How can people track what you've downloaded or where you live and stuff? Like, IP adresses and stuff?

Answer 1

You can be traced as far as your ISP. With a court order it would be a simple matter for the ISP to see who was logged on at a specific time at a specific address.

Answer 2

Publicly available information about an IP address can typically only be traced as far as the ISP that owns it.

It's the ISP that assigns the IP address to an individual device on the internet. And a good ISP will not reveal to whom they've allocated the address to just anyone. In fact, my assumption is that legal action and possibly law enforcement of some sort would be required for an ISP to release that information.

While technically it is possible to track down an IP address to a specific machine and location, it's not easy, and it's not something that the general public can do

Answer 3

Whenever you click on a link, your computer sends a request to the website. The website will then upload the webpage to your web browser. The request includes your IP address. All IP addresses are unique. Evey computer has its own IP address, like a mailing address for the computer. Using any one of many web services, someone can determine your geographical location from your IP address. As for other information, your ISP has complete access to where you have been and what you have downloaded. Depending on which ISP you use, they can forward this information to third parties. For example, some ISP work with Google. The ISP sells a list of popular websites visited by their customers to Google. Google then uses the information to determine which websites are most profitable to display their ads. If you are interested, you can read Wired Magazine's article on the subject:

"Which ISPs Are Spying on You?" -- written by Ryan Singel (http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/05/isp_privacy)

Answer 4

Your ip address at any time is recorded by your isp, this means they always have a record of your connection and id by time and date, the sites you visit log your ip address. Even through a proxy the proxy site logs your ip. This information can be released to the authorities if a suspected illegal act has occured.