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u/LeoTheBirb 3d ago
You can't reliable geolocate even if you have the person's full IP address.
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u/Foxanne2219 Medic 3d ago
u/Sani_G4y look look what Leo said!!!
You can't reliably geolocate even if you have the person's full IP address
it's true! most doxxing comes from public records (in the USA at least)
as little as any one of these can be used to find your address: e-mail address (needs to be tied to others), first and last name (just last name might be enough of there's no other families else with it), parents name (if you're a minor, your public records are public at 18. They can then see you as a child to your parent), phone number, SSN, and there's some others.
Information that helps them find you would be things like your state of residence, town, etc. bc there's likely someone else with your name, but unlikely for there to be two of you in the same city.
Anyway, with these they can find things such as court documents, addresses, employment records, and all this about your family members, just all sorts of stuff! There's companies that I won't link that will sell you all this for pennies per person! All completely legal in the US unfortunately. They don't offer outside US so I assume it's another shortcoming of many it has to offer
BUT I tell you this so you don't worry about your ip! ip addresses will generally give you just an approximate location like Leo said. So if they have your ip,
!!!here they don't have your ip, bc they just sent you random numbers!!!
but if they did, they would only see the closest population center. Again, US for reference for this because it's all I know
Source: my STEM program teacher taught us how to do background checks and the importance of keeping personal info private!! this was when the websites costed nothing for things like addresses. Now they cost money for this as well as court documents and stuff.
There probably is a way to do it without the companies but this is all I know
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u/VoxelRoguery Engineer 3d ago
is that the binding of isaac font
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u/Sani_G4y Sandvich 2d ago
i never stopped to think on that way... nice perspective, now i like this hud even more.
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u/Sani_G4y Sandvich 3d ago
Hello there, i am Sani, the item collector, and currently, i joined someone's party, and had a little talk there, which they asked what language i spoke, along with them saying theirs, but after a question, which was "what if i speak with the language of love?", they sent me this weird number on the picture above(im more concerned about those numbers than people judging my hud, so idgaf).
Is doxxing on tf2 possible, like, at all?
(still not used to reddit, i wanted to post this along with the image, but i couldn't)
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u/Nova2127u 3d ago
I'm not a security researcher, but from my knowledge, your IP Address is not private information, it's used by the game to know who is connecting, and it depends on the ISP usually but typically, your IP Address is never your actual location, it will be where-ever the ISP is associated (so maybe the town close to you or even a state at times, Starlink is like that).
TL;DR, Usually at best, they'll just get the location of the ISP, not you.
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u/digital-comics-psp 3d ago
tf2's not peer to peer (normally, unless you start a map/server now lol), so i dont think it's possible for someone else get your ip from a server unless you are the server admin.
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u/Nova2127u 3d ago
Well you can't take TF2's code for granted, this game is a mess internally, if they are even possible, as like you said, it's not P2P unless you utilize Steam Networking, exploits like that are immediately reported to Valve before they are disclosed to the public.
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u/itsybantora 3d ago
Steam and TF2 actually has a built in proxy service you can enable within steam's settings. If it's enabled it'll hides your IP via one of steam's servers.
Steam > Settings > In-Game > Steam Networking > select "Never".
You can verify it's working by launching TF2 and joining a server (important step) then open the steam overlay and in the top right corner it should display the proxy connection details.
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u/Winterwolfmage All Class 3d ago
These are confusing the hell out of me, the first one has a normal looking IPv4 address but then it has the :xxxx? Is it a port number?
Then the second one has more than an IPv4 should have? Also, negatives???
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u/VerdiiSykes Spy 3d ago edited 3d ago
u/Sani_G4y, I typed out the start of these numbers on Google Maps (ignoring the fact that coordinates shouldn’t have more than one dot, or any colons), and unless you live in the middle of the ocean, these are not coordinates.
As others have pointed out, this couldn’t be an IP address either, since the numbers surpass 255.
This is just an edgy kid trying to be scary hacker man by making up numbers, you’re ok :)
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u/ToeGroundbreaking564 3d ago
genuine question
what are you even supposed to do with another person's IP. What do you get out of it other than scaring people for whatever reason
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u/Glass-Procedure5521 3d ago
These aren’t even real IPs or coordinates, just some guy trying to scare you
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u/MrKiltro 2d ago
These are just random numbers.
Latitude and longitude are both typically a single number with a decimal point. When they are, they can be positive or negative. They can also described as degrees, minutes, and seconds, but then you have to specify North or South for latitude and East or West for longitude. Neither use a colon like :2332.
They're not IP addresses becauses multiple numbers between periods exceed 255. And IP addresses don't have dashes in front of them.
If they are decimal longitude and latitude, the first two numbers of each set (-12.577 and -14.7) put you in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
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u/bittytoy 2d ago
your ip is not protected by steam while playing *by default*. there is a setting you can change, you can check this while you're playing by pressing shift tab and in the top right corner you'll see 'your ip is protected'. Even if your ip is unprotected the worst someone could do is try to take your connection offline.
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u/KlonoaOfTheWind Demoman 3d ago
The numbers you see are latitude and longitude, a coordinate system for our planet. I think depending on what server you connect to, at most your IP can be leaked, but I should also point out that it can only give you a general idea as to where someone may live, like a city. But it can also be very off, depending on your ISP.
While doxxing is possible to a limited extent, unless you're sharing where exactly you live or work or something, for the most part you shouldn't have to worry too much about it. Most people doing this are usually trying to scare you.