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Do IP addresses reveal information about the user? #2256

Open KosmoEskudo opened 3 years ago

KosmoEskudo commented 3 years ago

In the information about PrivacyTools VPNs section, it says:

Shouldn't I hide my IP address? The idea that your IP address is sensitive information, or that your location is given away with all your internet traffic is fearmongering on the part of VPN providers and their marketing. Your IP address is an insignificant amount of personal data tracking companies use to identify you, because many users' IP addresses change very frequently (Dynamic IP addresses, switching networks, switching devices, etc.). Your IP address also does not give away more than the very generalized location of your Internet Service Provider. It does not give away your home address, for example, despite common perception.

Then links are provided that explain this.

However, a new study has recently come out titled: Don't Count Me Out: On the Relevance of IP Address in the Tracking Ecosystem.

The abstract of the article states: "[...] In this paper, we study the stability of the public IP addresses a user device uses to communicate with our server. Over time, a same device communicates with our server using a set of distinct IP addresses, but we find that devices reuse some of their previous IP addresses for long periods of time. We call this IP address retention and, the duration for which an IP address is retained by a device, is named the IP address retention period.

We present an analysis of 34,488 unique public IP addresses collected from 2,230 users over a period of 111 days and we show that IP addresses remain a prime vector for online tracking. 87 % of participants retain at least one IP address for more than a month and 45 % of ISPs in our dataset allow keeping the same IP address for more than 30 days. Furthermore, we also detect the presence of cycles of IP addresses in a user’s history and highlight their potential to be abused to infer traits of the user behaviour, as well as mobility traces. Our findings paint a bleak picture of the current state of online tracking at a time where IP addresses are overlooked compared to other techniques like cookies or fingerprinting."

Do IP addresses reveal information about the user?

lynn-stephenson commented 3 years ago

IP addresses can absolutely be used to track users, and reveal information about them. If they are using their ISP, with no VPN, or Tor connection, it's easy for law enforcement or other powerful agencies to ask your ISP for information regarding said IP. Just like VPNs there is a trail.

Without a doubt it's important to obscure your IP address. The Tor network is more effective at this than a VPN.