Why should us protect IP address?

Ram

In privacy & security world, it is always advised to protect the IP address. Most of the privacy & security practices are exist just because to protect the IP. Because IP is a unique identifier of an IT device.

Now my question begins, Evertime I connect to the internet through Mobile Data, I get a different IP from previous one. Even when I walk 10 metre without turning OFF Mobile Data, I still get a different IP address (for example if my IP address is yyy.yy.yyy.175, after covering 10 metre I got new IP yyy.yy.yyy.162).
It is not the same case with wifi. Wifi also get different IP address after reboot. But it is not randomised as mobile data (e.g., if it is my wifi IP yyy.yyy.134.68, my new IP will be like yyy.yyy.135.22).

Now, IP address changing every time at least for mobile data. Are not protecting IP is overrated? Am I missing something?

I just want to know the point behind doing this. If I tell someone to hide their IP and he/she will ask me the same question then I will have to run. (I am learning English, sorry for repetitive sentences)

de0u

Ram Wifi also get different IP address after reboot. But it is not randomised as mobile data (e.g., if it is my wifi IP yyy.yyy.134.68, my new IP will be like yyy.yyy.135.22).

If that is true your situation is unusual. Most people's home Internet connection has one IP address. That address may be shared via NAT, which may issue fake internal IP addresses to multiple devices, which may be what you are seeing, but usually there is only one address visible to the Internet, and that address is often the same for a long time in a row.

It is also a little odd if walking literally 10 meters changes your cellular IP address.

So perhaps an answer to your question is that your environment is very different from that of many other people.

User2288

Ram

If you are really getting new ip addresses the way you say, your situation is very unique. For most other people in north america this is not so.

One thing to be careful about is not to confuse the actual IP address from your provider with the one given by your router. With grapheneOS on randomized mac address per connection you will get a new ip from your router every time you connect to wifi, but this is not the real ip address, this is only a subnet address.

To know your actual ip address you should check on an ip checking internet site.

Now, if your actual ip address keeps changing this means that websites on the internet wont be able to track you through ip, however your ISP would still have a full record of when you had which ip and which websites you connected to (regardless of if its wifi or mobile data). A VPN addresses both problems.
VPNs also allow geo-restriction unlocking.

Also through VPN you can do things that your ISP might not allow, ex: torrenting, pirating, etc.

If my ISP was changing my IP so often I'd be very happy. But this is not normal and also still doesn't protect from ISP tracking.

Ram

de0u

de0u That address may be shared via NAT, which may issue fake internal IP addresses to multiple devices, which may be what you are seeing, but usually there is only one address visible to the Internet, and that address is often the same for a long time in a row.

I restarted my router 2 times after reading your reply and checked the IP with different devices. I think you are right. Even after restart wifi's IP address doesn't change. It just changing from one IP to another IP. Means I am seeing only two IP address.

de0u It is also a little odd if walking literally 10 meters changes your cellular IP address.

I tested again and It is changing. But only last three digit is changing. For example if I have 342.42.57.78 then after cover even 5 metre I am getting this 342.42.57.112.
As far as I know, last digits assign for devices. As I am changing my position, I am getting the same IP.

[deleted]

I use Mobile data and my IP address changes whenever I enable and then disable Airplane mode

Ram

[deleted] that's why I am curious to know, is hiding IP address on mobile data necessary? If, for a moment, we forget about location tracking through IP.

[deleted]

Ram If we forget about IP based location tracking, then probabaly its not nessecary to hide the IP address on Mobile data

Ram

User2288 After testing several times with this website "whatismyipaddress.com", I can confirm that I am getting different IP address (IPv4 & IPv6) on mobile data & wifi. On mobile data I get instant new IP after airplane mode ON & OFF. But on restarting the router I am not getting randomised IP address as compared to my carrier provider. I have to wait around 30 min to get fully randomised address on wifi after switching Off the router.

