Actually, No-IP just makes an IP address look more appealing and does nothing to hide it. (For example, try pinging "google.com") There are no real reasons you shouldn't give away your IP for a server besides the VERY small chance of a DDos attack, but those are usually targeted at bigger servers. About your location, they could only get your city, but usually it gets that wrong. I have hosted public servers myself before, and nothing ever happened to be, so I doubt anything will happen to you either.
I'm looking to start a server using basic tools (Portmap, and the latest minecraft server jar) I have two questions:
Is it safe to give out the IP that I have on port map (Can this be used to track me)?
And Can I get and plugins (Even basic briefer protection, because I just want a vanilla SMP server with very basic security features!)?
Thanks for all future answers!
if you want not being tracked just use www.no-ip.com for an free static DNS
yeah you're right
About plugins for your server, there is no way to do it on vanilla, you could you Bukkit, but it basically died. (Read this if you haven't kept up:http://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/what-happened-to-craftbukkit---separating-fact-from-fiction/) The succesor to Bukkit is the upcoming project named Sponge (http://www.spongepowered.org/), but they are far from a release, so we will just have to wait. (Unless you still have a copy of Bukkit that is)