That should only be a concern if your computer is also acting as a server for a website, or something like that. And if it is, you probably have a firewall that would prevent such attacks.
Yes, that could be the case, but that would be very unsafe because the proxy would be able to log all your non-encrypted logins, such as your POP3 accounts from Outlook, or whatever mail client you use.
When your browser wants to load a page it sends an http request to a server, indicating it's IP address, and the server responds by sending the page to that address. If you lie to the server then you don't get the page. It's exactly the same in the real world. If you give the store a false address you get the merchandise sent to that address.
I do know the consequences: None, other than disclosing your general location. You give out your IP address automatically to every site you visit.
And by the way, this is not my own idea. I've seen it done in another site where they add a note to each profile saying something like "This user appears to have connected to the site from (country name)".
I suspected it wasn't a good idea to make a technical post in a non-technical forum, but never mind, I can accept the result of CS democracy and say forget it. I was only trying to be constructive.
You give and get IP addresses every time you do anything online. It's not like a credit card number or SSN. I have 15 years of experience as a programmer so I know what I'm talking about (this time).
Hiding an IP adress is not simple, believe me. Those programs are most likely spyware. If you send data out with a fake address then the return data will also be sent to that fake address, so it is useless for two-way communication between a user's computer and a web server.
Altering your IP adress is only useful to send spam mail for which you don't expect a reply from the recipient's server.
JMH and Invincible: My IP adress is 79.45.107.91 Go on, hack me.
It's not that easy to break into someone's computer just by knowing the IP address, and if that's your concern then you could hide the last block and it would still be useful for geolocation, for example 79.45.107.XXX
Alternatively, CS could also do the IP-to-location lookup themselves and show just the name of the country the poster is connecting from.
The IP address of a user is always known to the web server that hosts the site you're visiting.
So, if CS would show the IP address of every user, in places like their profiles, mail messages, forum posts, etc., it would be very quick and simple to weed out most scumbags. The good people would have nothing to hide, and the scammers would have nowhere to hide.
This is not foolproof because a tech savvy scammer can use a fake IP address, but doing requires advanced technical knowledge so 90% of them would be exposed immediately.
I am sending the suggestion to CS. If you agree, you can also write to CS asking them to show IP addresses, or post in this thread.
I think invincible is referring to other dangers. For example there have been serial killers who appeared to be perfectly normal and even charming and well spoken people.
Gotta be careful with cams too. Some tech savvy scammers know how to send a movie into the cam feed. If their lips are not in synch with what you hear then you have to ask them to do something unusual, like "please touch your nose with your left little finger"
marc62 Forum Posts (274)
Tell me your IP address and I'll tell you who you are.
That should only be a concern if your computer is also acting as a server for a website, or something like that. And if it is, you probably have a firewall that would prevent such attacks.