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

[bigmoe Whitfield]

6 hours 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”

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

Those only showed you, your ip address, not the person that posted the message.   I run one of the largest car communities on the net,  I remember when they became big and the fuss the caused.

[Evah Baxton]

If someone were highly motivated they could purchase a domain with a similar name to some popular image hosting site like flickr.guru or use a bit.ly link. They could join up in some conversation at a regular place where you hang out and gain a tiny bit of trust among the group and then send a link of a picture of something relevant to the conversation.

If you clicked it, the URL would resolve to their own server and, assuming you aren't on a VPN, they could collect your IP.

[ChinRey]

But seriously. For those who are desperate to hide their IP address, unless you have some serious issues with SL stalkers, it's a bit like locking the front door of a house without walls.

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by ChinRey

[doublepixel]

How you would explain this...i have an alt that was banned on a sim, for whatever reasons...Now any of my alts can't reach that sim...and my friends can...

[Whirly Fizzle]

51 minutes ago, doublepixel said:

How you would explain this...i have an alt that was banned on a sim, for whatever reasons...Now any of my alts can't reach that sim...and my friends can...

This is a LL feature, not something nefarious the person who banned you did.
When a banned agent attempts to enter the region, any agents that share the same IP address as the banned account will also be banned for a limited time.

[Silent Mistwalker]

On 1/14/2020 at 3:27 PM, CheriColette said:

An IP address is useful for finding alts (if they on the same one) but not your RL address or info. Only your server has that and will not disclose anything unless under a court order. 

Problem with that is what some may think are alts are not. Those accounts belong to different people living in the same home. For example, not only do I have more than one SL account, so does my husband. His accounts are not my alts but because someone grabbed the IP, they harass me because they have convinced themselves I'm his alt. 

NOT cool.

 

oopsie I didn't realize Cheri's post was from back in January. Sorry about that Cheri. Haven't seen you post in a while. I hope everything is ok with you.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Silent Mistwalker

[Silent Mistwalker]

On 1/15/2020 at 5:11 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Those only showed you, your ip address, not the person that posted the message.   I run one of the largest car communities on the net,  I remember when they became big and the fuss the caused.

This is correct (yes I know, old post). If the site is up it would be danasoft.com. The site tends to be down a lot.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

11 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

This is a LL feature, not something nefarious the person who banned you did.
When a banned agent attempts to enter the region, any agents that share the same IP address as the banned account will also be banned for a limited time.

So that means if my husband gets banned from a sim it bans me too when I haven't done anything to deserve the ban? That SUCKS!

[Rolig Loon]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

So that means if my husband gets banned from a sim it bans me too when I haven't done anything to deserve the ban? That SUCKS!

Yup.  Our standard snotty response when someone in the Answers forum says, "My roommate got banned and now I can't log in!" is, "It's time to get a new roommate."  That's kinda hard if the roommate is your husband, so maybe whap him around the ears for a while.  It won't help you get unblocked, but it will help offload some of your frustration.  😛

[Silent Mistwalker]

27 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Yup.  Our standard snotty response when someone in the Answers forum says, "My roommate got banned and now I can't log in!" is, "It's time to get a new roommate."  That's kinda hard if the roommate is your husband, so maybe whap him around the ears for a while.  It won't help you get unblocked, but it will help offload some of your frustration.  😛

Nah. He wouldn't do anything like that. We've been blocked "accidentally" before and all it took was a phone call to get it straightened out. LL doesn't usually IP ban unless that person is really disruptive (not acceptable for the platform as LL words it) because they are fully aware that people share IPs and they don't want to ban innocent people needlessly. 

But I'ma still box his ears if he ever does do something that dumb. lol

Edited August 30, 2020 by Silent Mistwalker

[Lindal Kidd]

Lots of good advice here.  A couple of points for folks who may not be all that computer-savvy:

• The "IP address" we are talking about here is your PUBLIC IP address.  Many entities need to know it, or you couldn't communicate on the internet.  A lot has been said here about music and media streaming in SL exposing your public IP address to the stream provider...but this is also true ANY time you receive streaming content on the internet, not just in SL.
• People who know your public IP address cannot then hack your computer...assuming that you've taken even basic precautions to secure your router and home network.
• Your public IP address is also used by your internet service provider and by Google, Facebook, et. al. to target ads to you.  Your ISP has a very detailed browsing history on you.  If that worries you (and it probably should), you need to subscribe to a VPN service to mask your public IP address.
• Your ISP assigns you a public IP address randomly.  If you turn off your modem for a few minutes and then boot it back up, you'll get a different one.  These dynamic public IP addresses can be used to determine your physical location, but not very exactly, and not very reliably.  If you are are connecting from work or school, your IP address is static, and can be used to locate you much more precisely...another good reason to NOT connect to SL or other entertainment sites from work or school!

Edited August 31, 2020 by Lindal Kidd

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 8/30/2020 at 4:53 AM, Whirly Fizzle said:

This is a LL feature, not something nefarious the person who banned you did.
When a banned agent attempts to enter the region, any agents that share the same IP address as the banned account will also be banned for a limited time.

How does that make sense? I used to travel a lot and access SL from hotels. Presumably, if I had offended someone and gotten banned somewhere, all other guests of the hotel where I was staying when it happened would have been banned. Surely, it would happen to thousands of (innocent) people. Can that be good?

Plus, as I understand it, even mildly sophisticated hackers know how to easily evade IP bans, so they aren't a significant impediment to the bad people, anyway. So why would LL use an almost useless tool that inconvenienced innocent hotel guests?

Edited August 31, 2020 by Jennifer Boyle
Added comment

[Nova Convair]

11 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

How does that make sense? I used to travel a lot and access SL from hotels. Presumably, if I had offended someone and gotten banned somewhere, all other guests of the hotel where I was staying when it happened would have been banned. Surely, it would happen to thousands of (innocent) people. Can that be good?

Plus, as I understand it, even mildly sophisticated hackers know how to easily evade IP bans, so they aren't a significant impediment to the bad people, anyway. So why would LL use an almost useless tool that inconvenienced innocent hotel guests?

It's not the hotel guests that troll in masses. It's the average idiot that gets banned and immediately logins with their alt to return - and fails miserably.
For the hotel guests - they are not banned from SL but only that specific sim. How often do you think that a collision happens here. It's not even worth to think about it.

Professional griefers are not target of this. The way SL is made I can always log back in with some efforts. Thats not the topic of this thread.

[Lucia Nightfire]

On 8/30/2020 at 3:53 AM, Whirly Fizzle said:

This is a LL feature, not something nefarious the person who banned you did.
When a banned agent attempts to enter the region, any agents that share the same IP address as the banned account will also be banned for a limited time.

One thing is for sure, LL will not publicly acknowledge it. I asked TWICE in the last Concierge meeting if this behavior still existed and it was TWICE ignored.