Q: When ever I go on my computer I get a message that someone else is using my IP address. I am terrified. Is someone else pretending to be me? Please help!!!!!!

A: Linda, first of all, don’t panic: if a hacker wanted to pretend to be you, they wouldn’t steal your IP address. It?s unlikely you are being hacked. What is more likely is that you have two devices on your home network that are conflicting with each other.

Your mysterious IP address thief is much more likely to be a misbehaving wireless printer or mobile device that is using your WiFi network than a hacker. Wireless printers are sometimes the culprit, because some of them have pre-set IP addresses. If the WiFi router hands out that preset address to another computer or device, the router will get confused about who to send data to. Of course it doesn’t have to be a printer to blame, it could be anything that is using your Wi-Fi.

Try disconnecting your laptop from the Wi-Fi and then reconnecting. That should cause the router to assign it a clean IP address. Actually it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do that for every device connected to the Wi-Fi.

It?s possible, though, that this problem stems from either your laptop or another device on the network having a static IP address set. If that?s the issue you will probably need a technician to come out and look at it, as that starts to get a little bit complicated.

It?s also possible your wireless router is having problems, in which case it will need to be replaced. While that can be a pain, the good news is that you aren’t having your identity stolen by hackers!