IP-address: moments that not everyone knows about
Surely you, as an Internet user, have heard that the system, when you connect to the network, immediately identifies a unique IP-address of your device. She needs this so that the response to your request is sent to the appropriate computer. And here everything seems to be logical and understandable, but, alas, not unambiguously.
Now let's get acquainted in more detail with what an address is, why it is needed. Let's determine what data can be obtained about the user only by his IP. Let's highlight a number of risks that users are exposed to as a result of identifying the addresses of their devices by the system. We will show you how to ensure the anonymity and security of actions on the network in combination with wide functionality. And now about everything in order.
IP-address: what is it and why is it needed
IP— an abbreviation for Internet Protocol. That is, it is an Internet connection protocol, with the help of which all devices that connect to the network communicate with each other. Each of these devices, be it a computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, is allocated a separate unique address, consisting of a set of numbers (and in the latest version, also letters). Based on them, other network members can communicate with each other, find the user they need.
IT specialists have been developing such protocols for a very long time. Several attempts were made, but only one of them gained mass distribution. It's about the IPv4 protocol. It was created in the early 80s of the last century. At that time, the number of computers connected to the Internet could literally be counted on the fingers. Of course, we exaggerate, but still there were very, very few of them in comparison with what we are seeing today. At that time, the idea of creating the Internet as a single World Wide Web looked fantastic, but nevertheless, specialists managed to realize it. To form the IP-address, it was decided to use a 32-bit value. If you count the number of all possible combinations that could be made on their basis, you would get a number of more than 4 billion. Recall once again that in those days this figure seemed very, very large. And experts were sure that this would be quite enough for many years to come.
But literally 10 years later, it became clear that the allocated new range would obviously not be enough in the short term. It was at that time that all network technologies began to develop at an accelerated pace, and the Internet became more and more accessible to ordinary users. This means that the number of addresses provided under the IPv4 protocol was clearly not enough to satisfy the entire market demand. After realizing this, the specialists began to develop a new protocol — IPv6. This protocol entered the market in 1996. Now it was not built on 32-bit values, it is 128. There are already combinations of not only numbers, but also letters. This amount should be enough for all the inhabitants of the planet, although in theory (in practice, this fact has not yet been verified). For mass connectivity, IPv6 was launched in 2012. No more changes have been made to this technology to date.
Along with the increase in the number of addresses for network users, this version of the protocol also has a number of other improvements, namely:
- Support for superpacks up to 4 gigabytes of data;
- multicast;
- protocol labels;
- traffic classes;
- refusal to fragment fragmentation of transmitted packets by routers, which made it possible to significantly reduce the load on the network itself, and on the equipment that supports it.
Today, both IPv4 and IPv6 connection protocols are actively used on the market.
How can I find out the IP-address?
It is often impossible to find out the IP-address of a third party without the help of technical specialists. Moreover, if the user whose data you want to know uses additional mobile proxies, VPN services or other tools to anonymize network activities, then even specialists with extensive experience and sufficient knowledge in this field will not be able to identify the relevant information.
Now we will consider cases when the user works with the Internet directly, that is, without additional protection in the form of intermediary servers. Due to the fact that we do not have the ability to connect complex technical solutions directly to the provider, we can use the so-called social engineering methods to detect the user's IP-address. This is one of the types of attacks, when the user, without realizing it, transfers the necessary data. It is these technologies that attackers use, gaining access to the user information they need or by running malicious software on their device.
Now let's take a closer look at the 2 most popular ways to identify an IP-address, which are actively used by unscrupulous individuals:
- IP trap.
- Email.
What is an IP trap?
This method of identifying the address of a user device involves the use of services that specialize in determining and logging the IP-addresses of devices that clicked on a particular link. In the example, it works like this:
- You take any photo and upload it to your cloud storage. Share this image with everyone and copy its link.
- Send the copied link to the "IP logger" service. The system will automatically send you a link to the same photo, but you will already be able to track all the visitors who opened it.
- Send the resulting link to the person whose IP-address you want to know. As soon as a person visits this link from their device, you will immediately be able to identify their IP and the type of browser used in the click statistics.
