7 ms·
Nowadays internet users on cable often keep the same IP address for weeks if not months. Who knows, your ISP could change its configuration tomorrow and always
by Tepix 6y ago
Nowadays internet users on cable often keep the same IP address for weeks if not months.
Who knows, your ISP could change its configuration tomorrow and always re-assign the same IP address to you as long as its available.
I think the point of this website is to show people that using torrents is far from anonymous and invisible.
- easterncalculus 6y agoExactly, I posted the title as it's the link of the site and admittedly salacious enough to click, but I don't (and I'm sure the site owners don't) want to allege that there's any internet mysticism going on.
- andrewstuart2 6y agoThat, and you should know that there is almost certainly history of who had which IP address when; it's not going to be the same DHCP server running on your small router. If you download something, get a new IP, and the ISP gets a complaint for your old IP, they have that data and may be obligated legally to do something about it.
- larntz 6y agoIn the long long ago I worked at a small regional ISP. We offered dial-up and dsl. Users were assigned whatever IP was available when they connected, and this was logged (including disconnect time). So, it was very easy to search the logs and see who was using an IP at a given time in the past (assuming we still had the logs).
- londons_explore 6y agoI would pay extra for an ISP who only kept those logs say 1 hour. 1 hour should be plenty to identify who is currently running some network attack, and arguably an ISP doesn't have a legit reason for keeping private data longer than necessary to be an ISP under the GDPR .
- DuskStar 6y agoThat would require you to have a choice of ISPs...
- pathseeker 6y agoI wonder if there are any government requirements here for people operating ISPs. Does anyone have any insight into the time range that is required to keep these logs (if there is one)?
- eloisant 6y agoIn France it's one year.
- gog 6y agoYes there is, at least in EU, not sure for how long do they have to keep the logs.
- Luff 6y agoEU: According to a directive passed 2006, a minimum of six months and at most 24 months. But that directive was ruled invalid and anulled in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
- razakel 6y agoEarlier this year there was a case where someone was accessing illegal stuff (as in, the sort of stuff that does warrant police kicking their door down at 4am) using public WiFi. Except the ISP had forgotten to take into account daylight savings time and given the police the wrong customer's details. Oops.
- rovr138 6y agoouch More proof dates aren't easy.
- PHGamer 6y agothey would be if everyone would just use UTC
- Unklejoe 6y agoLet's go a step further and use TAI to avoid leap seconds while we're at it.
- gorgoiler 6y agoThe orthodoxy is that the two most common forms of time stamps are: (1) Unambiguous: a time in the past that is represented by the number of seconds since the epoch, Jan 1 1970. When coupled with a location/jurisdiction, they can be converted into a wall-clock time like “1:23pm 04 May 2006 Europe/Paris.” (2) Ambiguous (but semantically meaningful): a time in the future that would be shown on a clock at the location of the event. The logging of IP addresses would use the former. The upcoming trial date for illegal torrenting would use the latter.
- netheril96 6y agoSo who found out the DST issue in the end?
- ivanovb 6y agoMy IP hasn't changed in about a year, although it is supposed to be dynamic. On the other hand I use extensively a torrent tracker and the site shows nothing.
- senectus1 6y agoMine changes every few weeks. I found it amusing to see that the OP web link stops showing what my IP has been downloading at the same time that I got the IP only about a week ago.
- smichel17 6y agoIt'll usually change if you power cycle your modem.
- reportgunner 6y agoWhe website has to "know" the torrents you downloaded. If you are downloading obscure or non-english stuff chances are they don't have the torrent and it won't show up on the list.
- ktm5j 6y agoMy modem has had the same IP for nearly 10 years now! It's the same even after several moves, one to a new county. Super convenient, but that's the nicest thing I have to say about Comcast. Boy I wish there were other options.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoYep, Comcast ties your modem's mac address to an IP address. However, if your modem is off long enough for a new user in your area to need a new IP address, they'll snatch up yours. Also, 10 years? I guess DOCSIS 3.0 has been around that long. That's pretty impressive.
- ktm5j 6y agoI recently got a docsis 3.1 modem, you have to call and activate the MAC. They just used the same IP, conveniently enough.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoIt's probably because it needed an IP and the modem that was turned off, leaving an IP open was your old one. That or they changed their system. The odds historically have been low getting the same IP.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoYup. I had the same IP address for the entire 3 years I lived in an apartment. Even telling my router to release and renew the IP would still give me the same IP. Only when I moved to a new house (and still used the same ISP) did my IP change.
- svnpenn 6y agohttps://github.com/sietseringers/MACAddressTool https://github.com/sietseringers/MACAddressTool
- goatsi 6y agoThat's only for Windows, you would need to change the MAC address on the router WAN port for the ISP to notice.
- svnpenn 6y agoNot sure what you are talking about, I have been using this for years to generate new IPs.
- goatsi 6y agoPrivate IPs on local networks (192.168.0.0/16, etc), or globally routed IPs assigned from your ISPs netblock?
- svnpenn 6y agoIP assigned from ISP
- exikyut 6y agoI'm mildly curious how your ISP works then. Like the other commenter said, this tool will change your Windows device's MAC, not the modem's. To be clear, there's your device's MAC, the Wi-Fi AP's MAC and the modem's WAN-facing MAC. (Integrated Wi-Fi router/modem combos obviously have both.) If this tool is successfully getting you new public IP addresses, something VERY weird is going on with your (probably integrated) modem.
- wil421 6y agoComcast assigns you an IP based on the MAC address of your modem and the only way to change it is to get a new modem. When I had AT&T it could change at anytime.