IP tracing...VERY scary.

[world_falls]

I was surprised when a friend gave me this link http://www.abika.com. Apparently, this site offers to trace people's IP's for $19.99. They claim they can provide an exact location of the computer AND a name AND address associated with the computer.

This information is very scary to me. If someone can have their name and address exposed based on their IP, email address, or instant messanger activity, then how can people be safe? Can't any nutcase or child stalker locate people's home residence using this service?

I guess I'm hoping like hell that someone is going to tell me this business is a scam and they can't really do this.

[Chuma]

You don't need a $20 piece of software to do this as the tools needed to do this sort of thing are probably already installed on your system.

I would also doubt it would be able to find your 'exact' IP address due to things like firewalls and people sharing the same IP via ISP connections etc.

Thanks.

[littleman]

Scam, probably.
You can dig a lot out of an IP, if you dig hard enough -- but once you get into the ISP level you need to have access to the ISP's info. The ISPs will usually only give that up for law enforcement.

On the other hand, a good digger can start to piece together a map of a person from online info. I've done my share of this.

An IP leads to an email address, an email address leads to a newsgroup, a newsgroup leads to an event registry, and so on. Pretty soon you know quite a bit about a person.

[amoore]

I'm pretty sceptical of the service. It seems to say that they can locate the owner of the IP addresses. That's not too difficult to do or bad. When you login through your ISP, you borrow one of their IP addresses. You don't own it. You can look up the owner of any IP address by using ARIN's whois database. For me right now you'll probably get Southwestern Bell's headquarters since they're my ISP.

You can also find out what portion of the country the person is coming from since most ISPs give out their IP addresses based on location. In fact, ARIN gives the addresses to them based on where in the world they will be used. That's how those "geographic mappers" work that tell you where your users are coming from. There are some exceptions to this, but it works a lot of the time.

They also say that they have people that login occasionally from all parts of the world and enter in their IP addresses and locations. I have a feeling that what is actually happening is that they are making use of people who don't even know it. They've probably asked a bunch of people where they live in some kind of marketing survey and then get their IP addresses occasionally through spyware or a toolbar or something. That's all speculation, though, and I'm not even sure that that's necessary for what they're providing.

So far that's not too bad. You can find out who my ISP is and what part of the country I'm in. They may be up to more than this, but I would be surprised if it were significantly more.

I'd be surprised to learn if they can identify my home address from this. In fact, I'll gladly let you know my IP address for a test if you're willing. If you find out more, please let us know!

[world_falls]

Thanks very much for your quick responses! I'm breathing a bit easier! Whew! I did read the paragraph on IP tracing more closely and they do indeed say they will give the address of the OWNER of the IP. That's not the person who uses it from his or her home or business computer. So my guess is that if someone did a search on my IP they'd get AT&T broadband's address...right?

[Key_Master]

You can probably do the same thing on your own computer without the need for additional software or shelling out $19.99 (which is a ripoff). In Windows, open the Command Prompt and type in the following:

tracert host_name

or

tracert ip_address

where host_name or ip_address is the host name or IP address of the remote computer.

[sun818]

C:\>tracert webmasterworld.com

Tracing route to webmasterworld.com [64.33.51.156]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms 10 ms <10 ms 10.0.0.1
2 20 ms 10 ms 10 ms 172.31.255.247
3 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms 192.168.28.33
4 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms gigabitethernet5-0-155.ipcolo2.LosAngeles1.Level
3.net [63.209.80.81]
5 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms gigabitethernet5-1.core2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net
[209.244.10.181]
6 20 ms 10 ms 20 ms 82.ATM5-0.BR1.LAX9.ALTER.NET [204.255.169.109]
7 20 ms 10 ms 20 ms 0.so-0-1-0.XL1.LAX9.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.10]
8 20 ms 10 ms 20 ms 0.so-0-0-0.TL1.LAX9.ALTER.NET [152.63.115.138]
9 70 ms 80 ms 70 ms 0.so-6-0-1.TL1.CHI4.ALTER.NET [152.63.1.141]
10 70 ms 70 ms 70 ms 0.so-0-0-0.XL1.CHI4.ALTER.NET [152.63.13.25]
11 60 ms 80 ms 70 ms 0.so-4-0-0.XR1.CHI4.ALTER.NET [152.63.2.54]
12 71 ms 70 ms 70 ms 191.ATM7-0.XR1.CHI6.ALTER.NET [152.63.65.86]
13 70 ms 70 ms 81 ms 191.ATM6-0.GW3.CHI6.ALTER.NET [152.63.66.1]
14 70 ms 70 ms 70 ms uu-gw.axxs.net [157.130.106.38]
15 70 ms 80 ms 70 ms 64.33.51.156

Trace complete.

C:\>

[world_falls]

Keymaster...wow, I did that. It DOES tell you where the IP's originate. Way cool! Can anybody tell me what all that info means? lol! What is a hop? There's a bunch of numbers and the letters ms keep popping up. Is this info useful in any way?

[Key_Master]

If you can't access a website, it's always a good idea to do a trace route first before complaining to the admin. Most of the time, the problem will be with your ISP and not the website.

In Windows, what is Trace Route and how do I use it? [kb.indiana.edu]

[littleman]

I just want people to know that there is little anonymity on the web -- especially in the age of semi-permanent high speed connections.

When you do stuff on the web just assume that you can potentially be tracked down.

Traceroute is just one tool of many.