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.comThe 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
