Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
I'm not up on the current state of the art here, but I think VPN companies have been pushing a lot of scare mongering regarding IP addresses and how easily they're tied back to individuals. They can pretty easily be tied to ISPs, and sometimes to unique clients within an ISP, but it doesn't map to an individual. At best it would map to a single customer network, but even if it's a home network my understanding is that ISPs don't generally reveal IP-to-customer mappings without a subpoena, and I don't really expect postings here to rise to the level of legal involvement. And even then, the public IP logged on the web site might well be hidden by carrier-grade NAT, which is IIRC pretty common in mobile telephony. If you're really concerned, I recommend finding public WiFi without unique login credentials (your local Starbucks or the library) or using a VPN (although some VPNs keep logs). Bonus points for using a device that scrambles MAC addresses on a per-connection basis, which I believe the iPhone and some Android devices can be configured to do, and even Windows supports.
This used to be an issue with peer-to-peer filesharing users, and may continue to be, but I don't really travel in those circles these days. Also watch Zorba's warrant canary on the Contact Us page.
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