subject: What Is An Ip Trace? [print this page] IP stands for Internet ProtocolIP stands for Internet Protocol. Your IP address is a numerical address that is assigned to your computer whenever it becomes part of a data network. The Internet, of course, is the largest data network in the world and all of the machines on it have an IP address that is used to locate them and to send them information. An IP trace is a procedure that allows you to determine where information is coming from on a network.
Why Trace an IP?
Usually, people do an IP trace when they suspect that something is being done to attack their computer. They may also do an IP trace if they need to find someone who is harassing them online or who is repeatedly taking actions intended to disrupt their use of the Internet. There are many reasons why you might want to run an IP trace on someone and most of them parallel the reasons why you might try to find a phone number for a crack caller or why you might try to find a return address for someone who's sending you harassing letters.
The IP address location can be traced using this technology. This allows you to see where the computer is located physically. In some situations, this information is obtained specifically for law enforcement so that they can track down someone who is engaged in illegal or threatening activity over the Internet. In other cases, it's done for positive reasons.
Sometimes, businesses will run an IP trace on the customers visiting their websites so that they can target the information on their site to their demographic. This information can be important for marketing. For example, if most of the IP addresses recorded visiting a website trace back to addresses located in retirement communities, the company doing the trace just learned a lot about whom their site appeals to.
If you need to run an IP address trace, remember that it is possible for people to hide this information through various means. If you get a dead end, it might be a proxy server or another piece of technology that's been set up to obscure the user's real IP. In the vast majority of cases, however, people surf without using any such software or hardware and you can get their location by simply taking their IP address and running a trace to see where that address is located.