I have tested this experiment on my two friends and 2 family members with their mobile data. They are also getting different IP after reconnecting.

Maybe you also getting different IP on your mobile data but not on wifi.

I live in India. After some research I found that ISP in India provides dynamic IP. I have to specially ask them for a static IP. They are shuffling the IPs whenever a user disconnect from Internet.

They can see my activity on Internet if I use their DNS. But I am using NextDNS. Now, they can't.

It is good. I will never ask them a static IP. By default, Third party Companies have to do extra effort to track the user in India.

W1zardK1ng

Ram For the IP address part its completely dependent on ISP.
To my understanding mobile networks always gives dynamic ips after each re-connection, but for the broadband connections the its not the case, some providers support dynamic ip and some wont.

I specifically asked for dynamic ip from my home wifi, and i use nextdns as dns provider. This is just a basic.
I restart my royter every day to get a new ip, for me it changes the ip intently jut like the mobile internet does.
But this does not avoid ISP tracking, they still have access to my internet records.

ISP will still have the list of all ips assigned to you and they can see your logs if they want. Just try accessing a website which is banned in your country like pirated software website/movies or porn, they will be still blocked.

But using a vpn will completely hide your traffic from your isp the only thing they see is some encrypted data or can understand is you are connecting to a vpn server, so if you really need that kind of protection defensively use a vpn but now the vpn can see all your network connections.(so do your research and find a trusted one)

Coming back to the dynamic ip, The ips are assigned from a pool just like a vpn so the same ip will be assigned for different persons so it do gives a protection from ip tracking of third part companies, but companies now use many other techniques to identify uses online so just keep that thing also in mind.

User2288

Ram
W1zardK1ng

After some research I found that ISP in India provides dynamic IP. I have to specially ask them for a static IP. They are shuffling the IPs whenever a user disconnect from Internet.

This is the standard network protocol all over the world, however even though all of them say this, the actual implementation in North America is a bit different.

The way it works in North America (and perhaps in Europe) is this:
When a modem is connected to the ISP's network the ISPs DHCP server "leases" an IP to the device with an expiration time of 72 hours. That IP will be reserved for that modem by the ISP for the next 72 hours and will not be given to anyone else even if that modem is not connected. When the expiration time gets close, the modem sends a request to the DHCP server that "I'm still here and I need an IP soon". At this point (in North America) the DHCP server renews the lease on the SAME IP for that modem for another 72 hours. This way the IP of the modem stays the same even though technically it's a dynamic IP system. If the modem however is "not reachable" (disconnected) and does not send a renew request to the DHCP server, then that IP gets released from being "reserved" for that modem and enters the availability pool again. If after 72 hours you connect the same modem again to the network, the modem should technically get a new IP address, however this doesn't always happen. The North American network seems to still issue the same IP back to the modem IF it happens to still be available and has not been reissued to someone else. Therefore sometimes even 72 hours of disconnection is not enough. So for North Americans usually the only way to get a new IP is to disconnect their modem for more than 3 days and hope that the previous IP gets reissued to someone else.

So, if in India you are getting new IPs that fast, you are very lucky and your country has better privacy policy than here. Here they make their best effort to track you.

They can see my activity on Internet if I use their DNS. But I am using NextDNS. Now, they can't.

This is not true. your ISP can ALWAYS see and log the websites you connect to with timestamps regardless of which DNS server you use.
the DNS server ALSO can see and log the websites you connect to with timestamps. The ISP and the DNS server are two separate entities and both of them can be used for logging. This is one reason why VPN services offer their own DNS service, to protect the user against DNS logging.

The documentation of how DHCP servers and IP leasing work contains everything I told you here.

[deleted]

User2288 ISP can ALWAYS see and log the websites you connect to with timestamps regardless of which DNS server you use.

Without using ISP's DNS, The ISP can only see the IP Addresses of the sites you browse but many sites using Cloudflare will share the same IP address, Which would be a privacy benefit