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Change my Spectrum IP address

Senthil
Senthil Posts: 6 Spectator
edited August 28 in Connectivity

I am very frustrated and received misleading information from Spectrum customer support for changing my IP address. They told me I needed to change my spectrum modem box. After I swapped it out and got the new modem activated, my IP address is still the same? I never had to change it in the first place.

How can I put in a request to have my IP address changed under Spectrum, Charter Communications? It haven't been changed for years and I wanted to do that now for security reasons.

Senthil

Best Answers

  • RAIST515O
    RAIST515O Posts: 212 Contributor
    edited June 25 Answer ✓

    IDK how long the DHCP leases are now... under TWC, used to be able to force a new one by powering down at night and staying offline until I got home from work the next day.

    Alternatively, could try the clone MAC feature in the router if that option is available to you.

    Otherwise would need an admin to forcibly change things in the system to get you a new address... if they even do that anymore.

  • William_M
    William_M Posts: 1,323 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator
    Answer ✓

    Hi @Senthil, welcome to our community.

    There is no way for us to force an IP change, but if you got a different modem I can guarantee you have a different public IP. Our IPs are dynamically assigned to modems and will usually change every few weeks, which should mitigate most security concerns of someone finding your IP. Static IPs are only available with business service and that is an additional charge. Where are you going to see your IP, and do you have a specific security concern currently? It seems like you might be looking at some internal IP.

Answers

  • Senthil
    Senthil Posts: 6 Spectator

    Thank you for the information. Is there a way to contact Spectrum (technical support) and get hold of their admin to assign a new IP address? I am also using the Spectrum router and do not want to change it.

    Senthil

  • Senthil
    Senthil Posts: 6 Spectator

    I have been looking here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/. Is that the correct place? The IP address stayed the same ever since I swapped the modem a month ago. As for security, I have been receiving a lot of scam via email and website sibmissions.

  • William_M
    William_M Posts: 1,323 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator
    edited June 29

    That website is fine, is that only one you've checked over the years? If you google "what is my IP?" or check on other sites like https://nordvpn.com/what-is-my-ip/ do you see the same? Are you seeing both the same IPv4 and IPv6 address?

    Scam email isn't targeted to your IP. The best solution to that is to mark emails as spam and set up keyword filters for the type of spam you're receiving. Could you elaborate what you mean by website submissions?

  • RAIST515O
    RAIST515O Posts: 212 Contributor
    edited June 29

    Kind of a "curse" of a persistent connection. Sometimes devices run a more aggressive lease renewal request, refreshing the timer before it expires—effectively giving you a pseudo static IP, even though it technically is not designated as one. So you kinda have to "cheat" a little to get around that—powering off long enough for that window to expire, or feed it a different MAC address so it gets detected as a "new" device making the request.

    But... as William_M noted, the issues you are describing aren't likely to have anything to do with your IP. The same things could happen if you started using a VPN (effectively giving you a different public facing IP and even geolocation).

    What you are seeing is more likely due to details provided by/through your browser. Even though you are not actively typing your information into fields on a website, certain details about you, your ISP, your email address, and even your system can be gathered by various means when you visit a site (browser string information, tracking tools, etc.)... a good portion of that can even get stored in cookies that help to build profiles about your interests/habits to help companies target you with ads and other things--sometimes malicious activity even.

    It's why there is such a big market about putting shields up around your system/network these days—a lot of prying eyes out there.

    Some things to be mindful of:

    Do not click on links sent to you by someone else unless you KNOW they are legit.

    If you hover your mouse over a link in an email or on a website, it may show you the actual link it is going to call (can be application dependent). May detect it is sending you somewhere else entirely than the link appears to be indicating.

    Looking at the details/properties/source of a message/page can also reveal such discrepancies, though it may be awkward trying to sift through it if you are not familiar with looking at such data.

    Some security software may offer a plugin that will actually track and rate pages/links to help you weed out the bad actors... something you may want to research with your particular software.

    Go through your browser and security applications to make sure certain things are clamped down like tracking cookies, verify privacy/permission concerns like access to mic/camera, contacts—ability to install plugins and automate downloads and autoplay audio/video content.

    Periodically go through your cookies to make sure you are only saving legit cookies--deleting the "junk". Some security tools may even have a means to create a list of cookies you want to keep that make this a quick and easy task.

    Periodically run malware and virus scans on your system.

    Check with your email provider for how to submit spam samples. It may be as simple as forwarding it to a specific email address—add it to your contact list and forward spam to it just like you would any other email and then move it to your spam/trash folder.

  • Senthil
    Senthil Posts: 6 Spectator

    What is the difference between IPv6 and IPv4? I noticed IPv6 changes over time but the other one never changes,

    Senthil

  • James_M
    James_M Posts: 5,126 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator
    edited July 9

    @Senthil

    IPv6 does have some optimized routing features, but basically IPv4 and IPv6 are addressing protocols to provide IP addresses so devices can connect to the internet. IPv4 uses 32 bit addressing for a total of 4 billion possible addresses, less reserved addresses such as 192.xx.xx.xxx and 10.xx.xx.xxx. And IPv6 uses a hexadecimal 128 bit addressing for a total of 10 undecillion addresses (10 to the 23rd power).

    The primary reason for using IPv6 is that with the number of devices connecting to the internet across the entire globe, 4 billion was no longer enough (think about how many devices you have connecting just in your own home, and then multiply) and IPv6 provides an expanded range of available addresses.

    We use a dual stack approach which integrates both IPv4 and IPv6 interchangeably.

This discussion has been closed.