Static or dynamic IP? 100%

[shimal]

Hi,

Lately I contacted my ISP and asked them the procedure of changing my IP from static to dynamic, gave them my name and all my information, explained that I got my internet from another company that recently merged with them and their response was "We do not deliver static IP".

I sent a message explaining I didn't get it from them and once again giving them all my info in case there is a way for them to just put my number in and find out and once again I got the same message.

I sent a third message to the support email of the old company... got a message from the same idiot and I got *Triggered* as they say.

This got me wondering if perhaps I do indeed have a Dynamic IP Address, now my question is... how do I find out 100%

I've tried to change my IP address several times, it hasn't worked, and http://whatismyipaddress.com says my IP is static.

So... I decided before I respond to the "Idiot" with a long and "friendly" e-mail, I'd make certain that I do indeed got a static IP so... here I am.

Thanks

[DaveLembke]

My ISP has a DHCP lease duration of 24 hours. However sometimes shutting off my modem and waiting a few hours and turning it back on it will get a different IP address.

Is someone targeting your IP Address trying to do a DDoS attack or something which would be cause to be requesting for the IP Address to be dynamic as for with my ISP I have to pay a fee for a static IP address if I wanted one, they come as a premium. Only reason to have a static IP address would be if you needed to have remote access to a system at an IP address and dont want it to change for example. I am not aware of any ISP's that give out static IPs without charging a premium for this. *Note: If your modem is always on, then your IP address will most likely not change and so it might appear to be static because the DHCP sees that the modem is still active so the count down timer on the lease is reset and the IP dynamic that is given to you stays the same. I had once where my IP address wasnt changing for weeks and so I set up ability to remote to my home computer by calling to the IP address which had not been changing. Then the ISP had a short downtime for service and when internet was back up I had a different IP address and found this out when i could no longer remote into my home computer from elsewhere.  Simple fix was to go home and check my IP address and use the new address for RDP.

[Geek-9pm]

Why should it mater?

[DaveLembke]

Why should it mater?

To me it would only matter if they need it to change if they are being targeted by a hacker with say a DDoS attack etc. I cant see any other reason to have it change. Many tech savy people would rather have it stay the same for the benefits that that brings if wanting to host content from location or allow remote access and have a known IP. While many, the majority of internet users dont care as long as the internet connection works. Thats why i asked this below.

Years ago when I use to have honeypots running for hackers to hit, I had one hacker that recognized that my system was a honeypot and he decided to use a zombie army of systems to DDoS me in retaliation for wasting his time with serving up honey pots. My solution to this was shut my modem off, wait about 15 minutes and when it came back on it was given a different IP address from the ISP. And problem solved. Had I had a static IP address I would have had to deal with the ISP to ask for a different static IP or have them assist in blocking his DDoS attack. 

Is someone targeting your IP Address trying to do a DDoS attack or something which would be cause to be requesting for the IP Address to be dynamic

[shimal]

Thanks guys figured it out... kind of...
So... it turns out the guy who emailed me wasn't a total idiot, but he didn't explain it so I thought he was.

After an extensive search and read from google I found out A LOT of people have this issue despite having dynamic IP, most people blamed it on Windows 7...
I tried every "solution" (except the ones about turning Computer/router off) I could find on google and just when I had given up, I checked my IP one last time and it had changed.

I think the issue was with the router since even if I manually changed my IPv4 IP settings, nothing happened.

As for the reason, it's more of a "if others can, I want to be able to" AND also as a protective measure.
By changing my IP every so often, people who previously had access to my IP, now have access to an IP which no longer is in use... by me...

[BC_Programmer]

A dynamic IP Address means it changes, it doesn't mean you have control over how or when it changes, nor what it changes to.

[DaveLembke]

As for the reason, it's more of a "if others can, I want to be able to" AND also as a protective measure.
By changing my IP every so often, people who previously had access to my IP, now have access to an IP which no longer is in use... by me...

Sort of follows the same as changing your phone number frequently and whomever gets that number next might get the troubles of whatever was targeting that number. Most hackers go for soft targets with port probing and move on vs targeting a specific IP address unless that IP address has something of worth to gain access to or steal or to make that connection crippled by a denial of service attack. So its almost unheard of for someone else to get given an IP address lease from their ISP and immediately face a DDoS attack etc. The attack i had was a frustrated hacker that didnt like the fact that I had a system that was a fake business server with fake bait on it, and when he or she was probing and found it alive again very quickly since I was able to get it back up and running from a ghost image restore in less than 10 minutes, they didnt like that they fell for my honeypot. I found it quite amusing that they used a zombie army to DDoS me. While they may have been mad at me, I found it cool that they flexed their firepower at me hitting me with that DDoS. So it wasnt just some wanna be script kiddie hacker, they had access to controlling a number of systems and turning them against me to pull off the DDoS. I use to intentionally get the honeypot infected by hackers and take it offline and play with whatever goodies they left behind to mess with in the sandbox that it was when offline. Lots of keyloggers, and people who wanted to just crash it. But one that was interesting was one that they wanted to use as a relay point for file transfers. That one made me nervous because my honeypot was then being used for transfer of illegal information so it would look like I was downloading content by which they then redirected the content to them using the system like a proxy. So I gave up on honey pots when i realized that someone could use my honey pot for something illegal and pull me into their illegal mess.

[Geek-9pm]

My honey pot.