Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
A server can easily identify any users that visit their web sites. However, there are services that will allow you to surf anonymously.
When I visit a web site, are they able to identify my IP address? If so, how can I block them from being able to identify me?
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Yes they can, and it's very easy. In fact I was able to tell what IP address you posted your question from, and from there, what school you're attending.
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IP addresses are a fundamental part internet communication, and there's no way to remove that information. When two computers talk on the internet, they know each other's IP addresses. That's the way it works.
One way to surf anonymously is to use an service that routes your requests through its servers. http://www.anonymizer.com/ is one example, though there are others that will do the job. Your IP is still known to the service, but the web site you then visit using the service doesn't see it.
Article C2237 - December 1, 2004
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I found out that someone knew my name just from me visiting their website. How did they do this? Are they doing something illegal? I did not fill out any forms or anything on their site.
Posted by: C J at May 3, 2010 1:00 PMHow do you determine an IP address using only a comment that is left on a website?
13-Jul-2010
Posted by: Sara at July 12, 2010 9:25 AM
You can use TOR to run your browser through proxies or use a web proxy as an alternative (usually slower method)
Regards,
ITC Servers
Posted by: ITCS at February 18, 2011 5:31 AMYes your Ip address will be known if you visit a website. For example this site Ip-Details shows your Ip address, country and address.
05-Mar-2011
Posted by: Sabrina at March 4, 2011 11:01 PM
@Josh using server access logs i can tell ip x.x.x.x visited my site at X day of x month of xxxx at xx:xx:xx and from front page or from their landing page went to page x, y, z and then downloaded x.zip from my server taking xx seconds to download at speed x.x. now if you are a member of my site i know user joshx = ip x.x.x.x and i put the two together. not much but definitely a start. Also not worth anything to anyone except the server maintenance guy who would liek to improve download time or page sizes to efficiently increase traffic / reduce costs.
@C J i would be skeptical probably know your ip because of another site and knew your details from there. there is a whole plethora of ways to track people and trace their ips including scripts that would be able to go through you history in the browser and grab info from previous pages stored in your browser cache. some of these scripts are used by gimmicky sites to show off the authors scripting abilities. while these are impressive there is not much to worry about.
@ Sabrina. adding to what Leo said if you know i am in Canada and the ip address is general that of Ontario and likely i am int he city of Toronto or Municipality of Markham what does that tell you. I just told you that and i will give you my house number 10 . try and figure out where i live or where I am at. Likely only a very few people can find this info and to them your IP is the least important info you have on the net. Facebook and other sources are at least a million times more likely to leak your private lives as your ip is. Also ip's change like mine will by tomorrow and then i might be based out of a different city until i have that ip. Paranoia doesn't help if you want to safeguard your ip anonimize it otherwise best defense is not to call attention to something that just blends in with millions if not billions of others like it.
Posted by: Morpheus Exegis at January 4, 2012 2:15 PM