But, as far as the outside world is concerned, they all share a single IP address: the one assigned to your modem by your Internet service provider. Each of these devices has a different internal IP address that is unique within your home network. If you have a wireless network at home, you probably have several devices that use the network: your phone, laptop computer,īlu-ray player, etc. The way that we work around this limitation is to use a technology called NAT that allows several devices to share an IP address. In fact, using IP version 4 (the most common version of the IP protocol), there are only four billion possible addresses which is far less than the number we would need to assign a unique address to every device in the world. It's important to understand that there is not a 1-to-1 correspondence of computers to IP addresses. For example, when I connected to Google's web site just now the address was 172.217.11.68. These addresses are usually represented as four numbers separated by periods. But, what is an IP address and how reliable are they at identifying individuals?Įach computer or device on a network is assigned an IP address that allows other devices to speak to it. Cases such as copyright violations, computer hacking, and distribution of child pornography often involve using an individual's IP address to identify them.

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