[HN Gopher] The owner of ip4.me/ip6.me, Kevin Loch, has died
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The owner of ip4.me/ip6.me, Kevin Loch, has died
Author : lieuwex
Score : 262 points
Date : 2025-03-04 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ip4only.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (ip4only.me)
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Were those addresses used for anything or simple domain
| squatting?
| leemelone wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20241203115654/http://ip4.me/
| johng wrote:
| Looks like he had useful info up for people.... I never heard
| of it before today either: https://ip4only.me/home.cgi
| F_r_k wrote:
| To know your IP
| lxgr wrote:
| They were great memorable and ad-free sites that simply showed
| you your own (or your NAT's) public IP, as seen by the HTTP
| server.
| GJim wrote:
| I'm puzzled why you have been downvoted for asking a genuine
| question (and all credit to those who have taken time to
| respond to you).
|
| Perhaps the downvoters would care to explain their actions?
| cedilla wrote:
| The question may be genuine but its phrasing probably
| suggests an allegation to most readers.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| I didn't downvote, but the question was answerable by simply
| visiting the domains typed into the comment.
| narmiouh wrote:
| RIP Kevin, thanks for the fish!
| jmclnx wrote:
| I never heard of ip[46].me but the site is very informative.
|
| RIP Kevin Loch
| F_r_k wrote:
| RIP Kevin. Used these sites a lot!
|
| I hope they give then to a charity/charitable person. I proposed
| to continue the service ad free, for free to them. Hopefully they
| accept my proposal. It would be such a shame for the service to
| become "enshittified" by some greedy company
| lxgr wrote:
| Oh no, this has been my go-to site for connectivity tests (as
| example.com seems to be cached fairly aggressively by my browsers
| and that has misled me in the past). Ad-free, minimal, does
| exactly what it needs to and nothing more.
|
| Rest in peace!
|
| Edit: All these (great and much appreciated!) responses of
| alternatives are making me wonder if this should in fact be a
| standardized service that could then be offered as a public good
| in a similar way as pool.ntp.org.
|
| Checking for generic Internet connectivity (i.e. not only having
| an IP address, but being able to reach public sites, these sites
| being non-cached, not-captive-portaled etc.) seems like a problem
| that too many apps, scripts, and devices are solving again and
| again.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you have the resources to maintain it, you can contact the
| estate. (They'd like to sell the domains, so unless they're
| bundled with Brickshelf the highest bidder will probably be a
| traffic-farming company or something, but you never know.)
| PhilipRoman wrote:
| ifconfig.me is a similar service which I often use. It has a
| nice feature that if you do "curl ifconfig.me", you'll get only
| a string with the ip address, no markup.
| lxgr wrote:
| Me too, but that's a whopping 5 characters more. Think of all
| the extra keyboard wear!
|
| I do like the curl-ability of that one a lot, though, and on
| my own computer I can just configure an alias or shell
| function for it :)
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| This site is behind cloudflare and has captcha-blocked my
| queries more than once.
| freedomben wrote:
| I've been using ipinfo.io now for several years and have been
| very pleased with them.
|
| You can `curl https://ipinfo.io/` and get a JSON blob back with
| info on your current IP. If you pass an IP explicitly you can
| get info back on it, for example `curl
| https://ipinfo.io/104.26.7.98`. Easy to combine with jq also
| for use in scripts: `curl https://ipinfo.io/104.26.7.98 | jq -r
| '.ip'`
|
| For personal use it's free, and they have reasonable pricing
| for large volume. No affiliation on my part, just a happy user.
| PaoloBarbolini wrote:
| `curl https://myip.wtf/json` too is nice to use when
| debugging things
| stevenkillian wrote:
| Also protocol specific hosts:
|
| https://json.ipv4.myip.wtf/
|
| https://json.ipv6.myip.wtf/
|
| https://json.myip.wtf/
| rmccue wrote:
| Annoyingly, they no longer show your IP on their web
| homepage.
| reincoder wrote:
| We are experimenting with some design choices as we try to
| highlight all the IP metadata we have and move towards
| being an "internet data" company instead of just an IP
| location company.
|
| I highly recommend you check out the page:
| https://ipinfo.io/myip
|
| I understand the data we have for your IP address is not
| front and center anymore. We have gone through several
| iterations of designs for our homepage, so if you have any
| suggestions, I will relay them to our team.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| "I don't want anyone to see our address and opening hours
| without also reading through our values, our mission
| statement, and board of directors"
| lxgr wrote:
| It's a service that shows visitors _their own_ address
| and metadata about it. Seems fair to not want to provide
| that for free without some advertisement for the paid
| version or the company?
