This board is a major invasion of privacy. The IP(internet protocol) address's of posters should be invisible. I vote that all IP address's should be taken off and made invisible. I tried to make a poll but it wouldn't let me. It said I am not authorized. So whoever is in favor of the board hiding IP address's then please post. Thank you.

Who cares?

Anyhow, hiding your IP is about as effective for safety and privacy as wearing a tinfoil hat. And unless you have a dedicated IP and are not behind NAT your IP is pretty much only useful in showing what area you are in and not even your address.

A computer guru can use an IP address to find a persons personal identifying information, home address, home telephone number, banking information, credit card information, etc.... They can even get into your computer system and steal your identity if they wanted to. IP address's are suppose to be private and not public.

Showing IP addresses are dangerous and an invasion of privacy. The IP address's on this forum should not be visible to the public.

Not true. An IP address is even less identifying than a telephone number.

Jflynn is correct. IP numbers usually are assigned by your ISP and either just used for the session that you are logged on or in some cases if they have been assigned to you they are regularly changed. If you search for an IP number you can only find out who the ISP is and not who the end user is. You yourself have used at least 3 different IP addresses today alone.

Everywhere you go on the internet the IP number you are using for the session that you are online is recorded. It is available to the owner of every website you visit and the recipient of emails you send.

You will find the IP number a participant used diplayed on many other forums, guestbooks, and blogs. It is common throughout the internet.

Displaying the IP number is very useful in helping discourage unlawful behavior and spam. Those who would use the forum to slander and libel are reminded that they are not anonymous. Those that spam using multiple identities are quickly caught and banned. Those that attempt to run their own DOS attacks or programs to harvest email address on our server have also been identified and banned in the past.

Hackers may be able to access an old unprotected computer thru the IP number but they do this randomly searching for unprotected computers using lists of randomly generated IP numbers. They do not search the internet for the IP you in particular are using and then bribe your ISP to reveal your identity so they can target you.

Law enforcement and court orders can be used to have an ISP reveal your identity but a hacker can't obtain that info so they can target you specifically. Just because your IP is visible on a web page doesn't mean that you are more vulnerable than if the IP was invisible.