How to get a person to follow this link – it doesn't matter at all. Malefactors for realization of such task come up with different sophistications. Some send it to private messages on social networks, offering tempting discounts or interesting information. Other — they send it as an answer in discussions in communities, etc. But, here you need to pay attention to the record of this link. For the most part, it will initially contain the name of the service, as an option iplogger.org/3s9AK7. That is, a person, looking at this link, will already intuitively guess what is hidden behind it. But this is far from always stopping intruders. The fact is that today there are special services that automatically shorten links. Thanks to them, the above entry takes on a completely normal look and no longer arouses any suspicion in a person.
Here's the science for the future: never open links sent to you by unknown users. This is exactly what attackers are counting on. And once again we are talking about that. if the person whose IP-address you plan to find out uses mobile proxies or VPN services, in In the program statistics, you will see not the real address, but the technical parameters of the proxy server.
How is email used to gain access to IP?
Another fairly popular method that allows you to find out the IP of the user device — using email. The fact is that all messages that are sent by e-mail contain not only the information that is visible to a person, but also a lot of additional data. So, if a user of a social network sends you a letter from his personal mailbox, then with certain knowledge and skills you can determine his real IP-address.
To implement such an idea, you can use both free and paid automation tools. That is, you find a special extension for email clients, or you forward an email to a service address that can determine the IP-address from an email list. Also, the necessary information can be viewed independently. In any case, the essence of this method is to analyze the headers of the letter. That is, you can do this work yourself or entrust it to the appropriate automated software.
Looking up the sender's IP-address yourself
If you do not want to use the appropriate services to automate actions, then do the work yourself. Let's make a reservation right away that the steps may differ depending on which email domain is used in a particular case. Now we will give instructions, following which you can find out yourself the IP-address of the sender using gmail.com in your work:
- go to the email and open the corresponding letter;
- in the upper right corner, click on the icon with the image of three vertical dots and select the option "Show original" from the drop-down list;
- we study the original text, identifying the sender's IP-address in it: if we are talking about gmail.com, then most likely it will be registered as X-originating-IP;
- Find an online service that allows you to determine the sender's location by IP-address.
That is, by doing a series of simple steps, you can determine not only the IP, but also the geolocation of the user. But again, we want to draw your attention to the fact that if you want to find out the technical data of the device of a user who uses mobile proxies at work, then all your attempts are doomed to failure. A reliable service will completely hide the real IP and geolocation of the user device. And this means that instead of these data, the letter received by e-mail will contain proxy server settings.
How accurate is geolocation by IP-address?
Using the above methods, with a high degree of probability, you can find out the real IP-address of the user device. Well, the situation with geolocation is not so certain. The fact is that modern providers use a dynamic system for allocating addresses. The point here is quite simple. Each provider has a fairly large pool of IP-addresses at its disposal, which it gives out to users every time they connect to the network. Yes, along with dynamic ones, there are also static IP-addresses, but they are more expensive and are most often used by large companies and business representatives. It makes no sense for ordinary users to spend extra money on them.
That is, most modern Internet users — These are the owners of a dynamic IP-address. And it is impossible to determine the exact location of the owner of the device from it. Differences can be at the level of regions, cities, regions.
One more point that we want to draw your attention to: regardless of which IP you use, static or dynamic, the provider will know reliable information about you. It is with him that you enter into a cooperation agreement. That is, if he needs to identify a particular user, he can easily do this. And it's good if you are completely confident in the reliability of your provider. Otherwise, there is a risk of selling personal data. And it is still unknown how this will turn out for you.
How to ensure a high level of protection when working online?
As you can see, any person who connects to the Internet immediately exposes himself to serious risks: the loss of personal data or funds from bank accounts, malware getting onto your computer, etc. But today, each of you can easily and simply prevent this. It will be enough just to connect mobile proxies from the MobileProxy.Space service to work. In this case you get:
- personal dedicated channel with unlimited traffic;
- access to over 1.3 million IP-addresses;
- Convenient and quick change of IP by timer or via a link from your personal account;
- simultaneous work on HTTP(S) and Socks5 protocols;
- a huge selection of geolocations from different regions and countries of the world.
With such proxies, you are guaranteed to ensure safe and confidential work on the network, you can avoid all kinds of blocking during multi-accounting, you can automatically parse data, set up automatic mailing, auto-posting, etc. Follow the link https://mobileproxy.space/user.html?buyproxy to learn more about the functionality of a mobile proxy from the MobileProxy.Space service, current rates and other nuances of cooperation . There is also a 24/7 technical support service.