dynamic ip address; can it be traced?
 

Hi All:
I am new to LimeWire; pardon me if this has been addressed
before! When I download audio, video, etc., could my IP
addressed be traced to me if needed? I supposedly have a dynamic
IP address, but when each time I go to "whatismyip", it tells me
the same #, shouldn't that be different each time if I have a dynamic??
thanks much; promise I won't post this again!
Top o' the mornin' to ya all!!!
Marty

Yes it can be traced to your ISP and in turn to you. Your Ip address will always be the same.

thanks Grandpa; i thought dynamic IP addresses
were supposed to change everytime you go on
the internet? no??

Go to Start, run, type in cmd.exe , then ipconfig , then ipconfig/release , then ipconfig/renew , and it should give you a new IP address :)

thanks Trevor; you guys have a good day!

It can still be traced. Each time you go on line your address is reported to your isp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address

Just get a Firewall or Router that Blocks your IP most of them do there are also programs that will change your Ip how ever you set it to like 15 secs for instance you will give off a false IP

More specifically your ISP gives you your IP address. Their Log file looks something like this (very general , NOT EXACT)

Leased IP address 204.200.156.255 to HWADDR 00:00:00:FF:FF:AB:BA


They take this, then they goto the billing department and they say "Hey who did we give cable modem 00:00:00:FF:FF:AB:BA to?" The billing guy types it in and says, "Looks like we gave that one to Jim Scheinheimer he lives at 1456 oacrest terrace se. He downloaded 15gbps of data last month, and uploaded 20gbps."




Ohh and FYI, unless you are running some type of anonymous routing or proxy system, if you are successfully downloading data off of a p2p network right now, PEOPLE CAN SEE YOUR IP ADDRESS.

Look at it sort of like a telephone. Feel free to publish a fake telephone number in the phone book or unplug your telephone from the wall, nobody can call you (aka you cannot download). But if you want to be able to recieve calls (aka download files) the sender MUST KNOW YOUR ACTUAL IP ADDRESS. The same goes with changing your telephone number. Feel free to change it every day, or even sooner. But if you want to recieve an incoming call, you must let others know your current telephone number. Unfortunately its how the internet works.

don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Your IP follows you where ever you go. As soon as you logon to the net, your IP/ISP is recorded automatically.


Oh and moron with the oneliners, its not a crime to download as far as I know. Its SHARING that gets you jail time. :rolleyes:

LoL ok come here think about this. Thats like saying its ok to steal a CD from best buy, as long as you don't share the CD with others.


It is a violation of IP / copyright to even download the song (assuming you don't have the rights to download that song). Its just a lot easier and more efficient to go after the people sharing the content, opposed to just the downloaders.

if your worryed about being tracked. use the new nodezilla grid p2p, its compleatly anonymous. the reason with classic p2p software, such as limewire, that you can be tracked is it is based on making a direct tcp connection between sharer and downloader. therefore both must know each others ip address.
nodezilla is radically different, each peer is connected to a few nearby peers, who are in turn connected peers near them, ect.. When you start downloading a file you never make a direct connection to the sharer. the data is send through the grid via multiple peers hopping from peer to peer along on the way. finding the shortest path back to you.
sharer->node1->node2->node3->you.
effectivly everyone is acting as a proxy for everyone else. no one can tell whos shareing, downloading or just routing the data. also the data is cashed along the way so if the sharer is gone the data is still avalable. its based on the freenets topology, with a lot of improvements. theres been a few other atempts at this before such as ants or mute p2p but none have come close to what nodezilla has achived. so in other words you CAN do the crime and never worry about doing the time!! ;)

heres a link to the nodezilla homepage;
http://www.nodezilla.net/index.html

As little as I know, freenet apparently didn't work very well. It was slow as, & there were many other issues such as how the files are shared/hashed. If this (nodezilla) was really a breakthrough improvement on this technology then I'm sure the p2p community would've heard a lot more about it. There's many mentions of it on the forums but here's a couple of quick finds: 1. About freenet, & also this 2. Freenet & issues

