making ur ip not visible on the net

[nihil]

Hi Black Cluster you may well be right

My thinking was that the OP says he has a security breach and seems to think that the solution is to mask his IP address? Several posters mentioned using a proxy..............

At best that is "security through obscurity" and not to be relied on.

The scenario I had in mind was when he logs on to his ISP he is assigned an IP address. He then goes to a proxy server which is all that any site he visits will see. He is still logged on to his ISP in plain sight . Now, if someone is running a bot scanning his ISP address blocks and finds him running a vulnerable machine.............he is owned!

That is why I suggested that he needed to find the cause of his problem and that other security considerations need to be taken into account, as mentioned by previous posters.

I was a little concerned that newbies might read the thread and think that using a proxy will protect them, without considering all possible attack vectors and security measures.

[The Duck]

Ah geez, why is it that whenever someone asks a question that could be legit, everyone assumes they're going to hack something. His story seems true enough, if I didn't know much about computers, and I see my IP address flashing around on some site, I'd be paranoid to. How am I suppose to know that it's just javascript?? Cut him a break...

[Black Cluster]

Hi The Duck,

His question calls suspicion, he could ask us, if he is not certain ... "Is it possible anyway to hack my computer using my IP?" .... "What can I do to protect myself?" "How can my IP address be used against me?" ...

I think this way things are better clarified .... giving no way for suspicions to flick around ...

nihil, your explanation, is cool enough ..... but I said what I said, just becasue a I think he is up to no good ....

[nihil]

Well,

My feeling is that the OP has probably heard something somewhere and thinks that they have a "solution".................I am questioning the suitability of that solution in isolation.

For example, we have not asked if his IP address is static or dynamic ?

If it is static, and he has already been hacked then yes, he should use a proxy, but he needs to get his ISP to change his address and change his password(s).

If he has been "owned" then my personal recommendation would be to save important data, reformat and reinstall THEN UPDATE making sure to have installed a firewall or downloaded the updates on a secure machine first.

He still needs to harden his machine as already suggested. If he visits a dodgy website with a vulnerable machine he will get zapped, no matter how many proxies he goes through.

Similarly, his initial ISP connection will be vulnerable to bot scans.

What I see here is a great danger of getting lulled into a false sense of security?