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Posts: 3,540Okay, now I'm a total computer numpty so you'll have to explain to me in itty bitty words :pray: but when a person sends an email to you, does it have an IP address that's *just* for that person period? Or could another person on a busy network get the same IP address?
How unique is the IP address to one individual or one individual computer is what I'm asking?
Hi Debbie,
Usually the IP address is shared. I'll see if I can explain this. Let's say you are at home and there are two computers in your house. You have a broadband connection and a piece of equipment attached to your cable modem called a router. This router is performing something called Network Address Translation (NAT). What happens is behind your router are private IP addresses. These are addresses which are not routable across the internet. The router then receives one public IP address (routable across the internet) from your cable provider and the router then masks each of the two private IP addresses with this public IP, so both computers are sharing the public IP address. This is also how it works for businesses but on a larger scale.
Now let's say for instance that you only have one computer connected to your cable modem then each time you turn on your computer you probably receive a different IP address from your broadband computer. In this case the provider is only leasing you an IP address and the lease has an expiration, so once you turn off your computer the provider takes back the IP address and it is assigned to someone else.
I hope that wasn't too confusing and answered your question.
Bine-TeddiesHi Debbie,
I agree with what Gijzette said. In other words, the IP address is unique to a single computer at any given time, but depending on how your provider set up the system you may get a new address every time you switch on the computer and somebody else may have your previous IP address. If you try to manually enter an address that's already in use you get a warning and won't be able to connect.
I am puzzled by the email bit of your question though. IP (=internet protocol) is not connected to email, it identifies a computer (or a router) on the internet, including email services.
Did we help at all?
Posts: 3,540Yes and no... the reason I'm asking is that a friend believes someone is playing tricks and is posing as someone else. She has the IP address from an email, and it is the same IP address as what shows on a forum, under a different person's username.
She's convinced that this would be one in the same person, so that the person's lying. I'm not computer literate, so I'd like to know (before she accuses someone of possibly lying) if she could be wrong, and that computer IP address may not in fact prove its the same person.
Does that make my question easier to answer?? :hug: Thanks for helping me!! :hug:
Flying Fur Studiostough to say, but I guess the chances of two totally random people would get the same ip address.............
Bine-TeddiesWell, theoretically two people can at one point in time end up having the same IP address, but as Heather says, its highly unlikely. It would require that both people are using the same internet provider as these numbers are unique in the whole world and distributed in batches of 255 (at least I think its still 255 in a series). I have a hard time believing that to happen. Also, if IP addresses change, she would notice that the person on the forum has different addresses at different times. Unless maybe if that person never ever switches her computer off nor lets it go to sleep. I've never seen a forum register IP addresses. I hope, we are talking about the same thing? An IP address is a long sequence of numbers separated by dots such as 136.28.59.13 (just invented that number, no idea if it exists)
There are a few forums that announce IP addresses, I don't know why it seems like a silly thing to show.
There are two ways that I forgot to mention where the person could always have the same IP address other than what Sabine mentioned. The person could be posting or emailing from a company PC. The person could also be paying to have a statically assigned IP address so even if the PC was turned off the IP address would never change.
Sabine, yes they are still giving them out in 255 address blocks.
Debbie, here is a suggestion. Your friend can go to http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp and put in the IP address. This will show what company the address belongs to. If the person is posting from work then the IP address will be listed to the company the person works for. If the person is posting from their home then an internet service provider is going to be listed. Then you take the email addy after the @ sign and that will tell you who the internet service provider is. For example if the person is using comcast then their address will be something@comcast.net. Now here is the one problem, if the person is using free email like hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc. it is going to be very hard to track down.
Sorry I tend to get a little wordy and I hope all of this information has helped.
Posts: 3,540Thanks a lot gals, this has helped BIG time!!! :hug: :hug:
