If some script kiddy on Reddit or Anonymous abuse that information "for the lulz" or "sake of the internetz" with DoS etc., the author would needlessly get into trouble since he got it confidentially.
I'm sure the author could have easily been creative enough to hide that he was his own source. Also are IPs really considered private information? I thought the whole point of IPs was they can be shared.
A simple (probably flawed) example:
"Oh hey, I found this pastebin with the FCC's IP block, don't know where it came from"
