generally your IP address isn't terribly sensitive information. it can be used to verify that something on your network made a request to a server, but not on its own - you need ISP cooperation, or access to a well maintained private database that only major online corps like Google, MS, or Facebook might keep. most random websites arent going to have the means to trace an IP back to a person. if you did something on their website that gave them cause to target your IP, the worst they could reasonably do is DOS you until they get bored or you call your ISP.

just visiting it can be dangerous if there's some kind of driveby malware or something, but no more so than any other link on the internet.

hm okay thank you for clarifying this - i am currently in the middle of becoming more competent in the field of operation security and was wondering (as you seem somewhat knowledgable in this field) what site/collection of text you would reccommend to read to become knowledgable in this field?

thank you for your insight

[–] underisk@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

unfortunately, i don't really have anything to recommend from an opsec perspective. most of what i know was learned from reading documentation when I was working as a web developer, and hosting a few personal servers occasionally. i doubt server/browser documentation is what you had in mind.

i'll say that if you're not really doing anything super spicy you probably don't have to worry too much about opsec. unless you're willing to cut out a lot of really convenient online services from your life you're just going to have to accept that the big tech companies are going to know more about you than you should be comfortable with. aside from them you just need to worry about hackers so: run an adblocker, use a password manager and unique passwords, keep your browser and OS up-to-date, and accept that no matter what you do some dipshit is going to fuck up securing their side of things and you're probably gonna be exposed in a data breach anyway.