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Absolutely. Actively degrading the user experience might
| have the opposite effect, though.
| reincoder wrote:
| Our priority is always the developer experience and I
| apologize for the friction you are seeing here.
|
| The issue is that we are truly in a unique space when it
| comes to internet data. We have gone through several
| iterations on how to present the full extent of data and
| not just your public IP address.
|
| If you are a regular user of our service, you know that
| we have a very open access approach to our data. We
| provide most of our data for free through our website, we
| have a generous API, and we have a fully accurate open
| access licensed database. We also have more free services
| to be released!
|
| Due to the open data approach, developers appreciate us.
| We are not trying to create any barriers or friction
| here, but we are trying to find a balance. If you have
| any suggestions that can encourage users to explore our
| data while simultaneously providing everyone with a
| frictionless experience with our data, please let me
| know.
| reincoder wrote:
| Instead of jq .ip, please use https://ipinfo.io/ip
|
| This API endpoint has its dedicated stack and infrastructure
| to support unlimited lookups.
|
| Also, for IPv6 connection use: https://v6.ipinfo.io/ip
|
| PS: I am the DevRel of IPinfo.
| merb wrote:
| I use ip.me it's not add free, but in curl you can have an ad
| free version by doing curl -4 ip.me or curl -6 ip.me since it
| will only send the ip when it detects curl I guess.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| checkip.amazonaws.com is my goto, not as short tho :/
| p1mrx wrote:
| I was recently looking for IPv4/IPv6-only HTTP services
| hosted by major CDNs (for https://github.com/pmarks-
| net/ipvfoo/issues/60), and found these:
|
| Cloudflare: https://ipv4.icanhazip.com +
| https://ipv6.icanhazip.com
|
| Akamai: https://ipv4.whatismyip.akamai.com +
| https://ipv6.whatismyip.akamai.com
|
| The problem with https://checkip.amazonaws.com is that it
| neither supports IPv6, nor claims that it will remain
| IPv4-only, so it's not clear what you'll get in the future.
| sammy2255 wrote:
| I'll just.. leave this here
|
| https://cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/trace
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| That's a lot worse to type, but good to know.
| Szpadel wrote:
| I usually use `curl ifconfig.me`
| comprev wrote:
| icanhazip.com provides a similar service and has a good story
| behind it [0]
|
| [0] https://blog.apnic.net/2021/06/17/how-a-small-free-ip-
| tool-s...
| aeries wrote:
| For services like this, I always use my own domain which can
| easily be re-mapped or hosted myself. E.g.
| "checkip.mydomain.com"
| Havoc wrote:
| You can also use dig to get your external ipv4. That prevents
| reliance on smaller sites
|
| Don't have the command on hand but easily searchable
| lxgr wrote:
| How so? Getting your public/external IP does not seem
| possible behind a NAT without an external service.
| Havoc wrote:
| No idea. All I can tell you is that it works and if I need
| to hard code a IP check like this then I'd rather rely on a
| big player like Google or cloudflare ns than someone's
| project site
| Sophira wrote:
| What command line do you use?
| Havoc wrote:
| dig whoami.cloudflare ch txt @1.1.1.1 +short
| lxgr wrote:
| Not sure if I'd trust an undocumented Google feature
| without any SLA more, to be honest. Rumor has it that
| Google have discontinued a service or two before.
| speleding wrote:
| You can use dig: dig +short -4
| myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com
|
| (still an external service, but not reliant on a website)
| lxgr wrote:
| That's just another protocol in the end (DNS vs. HTTP),
| or am I missing something?
|
| DNS also runs a higher risk of being cached or mangled
| somewhere along the way by middleboxes. HTTPS avoids that
| problem.
| evulhotdog wrote:
| ip.guide is also a great one. Provides a json payload with
| relevant information. I have no affiliation with it, just happy
| user!
| Deeg9rie9usi wrote:
| He was also known in the LEGO community:
| https://www.brickfanatics.com/tributes-for-founder-lego-webs...
|
| RIP
| silverquiet wrote:
| > The Kevin M Loch Estate will be shutting down Kevin's websites
| in the near future (4/1/2025).
|
| All respect to the deceased, but there's always at least a tiny
| part of me that is suspicious of anything taking place on April
| 1.
| tusslewake wrote:
| https://kevinloch.com/
| sedatk wrote:
| > Note: This website will be disabled by 3/1/2025. Website
| content will be relocated to nensus.com/kl-net
|
| So much for leaving a legacy with your domain name.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > In Kevin's own words on kevinloch.com: "I am also an amateur
| physicist, programmer, photographer, independent film producer
| (at WTF Productions) and AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego)." Kevin was
| also passionate about any and all things space related: the sky,
| the stars, and beyond; trying to find the meaning in how things
| work, why they work, and what would make them work better. His
| latest passion after moving back to Reston was soaking in the
| skyline from the rooftop of his apartment building and bicycling
| the paths of Reston and beyond.
|
| https://www.loudounfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/Kevin-Loch/#...
|
| https://bsrender.io/
|
| https://nensus.com/kl-net/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lAuXWARqt8
|
| https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10414562/
| jabiko wrote:
| Also you can watch his memorial service here:
| https://www.youtube.com/live/YbnPeUgHGu8?t=1271
| rafram wrote:
| I'm not anti-religion in any way, but this left a really bad
| taste in my mouth. Loch's nephew (the pastor who led the
| service) kept saying that Loch wasn't religious. Then he'd go
| straight back to talking about Christ, and reminiscing about
| times when Loch had participated in Christian ritual!
