Masking or Shielding my IP address

[aracari]

Is there any way to mask or shield my IP Address in URLs sent to other people or posted on Usenet etc for downloading a file from my HFS server?

eg: this is what a typical HFS URL looks like:
http: // 60.123.456.78:8080/filename.ext

I'd like to hide the IP Address for privacy reasons.

I can use (eg) TinyURL but it's not much good in this situation.

-thanks for any info on this-

[bacter]

When you publish in any way a url to access your server (like http: // hidden.domain.to:8080/filename.ext), your ip is also public, directly or via dns, or at last, when establishing connection with your server.

You can't be hidden if you want to be seen! 

[rejetto]

bacter is right,
the internet works this way: you must know the address to contact a server, no other way.
you can change your numerical address to a nicer form by using a dns service.
google for "dynamic dns" if you want something free.

[aracari]

bacter is right,
the internet works this way: you must know the address to contact a server, no other way.
you can change your numerical address to a nicer form by using a dns service.
google for "dynamic dns" if you want something free.

Hello rejecto and bacter,
Thanks for your comments.

I had hoped there was a simple way of using an internal feature within HFS to display a URL that didn't contain my IP Address.
Upon reading your comments, I now realise that it is not possible
for obvious Internet DNS reasons, not HFS reasons.

I think the best I can do is to wrap up some of my links using a tool like TinyURL or one of the others, just to make it slightly more difficult for passers-by to see my IP Addy.
No big problem.

I must take this opportunity of thanking you for a truly excellent program. I am constantly amazed by what it does and how well it does it - all inside a single portable exe.
A rare masterpiece IMHO.  

Thanks so much.
aracari

[Mars]

I think that the following method will answer your question

[aracari]

Hello Mars,
Thank you kindly for that information.
I think you omitted to mention that I first had to register with one of the DNS redirectors before I could use that method!

Anyway, I did register with NO-IP and chose a domain name and then applied it to HFS as you advised - AND IT WORKS. All FREE too

NB: rejetto and bectar may be interested to know how easy it was to set-up, for future reference.

Thanks to all for your help on this.

[aracari]

Do you like this software?
Donate! 
Consider even $2

OK rejetto - I've just dropped euro 15 into your bucket
It's a great pleasure - such a super program.

rgds
aracari

[bacter]

Aracari:
In your first post

.. >I'd like to hide the IP Address for privacy reasons.

we understood you didn't want that somebody could know your ip - and your ip will be known even if you use a domain name!

It was only your second post that made clear what you wanted:

I had hoped there was a simple way of using an internal feature within HFS to display a URL that didn't contain my IP Address.

Nevertheless , using a no-ip, dyndns (there are already a lot of posts about this in this forum) or any other domain does not give you more 'privacy' and everybody can get your ip knowing your domain name. The main advantage using a domain name is, that having a dynamic ip, your url will always point to your server, even if your ip changes.

[aracari]

Aracari:
In your first post

.. >I'd like to hide the IP Address for privacy reasons.

we understood you didn't want that somebody could know your ip - and your ip will be known even if you use a domain name!

It was only your second post that made clear what you wanted:

I had hoped there was a simple way of using an internal feature within HFS to display a URL that didn't contain my IP Address.

Nevertheless , using a no-ip, dyndns (there are already a lot of posts about this in this forum) or any other domain does not give you more 'privacy' and everybody can get your ip knowing your domain name. The main advantage using a domain name is, that having a dynamic ip, your url will always point to your server, even if your ip changes.

Hi Bacter,
Yeah, my intention was to be able to post URLs that did not contain my real IP Address, for privacy reasons.

I always assumed that a determined person could probably track down my real IP Add behind any method I used, but since I have nothing precious to hide, I was not too concerned about that.

I had no idea if that was natively possible in HFS, hence I asked.

It turns out that it can only be done by setting up a new domain and that is what I have now done. It does what I want after registering at No-IP and setting up my chosen domain as Mars posted.

