Most of the time when people tell you they know your IP address, you never know whether it's just a prankster or someone who actually would like to cause harm to your computer. In most cases, it's best to just ignore them.

People who harrass people feed off of your responses. They get their kicks by seeing you react to what they're doing, so if you ignore them, sometimes they'll just give up and go away after awhile.

I've tested my computer and found out that it's fairly secure, but I don't have a proxy server to hide my IP address yet. I'm going to get one in the near future. I have a really good firewall that totally blocks my ports from being seen, but I know that it does not hide my IP address from anyone who might want to get it.

I've also heard that with dial-up your IP changes everytime you use it. How do you program your cable modem to change your IP periodically?

I think another good idea is to limit the amount of personal information you include in your profiles and on your home page and other web sites. I've recently removed my last name from all my web pages including the keywords and description meta tags in my code.

I never display my email address or zip code on anything public either.

Now, photos are something else altogether. I always like to put a face with a name of someone I'm chatting with, and I have photos included in my profile and briefcase. It's not an issue for me, but there's always the possibility that someone could steal your pics and alter them into something you may not like.

By trojan scanner, do you mean something similar to a spyware scanner?

So I need to call my ISP and ask them if I can get a new IP?