The only person that should be able to see your IP (and thus ping or tracert you) should be mods. Are you hanging out on forums that let just anyone see your IP?
Prettymuch your regular user can't be tracked down by their IP. An ISP has a whole bunch of them they just give you when you log on. My IP will usually have Kingston in it's... Name. (IP's have words in them.) and trace back far enough to tell you my computer name.
There used to be a few ports that could be 'sniffed' out and exploited, but that seems pretty rare since that time years ago where if you had xp, and you were online, you were going to be spammed every 20 seconds.
As for "why people do this", there's more than one reason. Most malware comes from people trying to make money off you. That's why they flash ads to get rid of spyware and try to get you to fork up your credit card. I'm pretty sure outright identity theft is part of the game as well. Adware is only slightly more benign (perhaps. Probably not all the time) in that it's 'just' forcing you to view ads.
But you seem more focused on the more personal kind. "Hackers" come in two varieties. The first consider themselves pretty noble. They're the reverse engineers, the people that break securities and programs for the thrill and knowledge it garners. They're usually pretty elitist and have a whole slew of different ranks. (Crackers break passwords, phreakers hack phones...)
Then there's the kind you're most likely dealing with. "i m hack u!!1" typically the hackers would call them "script kiddies" as they don't really hack. They find scripts made by actual hackers and try to use them to bully someone. Most commonly their scripts are impotent anyway, only really letting them see your ports or something like that. If you're on an older OS, or maybe they're lucky and there's an exploit they can do something more than puff their chest.
That being said... Don't bother "fighting back" against these people. The worse they can do is set a password cracking program against your IM clients, email, or forum accounts. That being said, having a decent password and NEVER putting a real hint to your password in the recovery terms should keep you fine.
Case study: I've had my email "hacked" because when I signed up I made the recovery question "What is your last name?" I didn't know the email would be titled with the name you signed up with at the time. It would have been much better if it asked "What colour is the sky?" and I put "Rocky road icecream."
... So yeah. While I doubt you got your trojan from this site, it isn't impossible. I've gotten malware, and had malware blocked from otherwise trustworthy places. Since these places were trustworthy, I'm about 90% certain they were unlucky enough to be displaying ads that were abusive.
To switch, or not to switch OSes is for you to decide. I personally stick to windows purely because I can play games on it. I only have to worry about software compatibility if I'm trying to find the most outlandish things...
Prettymuch your regular user can't be tracked down by their IP. An ISP has a whole bunch of them they just give you when you log on. My IP will usually have Kingston in it's... Name. (IP's have words in them.) and trace back far enough to tell you my computer name.
There used to be a few ports that could be 'sniffed' out and exploited, but that seems pretty rare since that time years ago where if you had xp, and you were online, you were going to be spammed every 20 seconds.
As for "why people do this", there's more than one reason. Most malware comes from people trying to make money off you. That's why they flash ads to get rid of spyware and try to get you to fork up your credit card. I'm pretty sure outright identity theft is part of the game as well. Adware is only slightly more benign (perhaps. Probably not all the time) in that it's 'just' forcing you to view ads.
But you seem more focused on the more personal kind. "Hackers" come in two varieties. The first consider themselves pretty noble. They're the reverse engineers, the people that break securities and programs for the thrill and knowledge it garners. They're usually pretty elitist and have a whole slew of different ranks. (Crackers break passwords, phreakers hack phones...)
Then there's the kind you're most likely dealing with. "i m hack u!!1" typically the hackers would call them "script kiddies" as they don't really hack. They find scripts made by actual hackers and try to use them to bully someone. Most commonly their scripts are impotent anyway, only really letting them see your ports or something like that. If you're on an older OS, or maybe they're lucky and there's an exploit they can do something more than puff their chest.
That being said... Don't bother "fighting back" against these people. The worse they can do is set a password cracking program against your IM clients, email, or forum accounts. That being said, having a decent password and NEVER putting a real hint to your password in the recovery terms should keep you fine.
Case study: I've had my email "hacked" because when I signed up I made the recovery question "What is your last name?" I didn't know the email would be titled with the name you signed up with at the time. It would have been much better if it asked "What colour is the sky?" and I put "Rocky road icecream."
... So yeah. While I doubt you got your trojan from this site, it isn't impossible. I've gotten malware, and had malware blocked from otherwise trustworthy places. Since these places were trustworthy, I'm about 90% certain they were unlucky enough to be displaying ads that were abusive.
To switch, or not to switch OSes is for you to decide. I personally stick to windows purely because I can play games on it. I only have to worry about software compatibility if I'm trying to find the most outlandish things...
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.