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If i am visiting a https Website will my ISP see the IP i am connecting to, or is the destination IP adress somehow hidden because i am using ssl?

Junior J. Garland
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    They will be able to see the IP address. They will also be able to see the domain name of the site. The domain name is sent in clear text across the ISPs network four times before the encrypted communication starts. (They might even be able to [see full URLs](http://security.stackexchange.com/q/87499/47143) you are visiting, but I am not sure whether that really works.) – kasperd Jun 09 '15 at 22:25

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tl;dr: Yes. You need to use a proxy or VPN to hide the destination of your traffic forom your ISP.

The Long Version:
As described in this section of the IPv4 Wikipedia article, IP packets have a header section and a data section. The header section contains, among other things, the Source IP Address and Destination IP Address fields. These fields are essential to facilitating the communication between the source and destination, so encrypting them would make it impossible for the source and destination machines to communicate. SSL only encrypts the contents of the data section, though not the entire contents -- there are a few more layers of protocol headers before you get to SSL (see the OSI model for more on that).

That said, the source and destination IP addresses in an IP packet may not be the final destinations on either side of the underlying communication. The data section of the IP packet can contain another IP packet (or a different protocol) to be unwrapped, interpreted, and transmitted by the recipient in accordance with a VPN or other proxy solution.

To hide the IP of a site you are visiting, regardless of the presence of HTTPS, you would need to use a VPN, proxy, or other anonymity service (such as tor) to make the connection.

DGinzberg
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Your ISP will be able to see the IP you are connecting you even when using SSL.

If you wish to mask the IP you are connecting to from your ISP, you can use a proxy or VPN to do so.

You -> ISP -> VPN/Proxy -> Website

That way the ISP can only see the IP of the proxy/vpn you are connecting to.

Orny
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