I've never tried it but only point out from little I've read about it. I'm simply pointing. :D Oh Taliban (previous username) is now one of FrostWire's main programmers & contributed code to the LW project for many years. He developed the junk filter & many other things.

your right about freenets general crappiness but what i was refering to is that it was roughly based on freenets "topology", in that how the nodes/peers are orginised in the grid. 1 or 2 other things may be slightly simaler but freenet was never suposed to be a filesharing network anyway. i dont wont to get in to a limewire vs nodezilla battle, because when it comes to speed and avalability of files the gnutella based p2p win hands down, hence why i love limewire.
i wouldnt say nodezilla has made some miraculus breakthrough but it has made a lot of major improvments to the way a grid p2p works. for instance the ability for data to be cashed as it is routed through the grid is certainly inovative. this is also combined with forward error control, which means that as files can still be downloaded even if the original sharer it gone, which is in effect persistant distributed storage. also since the files are cashed closer to you it means the the load on any individual node is reduced and download speeds are increassed, if someone later downloades the file. this effect incresses with the popularity or the file.
in relation sharing and searching the most reasent release has delt with this compeatly and the search result are quite good. the download speeds are reletivly good, 30 to 50KB/s on my 2Mb/s line.

Ultimately my point is, if all your looking for is speed then stick with limewire because when it comes to speed limewires the king among p2p. But if your looking for anonymity and security then there are very promising alternetives.

Thats an old feeble arguement. Im going by what the RIAA says. You get pinched if you are caught SHARING over 1000 files. Go look it up if you doubt me. You cant get arrested for downloading. Try doing some research. They are going after users WHO SHARE NOT DOWNLOAD. Why do you think people stopped sharing? They just steal much instead. If you share small amount of files like 100/200 you won't get traced.

I never said it was a strong argument, I was just making a point.


I will 100% guarantee you that downloading 1 song / movie / book which you do not own the rights to is a violation of copyright law. I can also guarantee you with 99% accuracy that if you downloaded said copyrighted material you won't be thrown in jail.


This is the same as the war on drugs. Buying, smoking, possessing marijuana is illegal in most cases, yet most people who just smoke casually never get in any trouble. This is because the people in charge go after the source of the problem, not the end user.


This is exactly what the RIAA/MPAA is doing. Why go after the guy who is downloading / sharing one song, when they can take out a guy who has 10,000.


It's the same reason police don't actively pursue casual pot smokers, they would much rather take out the guy with 1000 lbs. of weed, selling it to half of the state.

Why on earth would congress pass a law that stated Copyright laws are violated only after X amount of material is found in your possession?

They have laws that say its illegal to download ANY AMOUNT of copyrighted material, and harsher penalties if you are attempting to make money off of it.

As you are talking about the RIAA I take it you are referring to USA; do I take it then that breach of copyright is a criminal offence in USA?? In United Kingdom (and other countries which have adopted the Berne Convention) breach of copyright is a civil offence, a "tort". It is up to the Plaintiff to seek damages from the Respondent in the civil court. In practice music copyright owners would licence their right to a music publisher/record company and the action would normally be undertaken by the British Phonographics Industry, which seems to have adopted the role of music industry policeman, citing the terms of the 'Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988' (as amended) but it is still a civil action.

Nice trick, where did you learn that?

being able to change your IP addy don't matter really (cept for maybe hiding from a hacker) cause there are still records associated with said addy as it pertains to a certain time frame...i.e. @ 1:15am on blah, blah, blah, a certain specific person was using a given addy....

one poster has also made an excellent point in regards to modems...they are all unique, and all are ID'd via tags that are specific to that individual modem (and also routers, and also NIC cards), so even without a specific time date stamp, a user can be ID'd via their mac address (id tag for above items) over a wide time period (like the whole time they were in posession of said piece of hardware), knowledge of said mac address also gives certain ppl the ability to track your actions all over the net....

so, in a nutshell, of course your dynamic IP addy can be traced directly to you, and only to you given the fact a person has a time/date stamp to place you as the 'owner' of said IP addy at a specific time