Thursday, December 6, 2012

Why You May Want to Hide Your IP


Your IP address is the numerical address that servers use to send information when you request it. You can think of it like the return address on a postal letter. If you didn't have this address on the letters that you sent, you wouldn't be able to get information sent back to you if you requested it. A VPN service allows you to use an IP address that keeps you anonymous. The reason that "anonymous" is used to describe what a VPN service does is because your IP address can reveal quite a bit of information about you, much of which you probably do not want revealed at all.

What's In a Number?

Your IP address has a lot of information in it if you know what you're looking for. First, each block of IP addresses belongs to certain entities. Someone can easily find out who provides your Internet service just by having your IP.

Second, your IP address does actually reveal your location, provided the person intercepting it knows how to decipher this information. This is why you oftentimes see ads on Internet sites that are targeted toward your geographic areas. Visit some news sites from Chicago, for instance, and they might display a special page for Chicago news. Visit them from Denver and you'll get a different page.

In the worst-case scenario, a hacker can use your IP address to attack your computer directly. They may also use it to get at any home networks you have set up. They can see what services are running on computers at your home and use the holes in those services to gain access to your digital resources. This, obviously, is a very bad situation for most users.

You should have your systems protected against intrusion, for just this reason. This is the role of firewall software, which monitors the traffic in and out of your network and makes sure that everything is legitimate. To make your security situation even better, however, you can simply use a VPN service to make sure that no one can see your IP address to begin with. Not having an address to attack, of course, means that there's no way that they can access your resources.

An IP address that originates from your VPN service will not be one that can be traced back to you. You can browse to your heart's content without having to worry that someone will be able to find out where your request came from, what address they'd want to check if they were intent on attacking you and so forth.

Hiding your IP address is one of the best ways to make being online safer and more enjoyable. If you're interested in making sure that no one can find you, having a VPN service is one of the best ways to go about it. With these services, you can be sure that you're not hanging out there every time you visit a website and that you're not overly vulnerable to being attacked.

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