There are many reasons I have to hide my IP address. No, I'm not a criminal, a hacker, or a pervert. Needing to hide your IP address is a perfectly acceptable thing these days, and here's why.

For one, I'm in China. I have to hide my IP address to unblock websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and current international new sites. China isn't the only country that censors the Internet. Russia, Iran, UAE, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and tons of other countries have very biased search engine results and thousands of blocked sites for political and social reasons. To unblock sites, changing your IP address with a proxy or VPN is necessary. Hiding your real IP address is about Internet freedom.

Another reason I have to hide my IP address is that I often use the Internet at Internet cafes. Have you heard of packet sniffing and session jacking? It's where a guy you share a network with (ie, the Internet cafe's wifi connection) uses some software to monitor all of the traffic that's coming in and out of the wifi zone. When he gets a hold of a secure connection someone is using (your Facebook login credentials, your bank codes, your membership details, and your IP address), and is able to steal your identity. It's easy. There's even a Firefox add-on called Firesheep that makes it easy. When you use a virtual IP address and encrypt your data using SSL/OpenVPN, without the proper verification certificates, not only does this thief not see you on the wifi connection, even with your login credentials he'd be unable to do anything without the proper certificates. Hiding your IP address is about protecting your private data.

I also hide my IP address to keep advertisers off my tail. These guys are ruthless. Once they get a hold of your IP address, they read your email (Google does), follow you around the Internet, and track things you buy, adverts you click on, and who knows what else. With a private IP address, this kind of tracking is impossible. Everything is rerouted through the VPN or proxy server, and nothing can be traced back to you. Hiding your IP address is about the right to privacy.

Now that you know why I hide my IP address, it seems pretty sensible right? Though there are many criminals, hackers, and perverts that use these tools for the forces of evil, there are many legal, sensible, and even necessary reasons to use a proxy or virtual private network to hide your IP address.