Noob question about security reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-01 23:33 If I chat with a people on the IRC chat it's possible for that people to know my IP address, right? But isn't this very dangerous for the average pc? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aFreshMelon · 2014-07-01 23:37 Some networks will have your IP public, some will have it visible to opers only. In the end, about every website you visit saves your IP address so it's not like it's private. Technically it is a security concern as someone could run a DDoS on you, but unless you are a hated person that is unlikely to happen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-01 23:42 I know, the problem is that when I visit a website I trust it, otherwise I not always know who is the admin or who other people can see my IP....Also if I'm not an hated person, I'm a lovely person, some bad guy can take all IRC people IP and test for exploit them right? This is my concern... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aFreshMelon · 2014-07-01 23:44 Not particularly. As I said, some networks do hide your IP or at least make it unreadable to non IRC admins. 99% of people on IRC don't have any issues with public IP addresses. Also, no, if someone has your IP they can't really exploit it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wmcscrooge · 2014-07-01 23:47 Look up cloaks. They were made to hide IP addresses. And as long as you don't have any ports open, you should be fine. DDoS for an average user is much more unlikely than an open port exploit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-01 23:49 > Also, no, if someone has your IP they can't really exploit it. I'm not sure of this...and for this I'm not so confident! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-01 23:49 > And as long as you don't have any ports open, you should be fine. How to check this? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wmcscrooge · 2014-07-02 03:24 not sure specifically, but unless you specifically opened a port (through your router), you shouldn't have too many open ports. Common applications that use open ports are torrent clients and skype (that I can think of off the top of my head) and the default ports for those applications have pretty good security. And as long as you update frequently and have some sort of firewall (for windows machines), you really don't have to worry. Put it this way, I've been logged into irc for the greater part of the day for 4-5 years now and I've never seen any kind of attempt to access my machine through irc. If anything, I get more bruteforces because of my ssh port 22 than through irc hacks (that I can tell). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AmphetaminePowered · 2014-07-02 04:42 From a purely technical standpoint, browsing websites is far more dangerous than being connected to IRC. I would bet that the majority of exploits occur through compromised or malicious websites. Simply having your computer connected to the internet is a risk, even if it's sitting idle. This is because there are a huge number of bots which walk the IPv4 address space looking for nodes to compromise. I say IPv4 specifically because the IPv6 address space is so large it is impractical to walk, especially a random walk. You're not really worried about the security of IRC, what you're worried about is if you piss off someone you're talking to and, oh no, they turn out to be a hacker or script kiddie and have your IP address. What can they do? Well, nothing that couldn't happen anyway, it's just that now you're being targeted. They could try to send you a malicious URL, they could scan your IP for services vulnerable to remote exploits, and maybe they could DDoS you. Most DDoS attacks are directed at servers though, not end users. This is because it's a lot easier to tie up a web service than it is to completely saturate a network port. Basically, if you pissed off the wrong person and they had your public IP address, yes they could make your life hell for a while, but how they accomplished that would likely have nothing to do with attacking your IP address/computer. Don't worry about being on IRC exposing you to vulnerability scans because your computer or router will be scanned every once in a while by bots anyway. I've been on IRC for years with zero issues. On some networks my public IP is visible, on others it is masked, on others I am connecting through a proxy. If you're worried about someone causing problems for you, then you would want to either ensure your IP is masked or connect through a proxy, but you would also need to ensure you never published personal information or links to personal information (e.g. Facebook profile) as all those things can be used to make life very unpleasant for you in the wrong hands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-02 10:52 Thanks....I will use tor, maybe it's time to enable in directly in the irc infrastructure.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-02 10:52 Thanks! :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2014-07-02 12:34 You should first check if your IP address is actually visible. Do a /whois on yourself, in the first line there should be something like: - "~user@23.234.12.34" - this means your IP address is visible - "~user@yournetwork-1234567.yourprovider.net" - only your provider is visible, which isn't very usable (might reveal your employer, university etc. though if you're connecting from their network) - "~user@1234567.ABCDEF0.5623423.BAF324.IP" - nothing usable at all is visible Most networks also have some mechanism like cloaks, VHosts etc. to conceal all of the above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dreadlocks1221 · 2014-07-02 16:47 Its because any exploit has very little to do with your ip alone and more about the software you're running. By having your ip the only thing a hacker can do is look for exploits which are few on an updated machine (if you're running Windows 95 you're fucked even if a script kiddie gets your ip) If someone really wants to do damage all they need is an email or social media account and they can do much more damage with social engineering than they can with irc and ip alone ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FiXato · 2014-07-03 11:24 Be aware though that several IRC networks ban the use of tor end nodes as they are often abused for ban evasion and DDoS attacks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FiXato · 2014-07-03 11:27 tl;dr If you are afraid of exposing your IP address, get off the internet. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-07-03 15:12 Ok thanks I will try...How do I lunch a whois? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2014-07-03 16:08 Just type: /whois For insert your nick in this case. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wolfspy · 2014-07-25 22:51 \>tor \>DDoS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gentoo_ · 2014-08-08 00:03 A lot of networks let you use tor, or use some sort of "cloak" within the network. Someone having your IP isn't bad as long as your computers (all of them) behind your router are secure and don't have dodgy / vulnerable programs listening on ports that are open in the router. Anyone can scan random IP's with programs like nmap, zmap etc and get a massive list of open ports, but the thing about IRC is that you're chatting, and if you annoy someone or they just want to pick on randoms, and your IP is directly on show, they just have something to play with. You would have to be a complete idiot to fall for receiving a file that would locally exploit your IRC client. Most people don't hide their IP, but if you're bothered then use tor or a cloak, if you use a cloak, make sure you leave some time before joining a channel after logging in as a lot of the time people will see your real IP, then "changing host" then the cloaked IP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- APiousCultist · 2014-10-07 04:14 They could just as easily break into a website's log as to a irc server's and get all the ips that way too. Or just generate a few billion IP addresses at random and go to town. Most servers you'll find use a cloak instead of your actual IP so you're invisible to the end user unless you start DCCing. Torrenting this ain't. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-10-10 01:18 > Or just generate a few billion IP addresses at random and go to town. Thanks. Can you explain this? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- APiousCultist · 2014-10-10 01:39 If all you want is random IP addresses then you can more or less just type in the right amount of entirely random digits. Well, IP addresses have ranges, but they're easy enough to find out via google. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ArgonJargon · 2014-10-11 23:58 ?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- APiousCultist · 2014-10-12 00:50 An IP address is just a number. If you don't care whose number you get (which would be hte case if you were getting it off random people in IRC) then you can just make the number up and most of the time it will belong to someone.