PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => General Tech Discussion, News & Q&A => Topic started by: Michelle on February 19, 2004, 14:04
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Not sure if this is the right place for this but .... anyway.
You know the ip address does anyone know what the numbers mean, is it all just the area and if two ip addresses are the same does that mean its the same computer or just the same house? or work place or would that be more like this
130.45.56.123
130.45.56.200
Can anyone advise me on this please?
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a computers ip address is similer to your home address. every computer has one, which tells the server where to send to data. thats pretty much all i can think of.
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The first two groups are the ISPs Michelle, so they are a little like saying which county you are in on a postal address, the second two are the specific computer that is connected to that ISP and is generated by the ISP itself.
This is for a WAN (Wide Area Network), ie the internet itself.
If you have a LAN (Local Area network), ie a home or office network, then you get the WAN IP from your ISP then your network assigns a different IP to each PC that shares that network, commonly starting with 192 or 10 as the first group of numbers, which are completely seperate from the ISP one, a bit like a block of flats having the same post code but an individual number for each flat.
Hope this helps you understand it a little more clearly :)
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the network address is that single computers address. while an internet ip is one given to your pc by your isp. also, from what i'v seen for network addresses they normally start with 192.168.
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Ah, thanks guys, I'm getting there, its still a bit confusing to me cos I'm not certain of the difference between WAN and LAN.
okay - so is there a list of numbers so that you can see what area someone is from using the first two numbers?
And say it seems that there are two people online with the completely the same numbers, how could that happen if each computer would have its own number, oh okay so that would be if they are on a network with the one isp would it?
Sorry to be thick, I've often wondered about this.
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most dial up isps and some broadband ones use a dynamic ip. a dynamic ip changes every time you log onto the internet. whereas a static ip stays the same all the time.
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You cant see the area Michelle, only the ISP that they are with, so sometimes it will narrow it down to a country, thats the closest that you can identify the area to easily.
Any single pc connected to the internet has its own unique IP address but if you are on dial up or have a "Dynamic" IP this will be a different one each time that you connect to the internet, but the first two groups of numbers will always be the same as that denotes the ISP that you are connected to.
If you are on a broadband connection, you often get a "Static" IP so that will always be the same even if you reconnect, handy for people running a server or website.
No two PCs anywhere in the world can have the same IP at the same time, but with dynamic IPs then you may have one IP address today and someone else may get that same IP after you close your connection :)
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Okay now I'm really confused :o
How come someone I knew once could tell me what area people were in? And you can get into places again because your ip address was logged in there, how can that happen if it changes each time? I thought you always had the same ip address. Is that just using the first two numbers (which do stay the same?)
So dynamic ones change and static ones stay the same right?
How do you know if you are dynamic or static ?
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You may find this interesting Michelle :
IP addressing
An IP address is 32 bits wide, and as discussed, it is composed of two parts: the network number, and the host number [1, 2, 3]. By convention, it is expressed as four decimal numbers separated by periods, such as "200.1.2.3" representing the decimal value of each of the four bytes. Valid addresses thus range from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255, a total of about 4.3 billion addresses.
I believe that there was some concern recently about us running out of available IP addresses, although with a population of around 6 billion worldwide, you would have thought that 4.3 billion would be sufficient :o
For a long page with more information on IPs, wan and lan and where I copied the above bit from, see here :
http://www.sangoma.com/fguide.htm
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Okay now I'm really confused :o
1: How come someone I knew once could tell me what area people were in?
2: So dynamic ones change and static ones stay the same right?
3: How do you know if you are dynamic or static ?
1: You can use something like this to trace an IP with varying success as to how much you can narrow down a location.
http://www.samspade.org/
2: Correct :)
3: As far as I know there are no dial up connections that do Static IPs, if you are on BB you sometimes get the option to have a Static IP, usually at extra cost, although to confuse you even more, I have a Dynamic address which has never changed in 18 months or so and is referred to as a "Sticky Dynamic" IP ::)
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Sticky Dynamic :lol:
I'm sure my ip is always the same ? maybe not then.
Thanks for all that sandra, (and maester) I will have a look at that webpage.
You know what its like when you just HAVE to know something!
Its a bit like when you just have to hear that piece of music that has been going round in your head all day!
:lol:
:D
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Just wanted to say Sandra was right, not that I doubted her for a second of course 8) :D
My ip changes all the time, the first 2 sets of numbers do stay the same.
Thats that just about cleared up then.
The only thing I don't get is how two people can be on line with the same number, as everything I've read or been told suggests this is not possible unless they are on the same computer, which would be difficult but not impossible I guess if it was just one person pretending to be two people. ah there's my answer :lol:
::) :o ;D
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3: As far as I know there are no dial up connections that do Static IPs
Many do actually Sandra. Demon Internet for instance have always had static IPs on all their dial-up accounts.
Michelle, a website I often use to lookup IP addresses is http://www.network-tools.com It gives you all sorts of information about any IP address you enter into it.
It is possible for more than one person to appear to have the same IP address if they are on a network connected to a router or proxy server. The router or proxy shares one IP address amongst many users using something called Network Address Translation (NAT) :)
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ahhh I see, thanks adept.
ohh I'll have a look at that site then. :)
edit: oops
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Here's another site:
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm
aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd = IP address
aaa.bbb = ISP address (this is registered with the top boys).
ccc = ISP subnet (they are allowed to have up to 255 subnets for their aaa.bbb number).
ddd = YOUR ip number (again 255 allowed).
