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I went on wikipedia, then went to the edit history of an articles I edited. To my surprise, my IP address, along with other people's IP addresses are on the articles edit history page.

Why would wikipedia be putting up people's IP addresses for the world to see? I mean some people want security and privacy, and wikipedia is putting peoples IP address up for the world to see.

What if there was a hacker and he wanted to randomly dos/ddos someone, he has a whole list of IP address on wikipedia he can have fun with. I mean I can take some of the IP address myself and dos/ddos some random people.

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  • We not be the arbiters of website policy. Their policy, no anonymous editing. Freedom of the press belongs to them what owns the press. Create your own anonypedia with your own policy. Or register your account.
    – Fiasco Labs
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 6:07
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    This question is receiving downvotes because there is no question here. You are just ranting about non-registered member IPs showing on edits. If you bothered to look it up, you would see that your IP only shows up if you don't register with wikipedia. This is important to help deter and track people who make false edits.
    – cremefraiche
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 7:39
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    Please use proper syntax and formatting in your posts
    – schroeder ♦
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 16:43

1 Answer 1

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Editing Wikipedia with an IP address as your identifier is often less anonymous than editing with a normal account.

Why is this the case?

Your IP address usually links you to an Internet Service Provider (ISP), and that often links you to a particular geographical location, or to a particular company. Internet tools such as whois and Reverse DNS lookups may identify you, your employer or school, or computers that use your address, including mail or web servers. All of these provide mechanisms for curious individuals to determine where you live or who you are. This is more information than is available about an editor who registers an account and uses the account name instead of an IP address to sign their edits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_edits_are_not_anonymous

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    @HenryWHHack If you are concerned with how a website uses your data, always read the privacy policy to see what the site does and why.
    – schroeder ♦
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 16:48

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