thanks. I have a new problem. I was away for 30 minutes, when i came back, all of a sudden there was this message on my laptop:
“Windows has detected an IP address conflict” Another computer on this network has the same ip adress"
Now i am more shocked. What is this? I only use my laptop!!
I'd assume that you are on a router for this to even happen. All it is, is the sharing of the same local IP address, not the IP address from your ISP. If you were being hacked, the hacker would be connected to you, not sharing your IP. As
@Klipsh mentioned, DHCP will automatically assign each device a local IP address such as 192.168.1.15. The 15 part is where the IP will differ from each device. Note that each router brand is different. I use Asus routers, they use 192.168.1.1. I had a router/modem from Comcast which used 10.0.0.1 as the IP address which the computer local IP would be based on that.
Sorry for the rant. In order to fix your problem, you should reboot your router which will reestablish a new local IP to each device. I used to have this problem with 3 Xbox 360's in my house. Either that or you could probably renew your ip address (I don't know if it works for local or not since it's the routers job). You could type in a command prompt (cmd) "ipconfig /release" then "ipconfig /renew" without quotations to refresh your IP configuration. I'd imagine your router would then give you a new local IP address.
As
@frogboy mentioned, you could use a VPN to secure your IP. In VPN's, multiple people use the same IP from the VPN servers. This doesn't conflict with each other and a hacker would basically be screwed in trying to find you especially if your network data is encrypted with 128bit or 256bit using modern and reverent VPN protocols unlike the ones built into Windows that I believe they created. I personally recommend Private Internet Access. Yes it's US based but that isn't a death sentence for privacy. No country is truly private. And I personally believe them when they say "we don't collect any data". Plus if you connect to one of the foreign servers, your info isn't even on a US server in the first place.
Some routers actually have the ability (like a lot of Asus routers) to use a VPN on the router itself without special firmware like Tomato. I've set up Private Internet Access on the router once and it worked like a charm and was secure ALL devices on the network.
But if the admins are criminal... you never know...
I can assure that at least on MT, the admins aren't criminals. I can't speak for other sites that have a ton of ads and tracks. MT doesn't have either and I would have noticed an intruder on my network. A lot of the time I don't even bother using VPN on MT.