Masking IP's for Streamers

itruthful

I assume a lot of streamers wish to keep their IP address private and also IP addresses for servers and what not. This is just a simple solution that I assume a lot of people know about but not everyone (note: this tutorial modify's a system file on Windows operating systems so make sure you have Administrator access otherwise efforts will be futile). You should also note this tutorial is only for Window based systems (XP - W7 [I assume also W8]).

• Go to Start > Computer > Main Drive (in this case it's C:\ for me) > Windows > System32 > Drivers > etc
• Once there you will see a file called "hosts". The easiest way to modify this is to drag it to your Desktop
• Once it's on your Desktop, open Notepad and drag the hosts file into Notepad.
  You should now see 2 lines under block comments (last line being: ::1             localhost)
• After you that line simple add the IP address you wish to mask (your own or a server address etc).
• Press TAB or simple just add a space after that; now you can put in whatever you want to be shown rather than the real IP address (don't use spaces, if you wish to use spaces simply use underscores; like_so).
• Example: 127.0.0.1               YOU_WISH
• Now, go to File > Save or simply press Ctrl + S
• Drag the file back into the folder you dragged it out of (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc)
• You're now done

It's as simple as that, now whenever you the IP is supposed to visible (take on a Minecraft multiplayer screen for example) it will show what you determined it to be in the hosts file, so my server on 127.0.0.1 would show up as YOU_WISH where the IP should be rather than the actual address.

I don't recommend doing this if you are unsure but it's what I personally do and I thought it would help those who are looking for an easy solution.

Hope this helps somebody out there; happy streaming.

:) 

Other Contributions

DDoS Prevention Guide suggested by Fire

Check out the post below this that elaborates on what this tutorial won't prevent by bGeorge

bgeorge

Should be noted that this will not prevent your IP address from getting exposed through Skype, malicious links, etc.

This is only to mask IP address that you might not normally want to display on stream such as private servers and such.

itruthful

Should be noted that this will not prevent your IP address from getting exposed through Skype, malicious links, etc.

This is only to mask IP address that you might not normally want to display on stream such as private servers and such.

Thanks for elaborating on that, that might of confused people which completely skipped my mind.

Fire

That being said, there's a great DDoS Prevention/Protection guide over on Leaguepedia: http://www.leaguepedia.com/wiki/DDoS_Prevention_Guide#DDoS_Prevention_Setup

itruthful

That being said, there's a great DDoS Prevention/Protection guide over on Leaguepedia: http://www.leaguepedia.com/wiki/DDoS_Prevention_Guide#DDoS_Prevention_Setup

The Socks5 suggestion is perfect for people who would rather use a free proxy rather than pay a VPN subscription. I'll add that link to the OP - thanks for linking it :)