IP Address

vixen1500

Anyone know why someone would ask me for my IP Address and is it safe to give it out?

mrscruffy

Generally, unless you pay extra with your broadband it will change over time.

I would wonder why someone wants it. I can't really think of any (useful) benefit.

Taffybiker

An IP address is generally used to identify a certain PC on a network, whether this be local or the internet.
When people are being naughty, they are often found by tracing the IP address back to its origin. If this address is cloned then used for less than good intentions it could be your door being knocked! I would play it safe and tell the person(s) asking for it to take a hike.

Darksun

I think you need to give a bit more details, there are plenty of legitimate reasons someone would want your IP address, and plenty of illegitimate reasons too. What kind of conversation preceded the request for your IP address?

Generally speaking, provided you're following basic security measures such as making sure all software, AV and firewalls are up to date then there's not much damage that can be done with your IP address. Every website you visit knows your IP address, as does any other service you connect to.

dogmaryxx

I know it

Darksun

dogmaryxx wrote: »

I know it

No, no, that's yours :rotfl:

Kronkston_2

vixen1500 wrote: »

Anyone know why someone would ask me for my IP Address and is it safe to give it out?

They could use it to possibly launch a denial of service attack on you, ie flood your connectio with trafffic making it your internet access very slow or non-existant, however that would be fairly costly for them to do, and also illegal I would imagine. You could alos get round this by changing your IP address. They might also be able to tell if you accessed any sites they own. Also they might be able to idenify if you were sharing a file with them over a bit torrent network. They might also be able to determine your ISP and also you rough geographical location. I should aslo say they have no way of knowing if you gave them the correct addres, so you could give them the one posted in this thread, which I presume is not yours. Every site you access needs to know your IP address tro send data back, however you could go through a proxy server which would hide your real IP address. As has been mentioned your IP address may change over time. You can also request to have it change or change it yourself if you know how to do it.

Darksun

Kronkston wrote: »

They could use it to possibly launch a denial of service attack on you, ie flood your connectio with trafffic making it your internet access very slow or non-existant, however that would be fairly costly for them to do, and also illegal I would imagine. You could alos get round this by changing your IP address. They might also be able to tell if you accessed any sites they own. Also they might be able to idenify if you were sharing a file with them over a bit torrent network. They might also be able to determine your ISP and also you rough geographical location. I should aslo say they have no way of knowing if you gave them the correct addres, so you could give them the one posted in this thread, which I presume is not yours. Every site you access needs to know your IP address tro send data back, however you could go through a proxy server which would hide your real IP address. As has been mentioned your IP address may change over time. You can also request to have it change or change it yourself if you know how to do it.

The image will show the details of whoever is viewing it

cit_k

Who is asking, and under what circumstances?

Eric_Pisch

there is a cold call scam where someone rings up, asks for your ip then says you have a virus and directs you to a website that will fix it whilst emptying your credit card of all its money :rotfl:

exup

vixen1500 wrote: »

Anyone know why someone would ask me for my IP Address and is it safe to give it out?

hello ? anyone there?

maybe they are being hit by a denial of service attack and can't get on the forum:p