I have a "friend", who I have suspected for a while that he hacked me. That was before I reformated my HDD recently, but now I'm kind of suspicious again. He visits some major forums, and I saw his signiture. It had my IP address in it. Do you think a lot of bad things could come from this, and what should I do?

I just saw it's a .gif image. That probably means it's one of those pictures that, when viewed, displays the viewers information. Gosh, I'm really paranoid. Sorry guys. I feel like an idiot.
I made a post like this before, but it turned out my system WAS being hacked, so with 1 of 2 hacker paranoia situations being correct, at least you know I'm not a paranoid lunatic.

No1 - you're NOT an idiot.....No.2 - Don't panic!

Keep your passwords secret, don't let anyone you don't trust onto your PC and never give away personal information. Make sure you have a firewall and anti-virus. I very much doubt that your "friend" would be able to hack you anyway (especially if you have taken all of the above precautions!).

Thanks Hengis. I do everything you mentioned, and I have a NAT router if that counts for much.

Yup, it does - I really think you have nothing to worry about.

It will probally be one of Danasoft's sigs they do that...

DanaSoft - Custom Signs for Forum Signatures, MySpace, and Your Own Website!

If this is the same "friend" that hacked you before, i think i would remove them from the christmas card list. LOL