Thanks for all the responses so far. My thoughts are pretty much
summed up by Mike and Nate, although I would suggest that no one is
going out of their way to make these IPs accessible -- rather, they
aren't going out of their way to make them inaccessible.
Luckily, most websites don't make their stats accessible, or else the
problem would be much larger -- anyone could get a list of websites
you have ever visited, using a simple google search, like this (to
pick a hostname at random from that IETF page):
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tge1lba9.emirates.net.ae%22
While not all IP addresses are linked to individuals, some are, and I
think this is mainly a privacy problem for those individuals who have
static IPs.
Keith
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My computer at home has a static IP address. If I visit
> www.wikileaks.ch, I might not want the world to know that my IP
> address is in its access logs.
>
> So this is potentially a gross invasion of privacy.
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Nate Vack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Strikes me as roughly analogous to publicly posting the caller ID of
> everyone who calls you.
>
> It's not a big risk to your visitors. It's not very polite. It's
> probably not very useful.
>
> Unless you've got a good reason to do it... why bother?