So you can see that for each aaa.bbb number, there can only be 255 x 255 unique IP addresses (or users). This is why ISPs may have more than one aaa.bbb address.
DHCP is the ISP's IP management program. An IP address is assigned to you.
This IP address is given a time to live (TTL). It checks your pc every HALF TTL to see if you are still there. Addresses are usually leased for 12 - 24 hours. If you are still online after that time, your address will be renewed for another TTL. And so it goes on.
Its worth noting that "dynamic" IPs (so called because they always change) are still registered with DHCP usually. So this means even a dialup user CAN have the same IP always, as long as the log in before the TTL expires (when it expires, the address is released for ANYBODY eles to use).
:-*
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Thanks Ket I'll have a look at that too. ;D
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Hmm, IP addressing... complex.
OK... lots of things to know about IP's, some of it has been explained by others.
Hmm, where else can I expand on what has been said.
Classes
IP addresses come in 3 Classes, Class A, Class B, and Class C, and they all have adress ranges (don't remember the specifics, I could find it out if its not in those other sites). Within all of these classes are smaller ranges that are Reserved addresses.
The reserved addresses are called Private addresses. These private addresses are the ones that start with 10.x.x.x (for class A) 172.X.X.X (Class B) and 192.168.x.x (Class C) these are just starting examples... and there are actually more addresses with in the classes... like class C could have 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x, but that comes down to subnetting.
Subnets
The addresses are broken down to segments of addresses by using subnets. A typical Class A subnet is 255.0.0.0, class B is 255.255.0.0 and class C is 255.255.255.0, now, lets look at Class C addresses more.
Take the Address 192.168.1.x with a subnet of 255.255.255.0, where x is a number between 0 & 255. Firstly, the first and last addresses cannot be used as an address for any computers, 192.168.1.0 is known as the network address, think of this as a street name, 192.168.1.255 is known as a broadcast address, think of this as a SPAM address (what happens is when you send anything to that address, it sends it to ALL of the addresses on the network, street).
So, you can use any number between 1 and 254 to actually address computers on a network, these would be like a street number. On your regular home network, any computer can talk to any other computer on the same network address (street). So 192.168.1.1 can talk to 192.168.1.200, but because of the way subnets work, 255.255.255.0 means that wherever there is a 255, the number in the network address that is in the same place as it has to be the same on both computers for them to talk. So, 192.168.2.1 cannot talk to 192.168.1.200 because they are on different network addresses (streets).
Subnets are one of the most difficult things for people to try to understand, because they can then become more complex, and break networks down into smaller and smaller ranges of addresses, so instead of having 0-255 you might only have 0-16 on the same street. So for most people knowing that if you are making a home network, if you have a subnet address of 255.255.255.0, that means that all the computer need to have the same first 3 numbers on all the IP addresses of the computers for them to talk to each other.
It is possible for different network addresses (streets) to talk to each other, but that is where a Router comes into the network, and thats far too much for me to explain here.
What the numbers mean.
Well, now that I think I have explained how IP addresses work... lets look at the numbers.
In reality, the numbers don't mean much at all. You could take any valid IP address and use it on your home network, but doing that causes problems when you then connect that home network to the internet. If you are using the IP address in your home network that say, www.yahoo.com uses, and you try to access www.yahoo.com from a computer on your network, it will more than likely try to talk to the computer on YOUR network, and not the one that is on the internet. So you wouldn't actually get to www.yahoo.com
The only things that the numbers mean in the wide world if the internet is related to who has purchased certain address ranges. your ISP will own a certain range of addresses, and they will be the ones that are assigned to you when you are connected to the internet. So its possible to find out who owns an IP address, because they are usually registered with certain companies that manage the distribution of IP addresses.
The other way that information that can be found is through the server that you are connected to. From your computer, you are connected to through a server at your ISP (actually, its gonna be a router first, but server is better for understanding) I can find out that servers IP by doing a trace route to your IP address, this shows me all the IP addresses that my communications from my computer to your computer would go through. Some administrators put a lot of information into those, which can include geographic information, and this information is usually easy to get because it is designed to be available to the public. So usually someone can trace you down to a country from an IP address, most times they can trace you down to a state, but sometimes they can trace you down to a city area. But they cannot trace you down to you actual home address using an IP.
Hmmm, have I answered the question? Or have I gone off on some totally different path of destruction of knowledge?
I think I forget what the question really was, I am soo sleepy now. So if I have made things more unclear.. let me know what it is that is unclear... or tell me more about what it is you would like to know.
Daniel
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Hi Daniel and :welcome:
Does that mean that we have a new Techie in our forum? :)
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Yep, I have a few quals and lots of personal experience with a variety of computer related gadgetry.
I'll help where I can.
Daniel
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Excellent post, Daniel! A Very Warm Welcome to PC Pals! We can certainly never have too many techies on board. Hope you enjoy the forum.
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Excellent post Daniel and I think you have beaten Clive into second place for the longest one. ;)
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Thanks for that Daniel, that is very informative!!!
;D Brilliant!
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Hello, you old baggage, nice to see you back! ;) :P ;D ;D
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old baggage!!! charming! lol :P :-*
I always come back when I have a problem :lol:
My problem now is , I am about to throw my puter out of the winda !! Don't tell tony he'll just start on about ME 8) ;D
Just searching the archives :-\
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My problem now is , I am about to throw my puter out of the winda !! Don't tell tony he'll just start on about ME 8) ;D
WHO ME......now what on earth makes you think that Shell ::) ;)
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:lol: :horror: :doggie: :-*