In reply to a post by cavillas:

I have never encountered any problems with it, no one has tried to attack me in any way.

How certain are you ? Is it not more a case of "no one has tried to attack me in any way that I know about" ?

In reply to a post by cavillas:

It seems to be in the mind of the user that a fixed ip is a dangerous thing...

Certainly, but perhaps for justifiable reasons. Maybe the user is in some organisation that helps 'activists' who are striving for freedom from a dictatorial government, or on some parallel ideal where those in power might exploit people from their 'diplomatic mission' (aka spies) to take action to prevent such supporters from acting to assist an 'opposition'.

I have three internet connections from here, one via landline, one a mobile phone which can act as a hotspot, and a router offering HDSPA broadband via Wi-Fi to a number of devices. When I access some websites I use Opera with 'Turbo' mode enabled, so requests appear to originate at Opera's servers in Norway (?). My 'landline' ISP gives me a fixed IP and I use that for access to certain servers (which will only allow certain functions from that IP), and fortunately the rest are dynamic by default.

While I could be tracked down if I broke certain laws, or simply annoyed a suitably large body that could get an ISP to respond to a 'formal request' but for the most part I can browse in the knowledge my anonymity is likely to remain intact.

I think it is easy to dismiss the concerns of another but you really need the full facts to do so in a reasonable (and reasoned) way, IMHO.

Correct - with a single IP address it's just the ISP details that appear in the RIPE database. Customer details are only stored in our database in that case.

ISPs operating dynamic IP ranges will store information on who used that IP for identification purposes - so they can attribute responsibility for actions using that IP address in response to abuse reports or legal requests as appropriate.

The remaining "risk" with a single static IP is if posting on a site which stores that information results in somebody with access to it deciding to take some form of action against you (e.g. DoS attack or some-such). It's a pretty low risk though, if you avoid interacting with sites where the administrators may not be trustworthy or accountable for abuse of the information they have access to.

ta,
Phil.

Strange that dynamic has always been something I've veered away from. for exactly the opposite reasons of the OP.

Hoo look there's the geeza on xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx the IP address has been banned. But that wasn't me!

When anonymity is required just use Tor.

A quick look a ripe will show how there is no information held about you for a static IP.

If someone wants to track you that bad they will regardless of static or dynamic IP address.



Of course this is from a UK perspective.