Hi, peep,
peep wrote:From what I am understanding from studying about IP Addresses, if someone is a good enough "hacker", they will always be able to get my IP Address and therefore, my residential address, home phone number, etc. Is this correct?
You've already gotten some good information, but let me try to explain it my own way.
There are two separate issues here:
1. If you are using a webforum like this one, most likely the IP of the machine which you used to connect will be logged (if you are using Tor, the IP which is logged would belong to the "exit router" in the chain constructed by Tor for a particular transaction), Some websites discard logging data after a certain time has passed.
2. If someone has obtained your correct IP address, they can use "whois" to lookup up information about that IP address in a public database. If you are logging on from home, most likely the information which comes up when someone requests the ARIN record corresponding to that IP address will describe your ISP, not yourself. But if you are using a computer at your business, and if you registered a domain name yourself, the information which comes up might indeed include your home address and telephone, if you provided that information when you registered the domain name. However, even if the information which comes up describes your ISP, someone who knows your IP address can still use databases like hostip.info to try to "geolocate" your computer. These databases are by no means 100% accurate, though.
peep wrote:Do forum moderators and admin.'s have the complete ability to become corrupt in using their status? or do they simply have the same ability that anyone has in finding out my IP address, home address and telephone number just by visiting their website?
I am not quite sure I understand the question, but when you are using a forum like this one, generally only sysadmins would be able to see your IP (or the IP of the exit router for the chain constructed by Tor, if you are using Tor). Generally speaking, sysadmins would have the same ability or lack of ability as anyone else in getting from a numerical IP to your true name and address, with one caveat: if a sysadmin can document criminal misdeeds (like trying to break into his system), he can legitimately report this and police agencies may then be able to discover your true name and address in connection with a criminal investigation.
There is one notable exception I can think of to what I just said about IP addresses of participants in some web forum only being accessible to the sysadmins of this particular forum: if you edit the Wikipedia without logging into a registered user account, your edits are attributed to your numerical IP address in the "history page". If that numerical IP address corresponds to a domain name which you have registered, and if the ARIN record for this domain name gives your name and address, then anyone in the world can verify that someone using a machine at this domain made the edits in question. This kind of reasoning has been used at Wikipedia to identity numerous miscreants; in one of the more amusing cases, U.S. congressional staffers were caught vandalizing the biographies of the candidates opposing their bosses in an upcoming election!
peep wrote:I have posted on a forum similar to this one and the admin. seems to like me and has told me who I am and what my street address is. I thought posting with a nickname was supposed to be confidential.
Your correct name and street address? I'm curious about the context of that conversation--- he seems to
like you? Or was he accusing you of misbehavior? Either way, if he knew your correct name and address, that was probably because the ARIN record corresponding to your true IP gives that information because you registered a website in your own name and gave the domain name corresponding to the IP address in question. (The domain name is just the "IP address translated for humans".) Or if not, he presumably combined other bits of information to arrive at your true identity. This is often much easier than most people would guess. For example, perhaps when you registered at that forum you provided the url of your blog, and perhaps in the blog you posted enough information about yourself to make it easy to determine your name and the city where you reside. Then perhaps your local telephone directory could provide your street address and phone number.
peep wrote:If anyone can help, it is greatly appreciated.
Tor is a good resource, but I feel that someone should point out two important facts:
1. Tor is supported by EFF, but EFF says that using it with bittorrent is potentially "highly unethical" (their words), and if you are planning to abuse this tool, you endanger the community who wish to use it for legitimate ends, such as safe websurfing.
2. The EFF stresses that the anonymity provided by Tor is not yet very strong, certainly not strong enough to safely use if you live in some politically repressive country and wish to speak out about some topic which your government doesn't want its citizens to discuss. (That can be hard to judge; American antiwar activists may have some cause to wonder whether this might apply to them.)