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Someone emailed me about IP addresses......


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I got an email through geocache.com this morning from user mike_2233. It says......

quote:
Hello,

 

you seem to know alot about all this .. so can I ask you a question:

 

>From an IP address at home, can someone if they wanted to , use that address to locate EXACTLY where a computer is?? Is that possible to do from the IP address?

 

Thanks for any info you can share with me on this

Mike


 

Here's my questions......

1. I don't know didly squat about IP addresses, why would he ask me?

2. Why would he want to know EXACTLY where a computer is?

3. What does this have to do with Geocaching?

4. Is this something I need to worry about?

 

Its entirely possible that this guy is just curious about something, but I have never posted anything that would leave anyone to believe that I know anything about computers.........He has no finds, nor has he made any posts in the forums....

 

What do you think?

 

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.

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As a guy with a computer networking background, an email like that would set the red flags waving at full tilt. It sounds to me (if I am reading your posts correctly) like someone is trying to use the "naieve newbie" routine to get info out of people. Just to sort some fact from fiction, yes, a person with your IP address (IP Address = Internet Protocol Address, basically your computer's address on the 'net looks like 255.255.255.255) could, with appropriate software find the location of your computer, at least what city you are in. What could he do with that info? Probably not much. Attacking a single Windows machine (especially if you are running a firewall, which EVERYONE on the 'net should be) is much more difficult than people think. Sounds like a good person to put on your ‘ignore’ list, unless he sent it you by mistake.

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Solo, Before you send everyone into a panic thinking that you have access to their unlisted telephone numbers (and Lats & Longs icon_wink.gif) It should be pointed out that in 98% of the cases we are worried about, the owner/register of the IP Address is your Internet Service Provider, and even then, there is a lot of unlisted info. If anyone wants to play with this, download a copy of Neotrace. It can be kind of interesting.

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I got the same request. I replied thru the geocaching.com e-mail system. The cache approvers seem to get a lot of requests not related directly to a cache that is in question, so I usually just reply as best I can.

 

If this is not legit at least a half dozen caches didn't get approved because of the time wasted, which is aggravating. So don't e-mail me asking how to fix your Land-Rover or where to find a good recipe for crawfish etoufee. I could probably handle both but that's not what Jeremy pays me the big bucks to do. (I wish)

 

erik - geocaching.com admin

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The way I take it is that he is wanting to maybe post something rude or offensive to either the forums or on someone’s cache page and is wondering that if he did would geocaching.com be able to track it back to his computer at home by the IP address. He possibly could already be a cacher and someone made him mad in here and wants to get back at them. Therefore he registered a new username.

 

Just my ways of thinking, but you never know.

 

 

.

 

The early bird gets the worm, but the 2nd mouse gets the cheese.

 

[This message was edited by Roadster on March 16, 2003 at 08:45 AM.]

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This is the reply to my email from Jeremy

 

He only sent a few of these messages out. Apparently eBay blocked him

somehow and he was just trying to ask for some help.

 

Jeremy

 

I still find it rather strange though

 

Work Smarter, Not Harder!

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