As for people still being able to identify my real IP - I guess that is right - I am no expert on this. However, I have run the new domain thru a range of WhoIs tools and it only shows the IP Addy of No-IP.
None of them display my real IP Address or who it's registered to.

Can you point me to how another person could identify my real IP Address behind my new HFS domain? ...are you thinking of packet sniffers?

rgds
aracari

[bacter]

There is no need to use packet sniffers or other sofisticated tools to get the ip address for a domain:

1. You can access a webpage like http://ip-lookup.net/domain.php to get the ip address of your domain (works even on your server or lan)

2. Everybody from outside your lan can get your ip address with a ping command: ping your.no-ip.org .

3. Everybody that clicks on a link from you (to your serverpage or to a file) can see your ip-address when controlling the active conections of his pc with something like the windows TCPview tool.

[aracari]

There is no need to use packet sniffers or other sofisticated tools to get the ip address for a domain:

1. You can access a webpage like ip-lookup.net/domain.php to get the ip address of your domain (works even on your server or lan)

Nope. Just tried it and it shows the IP Address of No-IP.

2. Everybody from outside your lan can get your ip address with a ping command: ping your.no-ip.org .

Ditto. It shows the IP Address of No-IP.

3. Everybody that clicks on a link from you (to your serverpage or to a file) can see your ip-address when controlling the active conections of his pc with something like the windows TCPview tool.

Not sure on this one, I use very few Windows tools :-)

However I do use eToolz for a lot of DNS stuff and have not been able to reveal my own IP Address by inputing the domain. All I get is the No-IP IP Address. Same thing when I use Samspade and DNSStuff.

That said, I believe you are right ...a determined person would be able to dig and dig and eventually reveal it. I'm just not sure.

rgds
aracari

[rejetto]

thank you very much again for your donation

Nope. Just tried it and it shows the IP Address of No-IP.

i guess you set up no-ip in one of those modes that will not act just as DNS.
if you are interested, they do the job at an HTTP level instead.
such modes behaves just like you'r experiencing, the domain points to no-ip instead of you.
this will actually make it a little harder, yet very simple for any techie guy like me or bacter
but that may be enough for you and most people

[aracari]

thank you very much again for your donation

Nope. Just tried it and it shows the IP Address of No-IP.

i guess you set up no-ip in one of those modes that will not act just as DNS.
if you are interested, they do the job at an HTTP level instead.
such modes behaves just like you'r experiencing, the domain points to no-ip instead of you.
this will actually make it a little harder, yet very simple for any techie guy like me or bacter
but that may be enough for you and most people

Hi rejetto,
I think you're right on how I set it up with No-IP.
I found their website a little confusing and it kept trying to draw me into the pay service!

Anyway, I'm sure it's easy for some people to find out what IP sits behind the new domain I got from No-IP (bectar quoted a website and I'm also familiar with SamSpade/WhoIs etc), but that IP is the one assigned by No-IP, *not* my personal IP allocated to me by my ISP.

It is the latter one that I was quite keen to hide. I'm not sure if I made this clear previously.

I've tried all the WhoIs databases I know and none of them reveal my personal IP issued by my ISP. If you know of a site which will reveal it, I'd be very pleased to know 

regards
aracari

[rejetto]

yes, it was clear,
and no, there's no whois/dns tool that will reveal your personal IP.

it's just a different method: the "tcpview" cited by bacter, that's anyway a nicer version of the standard "netstat" available in Windows.
since you seems to be interested, i will say something more

step 1. i browse your website with any browser
note: the browser will leave (tcp) connections open for several seconds before timing out

step 2. i read your IP (among few others) in netstat/tcpview

this is far from being black magic

[aracari]

Hi rejetto,
Yes, you are right. I just connected to my HFS webpage and using a small free program "Active Ports", I can see all the open ports and external IP addresses they're connected to.
And it shows my *real* IP for my browser connections!

Oh well! I can live with that. At least I can hide it from the average passer-by which is what I wanted; and it certainly won't stop me using HFS which comes in my all time top 5 favourite useful programs.

Cheers.
regards, aracari