I'm sure the author could have easily been creative enough to hide that he was his own source. Also are IPs really considered private information? I thought the

I'm sure the author could have easily been creative enough to hide that he was his own source. Also are IPs really considered private information? I thought the whole point of IPs was they can be shared. A simple (probably flawed) example: "Oh hey, I found this pastebin with the FCC's IP block, don't know where it came from"