(25 Jul 14, 07:04PM)vonunov Wrote: As far as why not to show the address, what reason is there? Privacy? Paranoia?
Look at it this way: your IP address is visible to any service you connect to (unless you're using VPN or something), which means it's easily visible to anyone who wants to see it. Even if you're not on an AC server that shows the full IP, all anyone has to do is send you a link to a funny picture hosted on a site they control, then look at the access logs.
About the first part, the main reason is not privacy, people can trace me and stalk me at will, it's their problems if they spend their free time doing it, the problem here is that I dont' want to see my IP flooded by annoying people, and you know how many annoying people can AC or any FPS hosts. Even a forum can make you a whole "IRL enemy team" and if their only way to annoy you is to go through your IP, then they will do (they did it as well for the AC forum, AC masterserver, Akimbo etc, so flooding my internet connection should not be a problem).
For the second part, you are wrong because in the "basic internet", only the services I am connected are aware of my IP, not the other users of those services. When I post a message on YouTube, the guy who answers to my message is not supposed to be aware of my IP. When I go on a funny picture, it's my wish to do so, and everyone who saw the picture are not supposed to see everyone's IP database except the one who hosts the picture. All website redirections must be announced before or during the process, this rule exists and is applied to most of websites, there is obviously a reason to it, prevent a ddos war.