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Is it really possible for someone to get your IP address in SL?

Gopi Passiflora

By Gopi Passiflora,
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Solar Legion

Solar Legion

Posted
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You would need to do a few somewhat simple steps to ensure that you're getting the exact data you're looking for and your target would have to have their Media/Music playback setting turned on and set to Autoplay.

Even then, your target would need to be broadcasting their actual IP instead of a VPN IP.

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Fritigern Gothly

Fritigern Gothly

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Not to mention that an IP address can only reveal the town where you live at best. It can NOT reveal a home address or anything like that to any third party. 
Although do note that many IP addresses are given out at random, and some don't even place you in the correct country.
For the longest time, I my ISP had assigned me an IP address that put me in Sweden, and... well, that's thousands of miles from my actual location. :D

So my point is that you should take the kind of people that say "I'm gonna get your IP address and find out where you live" with a couple of pounds of salt lick. 

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Solar Legion

Solar Legion

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6 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Is this:

c4dd31efb57d2cf07cdc9b539be8808a.png

Useful in stopping auto-play?

As in could you run around with auto-play and the filter on, such that it would only auto-play the things you added to your filter?

Yes, that would help a fair bit. Though it would only help those users who actually stop to think before hitting Accept.

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SpiritSparrow Skydancer

SpiritSparrow Skydancer

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4 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

Note: Yay! Finally I posted something Second Life-related for once!

I hear this from at least one person in the Zindra safe hubs all the time. They say that they will get someone else's IP address to find out where they live. I wonder if that's really possible?

 They are probably just blowing smoke up your butt. You should always practice safe SL.  DO not click or play any media you do not know the source for... Having said that... even if they had your IP it doesn't matter... More than likely  (as mine is) it will ping at a sub station for your internet.  I would not worry to much about some little punks on SL.

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Paul Hexem

Paul Hexem

Posted
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Sure, but it's useless info. My IP right now is 73.61.11.135, which places me in Boston. I'm not in Boston. Just another thing people say to cause drama, "I'll get your IP."

Sort of like when they used to stand there going "./1 copybot Gopi Passiflora"  'I just copybotted your whole avatar!"

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Talligurl

Talligurl

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I once had someone try to impress me by telling me they could tell I was in Miami. Ok so I was in South Florida at the time, they only missed by about 75 miles. Oh and no I was not in SL at the time.

I once encountered a girl who was all upset because someone told her he could somehow tell her real sex. As long as they can't tell my real weight I am OK.

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Ted McGregor

Ted McGregor

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7 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

Note: Yay! Finally I posted something Second Life-related for once!

I hear this from at least one person in the Zindra safe hubs all the time. They say that they will get someone else's IP address to find out where they live. I wonder if that's really possible?

There' s no place like 127.0.0.1

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cheesecurd

cheesecurd

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It’s not easy to do, and it’s not that useful. Even if they know your IP these days most routers use dynamic IPs so it won’t be the same the next time you restart your PC anyway. Even if you don’t and they have your IP, the most they can do is annoy you slightly because any modern ISP will see a basic DDoS attack and instantly block that out, even further in the ages of 1mbps+ minimum connections it would do very little if from another normal home computer.

Dont stress it. Your IP is visible to a lot of people in a lot of places, but just like in real life with people knowing your real address, only the rare random weirdo is gonna send you pizzas you didn’t order.

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Chaser Zaks

Chaser Zaks

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yes and no.

The only way to get a resident's IP address is to utilize media(parcel music/media or media on a prim), even then it requires the target to enable it, and whos to say others wont enable it as well?

Most cases these days will probably be over MOAP, in such cases you'll get one request for each person who clicks the media(emphasis on clicks, the target would have to click the MOAP, and there is no guarantee others wont click it as well), and then it isn't really possible to narrow down what IP goes to which resident. If they attach it as a hud that'd be a different story. Simply don't attach random huds(or random attachments in general, that's bad practice), and if it uses media on a prim, make sure you trust the creator.

Parcel media is a bit different, as you can set individual URLs for each resident. However this requires parcel permissions, and most reputable places will not attempt to ever do this.

So lets say someone does get your IP address, what can they do with it? Right now my IP is 67.140.131.201, so we will use it.

  • They can use GeoIP which isn't accurate. GeoIP says I am in "Clarkson, Kentucky, United States", which is incorrect, I am in Elizabethtown Kentucky. So good job they narrowed me down to 10,000+ houses. What are they going to do, visit each one of them?
  • They can launch a "denial of service" attack on me, emphasis on how this would be a DoS not a DDoS. Most people who get IP addresses like this are script kiddies and think they are clever to "ping dos" someone, which will impact a internet connection no worse than watching a 240p video on YouTube. Also this is a violation of U.S. Federal law under the computer misuse act(I think thats the specific law, I forget which).
  • They can flaunt it around and say "HEY CHASER'S IP IS 67.140.131.201", but now they violated the Terms of Service and you can report them for disclosure.