|
| It's one thing to volunteer your religious organization as a
| venue for a memorial, even for someone who wasn't religious.
| It's another to memorialize the person with an explicitly
| religious service.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Maybe Loch wouldn't have minded? I'm not religious, but I
| don't really care if I were memorialized with a religious
| service. My belief is that service is more for the people
| left behind than the one who died anyway.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" To honor Kevin's "You be you" attitude, a "Come As You
| Are" Memorial Service will be held on Wednesday, July 3,
| 2024, at 11:00 a.m. at Fairfax Church of Christ. 3901 Rugby
| Road, Fairfax, VA 22033. A reception will follow at the
| church where you will be able to assemble your own Lego
| tribute to Kevin to take home. Lego bricks will be
| provided."_
|
| _" In lieu of traditional flowers, you may bring or send
| Lego flowers. Those assembled before the service will be part
| of the Memorial display. Assembly space will be provided for
| any unassembled flowers. Traditional and Lego flowers can be
| sent to the church 7/2 between 9-4."_
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| PSA: Lego turned evil, unfortunately. There are much better
| alternatives on the market these days.
| mindsuck wrote:
| What would you recommend instead?
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| If bought new:
|
| Lidl (if you live in a country where they are active),
| BlueBricks, or Cobi. But there are half a dozen others
| which are excellent.
|
| Used Lego is fine, though.
| Brigand wrote:
| What is your definition of evil?
| volemo wrote:
| > Lego turned evil
|
| Could you elaborate?
| x______________ wrote:
| My guess would be a post from 13 years ago with 283
| comments but I'm also curious.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3357522
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Suing small creators and businesses out of existence,
| scammy pricing policies (anything with the Star Wars
| license is overpriced 2-4x), increasing quality problems,
| very little in terms of own IP (in contrast to the 90s).
|
| McKinsey types have taken over.
|
| Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884542 The
| "Held der Steine" logo lawsuit story is what has made me
| aware of their practices.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Evil... When? How?
| sky2224 wrote:
| Just let the man have his legos sheesh. Pick a better time.
| p1mrx wrote:
| 5ad::
| mbreese wrote:
| I never knew of him from ip4.me, but I definitely visited his
| Lego site Brickshelf (https://brickshelf.com/).
|
| Thanks Kevin.
| dang wrote:
| A small thread from long ago:
|
| _Massive Aircraft Carrier made of Lego, 200,000 bricks, 350LB_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=415448 - Dec 2008 (3
| comments)
| homebrewer wrote:
| A reminder that you do not need websites or an HTTP client to
| learn your public IP: dig @resolver1.opendns.com
| myip.opendns.com TXT +short dig @ns1.google.com
| o-o.myaddr.l.google.com TXT +short
|
| dig can be replaced with any DNS lookup utility (nslookup, drill,
| etc).
| xrd wrote:
| The open DNS query failed for me with: "Query A or AAAA for
| your source address as seen by the resolver" But, the google
| nameserver did work. Thanks!
| Polizeiposaune wrote:
| The former should be dig -4
| @resolver1.opendns.com myip.opendns.com A +short dig -6
| @resolver1.opendns.com myip.opendns.com AAAA +short
| jayknight wrote:
| Unless you're on a network that blocks all dns traffic not to
| their own dns servers.
| easterncalculus wrote:
| RIP Kevin. These websites no doubt helped thousands of people
| over the years.
|
| If anyone is looking for an alternative site to check their v6
| and v4 addresses, check out this one here:
|
| https://ip6.biz/
| tecleandor wrote:
| Seems like he passed away in June but maybe the Estate didn't
| sort out everything until recently?
|
| https://www.brickfanatics.com/tributes-for-founder-lego-webs...
| Polizeiposaune wrote:
| It takes time (typically some number of months) to get
| appointed as the executor of an estate, and then even more time
| for the executor to get effective control over the estate's
| assets.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Ah yeah, I missed part of my response I think. I was trying
| to say that he didn't pass away recently, but maybe we just
| noticed it because the estate (or the executor) just started
| to manage this asset and left that message in the domain.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| RIP silent hero
| atentaten wrote:
| He was relatively young; what was the cause of death?
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Kudos for his contributions.
|
| Lots of solutions out there. I like wasab.is https://wasab.is
|
| curl wasab.is curl wasab.is/json
| lemcoe9 wrote:
| ip4.me and related websites actually inspired me to create a
| more-whimsical version of the website, which I call ipkitten.com.
| Not only do you get your IP address, User Agent, and approximate
| geolocation, but you also get a kitten GIF!
|
| It also works from the command line, like this: $
| curl ipkitten.com 4.2.2.2
|
| I am sure that Kevin has saved engineers and other IT people tons
| of headache and time with his simple, helpful, and ad-free tools.
| f30e3dfed1c9 wrote:
| I like that this prints the IP address followed by a newline.
| some similar services don't and it's sort of annoying.
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(page generated 2025-03-04 23:02 UTC)