I'm not really all that up on internet-related things, so I figured I'd ask this question here as the information I've found on the internet is either contradictory or full of jargon.

How do ip addresses work? I know that they can be used for identification sometimes, like for forum posters (or I think that's how come you guys know when someone makes a second account and tries to act like they've never been here before), but I don't really get how it does that. And no, I have no intention of trolling a forum.

Is it only specific to the place you connect to the internet at? If more than one person connects from my house at one time, do we all have the same ip? I would guess not. If not, can you identify specific computers?

Is any part of the ip address associated with a specific computer instead of just the internet connection? (I.e. if I connect from home and from school daily, can the ip address by itself identify that it's me both times because I'm using the same laptop?), etc.

I got this question today on ip addresses from someone who knows even less than I do (amazing!) and I realized how little I know. So I tried to google it and still couldn't understand. Maybe I'm stupid.

Cheers

 

Basically, your internet service provider (ISP) assigns you a unique IP address so that you can communicate with servers and computers across the world to view web-sites and transfer files.

Within your home network, each wireless device also has an IP address, but that's only within the network itself, so that the router doesn't get confused about what to send to which device. Devices on the same network will still have the same IP address outside of that network though.

One way you could try to understand it is that an IP address is like a colour. My ISP has given me the colour blue. I have 2 devices connecting wirelessly to my router, so to avoid getting confused, the router labels one as azure, and the other as cerulean to distinguish them. To everyone else though, they're both just blue.

Probably a terrible metaphor but I can't think of anything better right now.

EDIT: A little more about routers assigning IP addresses.

The router itself has an IP address on the network, such as 192.168.1.254. When it assigns IP addresses to devices on the network they'll be in the format 192.168.1.XXX where XXX can be any number up to 253 that isn't taken. The IP address of the router depends on what make/model it is.

 

Actually Oz the "blue" example was a really good of explaining that, thanks!

So continuing in the same vein, if home is "blue" and school is "red" and the local coffee shop is "yellow" and I'm using my personal computer at all three of those no one else online knows that it's the same computer at each place. They just see a residence, a school, and a coffee shop with no further information on computers, etc. In order to see which computer it is it would have to be within a network that makes that distinction (azure vs. cerulean). Cool.

Awesome, thanks. I'm going to use the color analogy every time I explain this to someone else now. >.>

 

Even on the home network your IP is dynamic, so it will change sometimes. Basically, the only way to identify a specific computer is by the MAC address, which is unique to every network card.

And Schrodinger: Lying. Each house will have a separate, though similar IP, even though they share the same cable company. And the accounts won't show up as clones then.

 

I haven't ever heard of that happening in America. But I admit, I'm not that knowledgeable, and I may be wrong.

 

Millitis: Except, y'know, the mods don't compare every IP adddress on the forums by looking at them. That's what xion's for.

 

MAC Address eh? Yeah, I'm vaguely familiar with those. I had to have mine to activate my internet at school.

So who can see your MAC address? Are random people on the internet able to see it as easily as they can see your ip address, or is it something for only your ISP?

 

Cool, thanks all