I have a feeling there is more to this story. You can't find someone's address just by their IP. You need to cross reference somehow. Unless you work for the ISP, the closest you can get is town/general area.
Does the story say how they got the person's address? Im thinking someone was dumb with their Xbox Live Profile or got their account hacked. Or maybe he had a domain registered there? Or maybe some social engineering. But nothing you can really block. You could go through a proxy, but I would not suggest that for gaming.
You can get a ballpark location of where someone lives by their IP address. 100% of "SWATing" cases happen because the caller either determined the location from a video or information the person gave out, or they just google'd their username and found their facebook profile or whatever.
This guy 'works' for some business of people that stream video games or something, so id think the address of a business is easier to find than one of a home user but i have heard of the same thing happening to home users
An IP address is not a physical address. They would need to DOX you to get that kind of info. Be careful about sharing your real name, or any identifiable information. You would be surprised the things that can be done with even the smallest piece of info.
The PIN# requirement stems from tightened customer proprietary network information requirement specifically as how they relate to phone. Essentially we're no longer allowed to use personally identifiable information when verifying your account where phone is involved. If your account has never had phone service this becomes less of an issue however once it is added even if you're not calling to discuss your phone service there are some gray areas regarding your HSI services where we'll need the PIN# to continue to assist.
If your account has never had phone service this becomes less of an issue
Finally someone from Cox who openly admits this. Those grey area's, like resetting a password for an authorized user who has never had phone service on the account, has caused me some problems lately.
Back to the original question, yes, there is a way to hide your IP address. You can use a VPN service (I occasionally use Cyberghost) to connect to if you're using a PC. That way if someone looks up your IP, it might say Romania or Germany etc. Or you could select another location nearby in the US. I'm unsure if you can set up a router with one of these VPN services though so you can run your whole house on it. Also, VPNs can negatively affect your internet performance, sometimes dramatically. It just depends on what you need it for.
Back to the original question, yes, there is a way to hide your IP address. You can use a VPN service (I occasionally use Cyberghost) to connect to if you're using a PC. That way if someone looks up your IP, it might say Romania or Germany etc. Or you could select another location nearby in the US. I'm unsure if you can set up a router with one of these VPN services though so you can run your whole house on it. Also, VPNs can negatively affect your internet performance, sometimes dramatically. It just depends on what you need it for.
gaming over an international VPN can be somewhat problematic. Most VPNs introduce unplayable latency, that's not to say all of them do. The basic point is these people weren't swatted via there IP. They were swatted because of other identifiable information.
Basically what Odog is saying (and I concur) is that being doxed is a pre-requirement to being swatted.
In order to be doxed, you have to be rather careless with your real identity. I personally keep my gaming/trolling name separate from my real identity. Not one person knows both my full name and any pseudonym I use (at best they know my first name and my pseudonym.)
Nobody will ever dox you with just your IP address unless they happen to work for your ISP AND have access to its accounting records.
In other words, I wouldn't ever worry about somebody figuring out your IP address. If they were in such a position to be able to use it, then they are probably paid too much to want to risk their career and possibly jail time by doxing you.