Advantage / disadvantage of a fixed IP address.

[Soapy Sam]

Changing my ADSL account. (UK), to a (theoretically) faster and slightly cheaper one
The new account has a fixed IP address.

I don't have a website , run a web server or have online storage of any sort.
It seems to me a dynamic address is actually a security plus in that it can't be identified from session to session with one user. I therefore wonder why this is being offered with what seems a slight downgrade on the older account.

What are the advantages / disadvantages of a fixed IP address, if any and should I beef up my security ? (I use a router with a NAT firewall as well as one of the major software firewalls.)

[ShowerComic]

If you are leaving your PC on, you might be able to access it remotely, more easily with a static IP address. -- I'm not certain of the details, but you might need for example Dynamic DNS if you wanted to log onto your PC remotely, otherwise.

[geni]

Changing my ADSL account. (UK), to a (theoretically) faster and slightly cheaper one
The new account has a fixed IP address.

I don't have a website , run a web server or have online storage of any sort.
It seems to me a dynamic address is actually a security plus in that it can't be identified from session to session with one user.

It would take exactly one court order or less to get around that. From the POV security it makes little diffence. Attacks cost so little that sweaping entire IP ranges on a regular basis does not present a significant challange.


I therefore wonder why this is being offered with what seems a slight downgrade on the older account.

What are the advantages

Less likely to get caught as collateral damage when action is taken against problem users.

[ddt]

What are the advantages / disadvantages of a fixed IP address, if any and should I beef up my security ? (I use a router with a NAT firewall as well as one of the major software firewalls.)

Have you ever checked with your old provider how often you got a fresh IP-address? AFAIK, many providers give long DHCP leases - in the order of months - on their "dynamic" IP addresses. So, in practice, it's not very dynamic at all.

Static or dynamic IP address doesn't matter from a security point of view. Crackers want to get at any (Windows) box that's on-line, they're not targeting you in particular.

[BigAl]

What are the advantages / disadvantages of a fixed IP address, if any and should I beef up my security ? (I use a router with a NAT firewall as well as one of the major software firewalls.)

Unless you run public servers, I can find no reason to have a fixed IP. I've asked. I actually own a "Class C" block (255 IP addresses) from the early days of civilian use of the Internets (Thank you, Al Gore). Nobody wants them. I'm supposed to give it back to the IP god.

If you want to remotely access your home computer with a fixed, friendly domain name, use Dynamic DNS, free or nominal cost. This will get you started.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_DNS

You can't "own" an IP address and you can't take a number with you if you change your service provider, at least for the discussion we have here.

When this was in transition, (~1998) I had a competent and friendly ISP route my IP traffic for $99/month but it was an endless headache for both of us. It was special-case, hard-coded rules in their router tables. Whenever they changed something for all their customers, they would forget about me. After a few Monday morning outages, if my internet connection was dead, I knew exactly what happened and my call to the head networking guy would get it fixed.

[Ducky]

even if you do run services on your box 24/7, no-ip.com and dyndns.org both maintain DNS for your changing IPs...

There's no advantage or disadvantage to either, really.

[Yalius]

I like having my static IP address. With my router configured the way I've got it, I can remote into any PC on my network from anywhere, access my FTP server, and never have to worry about updating my DNS records or renewing a domain. Dynamic DNS can provide the same sort of ease, but TTLs and DNS caching can sometimes muck things up.

[Soapy Sam]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the information, everyone.