Can someone get my IP address?

Transcript

‘Someone tried to get my IP address using file transfer via MSN Live Messenger, but blocked out by Norton 360. Did he establish direct connection successfully and manage to get my IP address in this way?’

So, IP address tracing is one of those questions that I get over, over, over and over again.

Let me answer those questions backwards.

Did he manage to get your IP address? Probably. Since I don’t know specifically how Yahoo in this particular case, MSN Messenger, since I don’t know how they specifically architect their protocol to establish a direct connection I can’t say for sure that he did or did not but I would assume that he did. That’s the safest assumption because it’s the one that has you the most concerned.

Did he establish a direct connection successfully? Probably not. It sounds like Norton did the right thing and blocked that connection.

So what that boils down to is that the individual at the other end of that connection doesn’t have a direct connection to your machine but may very well have your IP address to which I say ‘so what’.

I mean the IP address, whatever; it doesn’t give people access to your machine or to your location or anything that people seem to get pretty worked up about.

IP address, yes it identifies a specific machine connected to the internet. The location of the machine is actually only known to the ISP and it’s not something that the ISP will simply just tell you. You need to go to the ISP and tell them and ask them, ‘we’ve got this IP address, and we’ve been able to trace it so that we know you own this IP address; it’s one of your customers, please tell us where this customer is and the ISP is going to say ‘no, not without a warrant’.

That’s where things can happen.

When you see things on the police drama shows, 9 times out of 10; a) they never happen as fast as they do on TV but they come in with a warrant. b) they actually have the legal authority to request that the ISP turn over that information.

Now, granted, that’s United States, U.S. centric answer there; the laws about how the information can or cannot be handed over will vary depending on what country you happen to be in but in the United States at least, it requires a court order.

Now if they have your IP address can they get access to your machine? Well, no, at least not unless you are being very lax with your own security. As long as you’re behind a router, it’s the router they have the IP address of, not your computer and the router is going to protect you from unwarranted or unexpected connection or attempts to connect to your computer.

So as long your behind a router, they can have your IP address; it’s just no big deal.

It will let them identify what country you’re in; it will let them identify what ISP you use and in some cases it may get as close as your city. But my IP address depending on how you look it up will tell you either that it exists in Woodinville, which it does so you’ve got many square miles of and thousands and thousands of square miles if you’re trying to find me. Or, some will tell you that it’s in Seattle which is 10 miles away. Some will tell you that it’s in Portland which is 200 miles away and I’ve had at least one that said I was in California which just blew me away.

So IP tracing is just not that big a deal; it’s not the kind of thing I worry about and it sounds like your firewall and Norton 360 did the right thing by blocking the attempt to connect directly.