The first part identifies your network, while the second part is for your specific device or host. That part has to do with the classes of IP addresses that were set up in the early days of the internet to designate between network sizes. Your computer network is programmed to recognize which part of an IP address is for the network, and which is for the host using something called subnet masks.
The different IP classes and subnets come more into play when dealing with really large networks. The IANA allocates blocks of IP addresses to regional internet registries RIR , who then divide those up between internet service providers, governmental organizations, schools, companies, and other institutions within their region. Dynamic IP addresses have the added benefit of making your network more secure.
Hackers will have a harder time slipping into your network if your IP address changes frequently. Every network and device outside of your own network will recognize and track you via this IP address.
In addition to your main public IP address, every device connected to your router will have a private IP address. As discussed previously, these private IP addresses will generally all resemble the public IP address in the first part of the construction, with the last section being what makes each unique. For example, if the public IP address for your network is Having a private IP address for each device is important so your router can distinguish them from one another.
In addition to the most obvious devices you use the internet on, like your computer and phone, every device that connects to bluetooth or uses smart technology will also have a private IP. That includes any bluetooth headphones, smart TVs, wireless printers, and smart lights—just to name a few examples of the kind of devices you may have on your network. Remember, IP addresses are like your membership card to the internet and are required to enter any website and webpage on it.
This includes social media sites , internet forums, chatrooms, and blogs you comment on. All of these platforms can view your IP address. Authorities, including, law enforcement or fraud investigators, can also use subpoenas to contact your ISP and get your IP address.
When it comes to others trying to find your IP address, some might have malicious intentions, such as to track you. Others, however, might be watching out for you, such as a well-intentioned bank confirming a transfer request is being submitted by you.
Finally, just because someone knows your IP address does not necessarily mean they will wind up on your doorstep. Still, you might want to take measures to protect your IP address.
The simplest and most straightforward way to protect your IP address is to use a virtual private network VPN because this anonymizes your online activity using encryption. It also changes your IP address completely, placing your geolocation hundreds or maybe thousands of miles from where you actually are accessing the internet.
After all, being informed is a best practice when it comes to protecting our online privacy. All rights reserved. Firefox is a trademark of Mozilla Foundation. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Alexa and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.
Since our servers are on the internet rather than on your home network, that traffic is sent from your PC to your router the gateway , and your router forwards the request on to our server. The server sends the right information back to your router, which then routes the information back to the device that requested it, and you see our site pop up in your browser. Typically, routers are configured by default to have their private IP address their address on the local network as the first host ID.
So, for example, on a home network that uses Of course, like most things, you can configure that to be something different if you want. We humans work much better with names than numerical addresses. Typing www. DNS works kind of like a phone book, looking up human-readable things like website names, and converting those to IP addresses.
Your devices need to know the addresses of DNS servers to which to send their queries. On a typical small or home network, the DNS server IP addresses are often the same as the default gateway address. Devices send their DNS queries to your router, which then forwards the requests on to whatever DNS servers the router is configured to use.
You also may have noticed while browsing through settings a different type of IP address, called an IPv6 address. They use the 32 binary bits we talked about in four octets to provide a total of 4. While that sounds like a lot, all the publicly available addresses were long ago assigned to businesses.
Many of them are unused, but they are assigned and unavailable for general use. Unlike the dotted decimal notation used in IPv4, IPv6 addresses are expressed as eight number groups, divided by colons. A typical IPv6 address might look something like this:.
The thing is, the shortage of IPv4 addresses that caused all the concern ended up being mitigated to a large extent by the increased use of private IP addresses behind routers. So, even though IPv6 is still a major player and that transition will still happen, it never happened as fully as predicted—at least not yet. There are really two types of IP assignments: dynamic and static.
A dynamic IP address is assigned automatically when a device connects to a network. DHCP is built into your router. When a device connects to the network, it sends out a broadcast message requesting an IP address.
There are certain private IP address ranges routers will use for this purpose. Which is used depends on who made your router, or how you have set things up yourself. Those private IP ranges include:. The thing about dynamic addresses is that they can sometimes change. DHCP servers lease IP addresses to devices, and when those leases are up, the devices must renew the lease.
Sometimes, devices will get a different IP address from the pool of addresses the server can assign. Occasionally, however, you might want to give a device an IP address that does not change. The exact amount of octets depends on the class of network. For example, in a Class A address, the network portion is contained within the first octet, while the rest of the address is used to denote subnets and hosts. In a Class B address, the first two octets are the network portion, while the rest is for subnets and hosts, etc.
All of these addresses are allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. This nonprofit U. In turn, these regional registries allocate addresses to ISP, companies, schools, and similar institutions within their zone. That means your IP address probably comes from your company network or ISP, which received that address from a regional internet registry, which was allocated a block of addresses from IANA. Routers matter.
That box full of ports collecting dust in your living room is translating data to connect you to the internet, as well as keeping you safe via firewall. In its simplest form, routing is what we call the process of forwarding IP packets from network to network. You probably know a router as the device you set up to obtain internet access.
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