What they can't do with it:

  • Hack your Second Life account. Not only is this always false, but you can report them for this threat.
  • Send you malware. While mostly true(No one is going to pay loads of money to some deep web site for a zero day to hack you), this is also a violation of the terms of service, report them for this. Plus modern firewalls and anti-viruses will prevent this, and assuming you forwarded your ports, otherwise your modem will just see all the traffic and reject it.
  • Find your real location. Geo IP isn't accurate, and they can narrow it down to or near your city, but not your address.
  • Locate your alts. Unless they manage to get you to fall for the same thing on all your alts in a short time period(your IP address can change if the modem restarts or your ISP unleases the IP), locating alts isn't possible with just one IP. Also people share IPs so there is false positives(see redzone's history for more information on this).

Methods that can't get your IP address:

  • Voice - some people think voice is medium to get IP addresses, but voice is mixed on vivox's servers, no one but vivox sees your IP address, and everyone listening only sees vivox's IP address.
  • Clicking a object - unless it is MOAP, there is no way to see the user's IP via LSL.
  • Second Life - unless you are a Linden, you can't see someone's IP address. Nor will a Linden "friend" reveal this to another resident. Not only will that violate their privacy policy, but the Linden would be fired on the spot.

What can be done to combat this?:

  • Don't play suspicious media. If someone is wearing MOAP, it probably isn't a good idea to play it.
  • Make sure your modem is reasonably secure, it shouldn't show the control panel to random IP addresses, and you should change the default admin password.
  • Reboot your modem. Hardly anyone has a static IP for residential subscriptions, so rebooting your modem can make all their hard work go to waste as you now have a new IP address.
Edited by Chaser Zaks
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Kurshie Muromachi

Kurshie Muromachi

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

Find your real location. Geo IP isn't accurate, and they can narrow it down to or near your city, but not your address.

I feel like there's some what ifs and catches to this. Things like universities or even certain businesses running SL. Not certain on this, though.

10 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

Methods that can't get your IP address:

  • Voice - some people think voice is medium to get IP addresses, but voice is mixed on vivox's servers, no one but vivox sees your IP address, and everyone listening only sees vivox's IP address.

With the exception of the voice call feature, according to Oz. This is probably a less used feature, but still.

 

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Whirly Fizzle

Whirly Fizzle

Posted
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If you are really paranoid about someone getting your IP, use a VPN.
If you don't use a VPN then the following actions can leak your IP address to interested parties:

Being connected to voice.  (Can also reveal your inworld location at any time if you have voice enabled.).
Playing parcel music streams.
Playing parcel media or MOAP.
Clicking on any scripted object, even with media disabled (probably low risk but it's possible).
Clicking any URL posted in chat.

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Janet Voxel

Janet Voxel

Posted
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Back in the golden age of message boards there used to be a link you could put in your sig that would spit the person viewing your post back at them. It was a cartoon character holding a sign that said something like “Your ip is 0.0.0.0.0.0”

People would freak out and contact the admin. I got asked to remove that on many a forum.

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ChinRey

ChinRey

Posted
Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, janetosilio said:

Back in the golden age of message boards there used to be a link you could put in your sig that would spit the person viewing your post back at them. It was a cartoon character holding a sign that said something like “Your ip is 0.0.0.0.0.0”

That's naughty! :P

For those who want to know their IP addy: https://www.google.com/search?q=my+ip+adress

Simple as that.

Edited by ChinRey
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ChinRey

ChinRey

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1 hour ago, Bree Giffen said:

Personally, my IP has always pointed to the wrong city. 

I did a lookup for the IP address of one of the Second Life sim servers at three major whois services once. One of them claimed the server was located in San Francisco, one said it was in New York. I can't remember what the third answer was but it was somewhere in between.

The most likely explanation is of course that Linden Lab has their servers located in Concords randomly criss-crossing USA at supersonic speed but even so, we shouldn't completely rule out the possibility that geographic location of an IP address isn't quite as reliable as we sometimes think.

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Da5id Weatherwax

Da5id Weatherwax

Posted
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Can you get it? Yes. Is it worth getting or worrying about if somebody gets yours? well......

...let's put it this way. Anyone you'd worry about getting your IP has plenty other ways to get it, or other info about you if that's what they want. There are much more effective vectors than via SL.

Also anyone with the capability to be someone you'd worry about wont be saying "I'm going to get their IP and ${whatever}"

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