IP address

So you wrote a letter to a friend. You fold it neatly and place it inside an envelope. Then, you write the correct address on the envelope. And there you go! Into the mailbox, and let the postman do the magic! You know how to send information to your friend over the postal service and how it works. Do you know the same about your phone, computer, or the Internet?

Just as your friend has a unique street address, every device connected to the Internet has an address. A number that no other piece of hardware can call its own, and the name for it is “IP address.”

IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is the set of digital rules governing communications on the Internet. It’s the engine under the hood that keeps the Internet moving. 

Whenever you type or paste a website’s URL into your browser, you send a letter requesting information. The request includes your device’s IP address so that the server, on the other side, knows where to send you the desired data.

Two types of addresses

Our current Internet includes two flavors of IP addresses called IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 is the one we all know about, four sets of decimal numbers with periods. This system allows for more than four billion unique numbers, which is not as much as the world currently needs. That’s why we have IPv6. The new standard, a 128-bit system, allows for many more unique numbers (340, with 36 zeroes behind it, if you can picture that!). That should be enough for a while!

The thing about your IP address is that it could give away things like your physical location to a third party. Have you ever wondered why so many websites offer you content tailored to your neighborhood? Well, now you know: they scanned your IP address to figure out where you are.

So, yes, an IP address can carry some information you could consider private, which is why it is essential to keep it as private as possible.

So now you know: every device you have online right now has an IP address, which gives it an identity it can use to exchange information within the net.