the server who your ISP is. To find out who you are in real life, they'd have to contact your ISP who in turn would have to do a fair bit of work to figure it out; something ISPs don't like to do both for ethical and resource reasons.

I got yours too!

If you want to see exactly how much info can be gathered by your IP here's a site where you can look it up.

http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp

If your ISP is Fully RFC compliant then you should get COUNTRY REGION CITY LATITUDE LONGITUDE ISP.

But most ISP's dont bother. My verizon Ip is not identified beyond country level.

By doing a simple traceRoute to your IP they could get as far as your Local Switch, which are usually a little more than City level. (ie my first hop is P0-3.LCR-03.DLLSTX.verizon.gni.net) not exactly my street address..

If you want to see what your nearest identifiable outbound hop is, you can simply (assuming windows)

1. go to start -> Run
   
2. type cmd
   
3. in the dos prompt type tracert google.com
   
4. you will get a bunch of lines back, probably line 2 or 3 will have a name and that's about as detailed as it gets.
   

Really, though. every time you visit a website you leave your IP all over the place.

If you enjoy paranopia though (and really who says they aren't out to get you anyway?)
http://www.cexx.org/anony.htm has some free web proxy servers that mask your IP. Wanna play really paranoid? Use more than one and connect through your neighbors unsecure wireless network.

I've seen the sig image that displays a person's IP address on the person's screen. My understanding is that this is a prank, each person sees their own IP address, no one gets to see anyone else's IP address. This is done to annoy people.

Can you really see someone else's IP address with a sig image, and if so, how is done?

An IP address can be tracked to within a city, or smaller, isn't that correct?

That thing usually is a prank. its a webpage that has the name of an image and returns an image custom generated for you. Your IP however does reside in that webserver log.

If I have access to the webserver where my sig is hosted (ie my website) I can check the logs there and your IP will be listed.
Usually its not much more specific than city level. Think of it like your zip code. Not too useful in and of itself. Give someone your zip code and RL Last name and things can get hairy.

what

My IP Address is 192.168.0.1

Where am I?

People get all freaky when I'm fixing their lil' internet connection & "know" their Router's IP Address. LOL!! The less they know, the more I can freak 'em out!

25 miles East of P'burgh?

I`m no expert, but that looks to me like a "private network" address. If so, it isn`t allowed out in the wild. At any rate, tracert and ping basicly tell me "...not there", i.e., off-line. WhoIs says that your given IP belongs to "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority", and is assigned to "IANA Special Use":Toodle-oo!

The use I see is the outing of alts, particularly for folks in rural areas, or areas where it would be unlikely for multiple SL users to have the same geographic area returned by geolocation programs.

Actually it's not people's alts actually being localized that I see as a problem but more the loss of sense of privacy associated with feeling they can be located down to a city or smaller area.

This of course is not a problem for folks who aren't bothered by it either because they don't use alts or live where the population density gives them a feeling of confidence in their privacy or just don't consider it to be a big enough deal to worry about.


As for the IP address "192.168.0.1", that would be an internal IP address, right? I have internal addresses of 192.168.2.2 and 192.168.2.3 . These numbers won't identify where someone is, they identify the specific machines on one's local network, right?

I also have an external IP address - labeled as WAN IP on my router's website, that can correctly identify what city I am in.

zomg get off my network!!!

Seriously, your IP address isn't that secure anyway. Best practice is to just assume everyone has it, and secure your home network appropriately.

IP addresses are meaningless. At most they will find out what isp your on. Plus if there is more then one listener they have no way of matching ip->listener.

This is another "omg they have my key!" thing. Go find another issue to drama about, this one is pointless.

Predictably enough, the mention of the phrase "IP address" brings out the same old boring, snotty, condescending responses.

Those who enjoy these comments can read them done much better in Usenet newsgroups from ages ago.

*shrug*, I'm on 127.0.0.1 and I don't care who knows it

My neighbors have seen me going in and out of the apartment for years now.

Over the years, some of them may have connected the face they see going in and out the apartment with the face they see from time to time at my workplace, looking out a window, on the same block where they and I live, two and a half minutes away on foot. They might have noticed me walking the same path every morning and every night.

If they ever find my IP address, this might be the final clue that enables them to figure out where I live and work.

people ip addess tends to be linked to their internet provider and most peoples ip address is dynamic ie every time they connect to the internet they are given a new number.

im in yorkshire but my is server is in salford which is downsouth in england.

long as you have a firewall your pretty much safe.

when you log onto most websites they target adverts according to your IP address ie that adult friend finder thing always displays profile pix from people it assumes are local to you.

i always laugh as the pix are always these tanned blond chix from salford and im like WTF i dont even know where salford is!

seriously dont worry.

you can get your ip address from viewing someones webcam on a messenger program , from viewing a webpage, listening to music and viewing a webpage.

so what ?

so what if they do a whois of your ip and find your using AOL.

is the AOL police going to give them your home details of course not.

just turn on that firewall baby