IP location - ability?

soretoe

Quick question for anyone who knows - it seems to me that anyone can trace an IP back to a general location like a city or whatever - does anyone know if you can trace one to an exact location like a street? I tried entering in mine into various IP locating sites but every time it traces back to Dublin city/Mespil Road area (google map) - which is not where I live at all. Lets say I want to send an email to someone but I don't want them to be able to track me to my house number for various reasons..........I know there are various forms of anti-IP locating software but I would be just happier to know that anyone in Dublin is traceable ONLY and every time back to this Dublin City/Mespil road area location.....because then there's no worries.........any thoughts............and for god sake don't geek me out of it with correction to my terminology or with a whole load of jargon coz I will be forced to come down to Dublin City/Mespil road area and kick your asses : )
thanks

ttm

As simple as I can make it is you can be traced easily only as far as the nearest "Exchange" or rather nearest distrabution point for IP addresses. This can sometimes be quite close or miles away eircom connections can often be traced quite closely where as a 3 fraudband connection could probably be traced to Dublin but the user could be connecting in Cork.

But if you were tracked doing something that was proved to be illegal then your ISP can be asked to give the details they have of who that IP address was issued to at that particular time.

One very good reason to make sure your wirless network is secure (if you have one) as you might not approve of what someone else is doing with your internet connection.

seamus

No, there are only certain instances where your IP address would be anonymously traceable back to your street address. If you're with a normal ISP and on a standard package, then you can be traced as far as the ISP themselves (in address terms), and no further, not really.

The only way someone could get an exact location on you would be to go to court and get a court order to have your ISP release that information to them.

IP addresses themselves don't contain any geographical information, there is background data and some other tools which can give a fairly rough indication of location, but definitely nothing like GPS or pinpointing maps that you'd see in the movies. If someone really wanted to super-slueth, they will stand a good chance of tracking you down, name, phone number, house, and all sorts of other information, but they'd want to know how to do this, and an IP address alone is rarely enough information to start with.

JimmyCrackCorn!

Not without a court order in the relevant state. The best you can do is local exchange.

ttm

JimmyCrackCorn! wrote: »

Not without a court order in the relevant state. The best you can do is local exchange.

Agreed but take a look at this http://torrentfreak.com/accused-of-illegal-file-sharing-complain-to-the-government-081205/ and http://www.scl.org/editorial.asp?i=1993 sorry its a bit long winded but so far I haven't found where they have had to get a court order for each and every case, but I'm still reading.... OP doesn't need to worry as this is only the UK, so far.

Edit> this is what I was looking for a little way down the text of the first link above.....

UK ISPs were ordered earlier this year [and in 2007] by the High Court to disclose information relating to its customer’s data, based on information provided to them by amongst others, video games companies. The information sought was based on the customer’s IP address. Pursuant to CPR 31.18, lawyers applied for an order that the ISPs disclose the full name, postal address and telephone number of the subscriber of each of the IP addresses supplied.

.... so in this case I think its ONE blanket Court Order that is being used for all the IP information requests.

Black Swan

soretoe wrote: »

Lets say I want to send an email to someone but I don't want them to be able to track me to my house number for various reasons.

Well, I've tried 5 different types of IP address locating software that were free on the web (there are probably others I haven't tried), and only one came within about 3 miles from where I lived. Some were so bad that they had me in Texas or New Jersey (thousands of kms away), when I live in California. Never tried the paid software programmes.

There are several ways to hide when emailing, if that's what is important to you. There are free wifi hotspots that you can visit with your laptop and go wifi with them while sipping a coffee or whatever. The IP will be for the hotspot.

You could use Tor (free programmes are available on the web), which goes through randomized hubs that will throw them off your IP, but such hubs are quite busy, and during peak times they can be sluggish or sometimes time-you-out from a site you are accessing (like boards.ie).

Now I am not going to suggest that you do what someone I know does to hide on the web. They wardrive (search for) until they find an unprotected wifi router in someone's residence or business, access, and transmit through them, with the IP belonging to the unknowing party. You would be surprised how many unprotected wifi routers are out there at this moment! There are two very strong ones near where I live (not that I would ever sneak through them...that would be naughty).

There are ISPs that randomize your IP address, so that it's different each time you log on. Ask the ISP if they are randomized or fixed. With random you never have the same IP address, complicating matters for a potential tracker.

With the economic meltdown, there are people stuck in 3G wireless card contracts that they cannot get out of without breaking contract, who might be willing to let you assume paying the bill until the contract expires, while it stays in their name. So even if the tracker is able to get the ISP to reveal the name on the contract, it won't be you. I know someone who is doing this now.

Some libraries and universities allow free internet access, and the IP will be their's obviously.

You can go to an Internet Cafe and pay for access, with the IP being theirs.

There are sites on the web that you can skip through, either through a paid service, or if you have a friendly administrator that assists you in this cloaking measure. I know of someone that sits at home and logs into a university hub this way, and the IP is the university.

If you really get into this stuff, I've heard about programmes that not only scramble your IP, but also your MAC (the machine number on your PC), plus there are other ways that I am unaware of, but these are a few ways to hide. I had a cyberstalker once, and started learning. There are those that are light years ahead of me, so you might ask around.

Of course, you can do combinations of two or more of the above, provided they fit together.

Make sure you have a super firewall installed on your machine, that will not only block incoming malware traffic, but also outgoing traffic (that can be used to ID you).

My security suite IDs all incoming IPs.

Now if its the gardai or some other government agency that is attempting to locate you, especially NSA (No Such Agency), the odds are in their favour that they eventually will, right down to your front door. So don't forget to wear your tin foil hat if you are hiding from them.;)

Capt'n Midnight

Hiding your MAC is easy, even in windows it's just a registry key , no fancy software needed. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/changemac for more info / other OS's

But your Routers MAC would probably still be visible
all depends on how paranoid you are and many machines have some sort of spyware on them and you can't depend on the ISP not having some malware running on it's system and of course the NSA (or someone ) probably has a back door in your security software

probe

Long before the internet was invented, people working for a certain state telecommunications monopoly were taking backhanders for providing traffic data to anyone who wanted to buy the information. Who called whom and when etc.

You don't need a court order to get IP numbers. You need to go to the nearest ATM and get the green stuff.

And thanks to McDowell (in a law slipped in by the backdoor) unlimited data retention exists in Ireland without any real effective judicial control (eg there is no enforced obligation to destroy the traffic data after any period), corrupt employees of your ISP have unlimited amounts of data at their disposal on your entire lifestyle, thoughts, finances, political preferences, religious beliefs, whatever to peddle to anyone who wants to pay for it.

In federal states like Germany and Switzerland where the (intelligent, well educated, non-naive) citizens are in control of how their country is run, telecommunications traffic data can only be retained for six months. This provides an adequate window to the police authorities to use telecom data to assist in crime investigation. It also limits the risk of misuse and abuse.

In the past, before the internet, you might read The Irish Times, Independent or Examiner in the print edition (there was no alternative), and nobody knew which articles you read or didn't read. They (your ISP/telco) is now logging every article you read. The same goes for everything else you do on the telecom networks. Every text message you send. Your movements. Who you call. Who calls you.

Telecommunications traffic data monitoring limitations are a fundamental human right that should be in every modern constitution. No different to the right to life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and similar.