Does an IP address change?
By rockyk
@rockyk (159)
India
November 23, 2012 6:11am CST
Ok, if I sound stupid, please don't laugh but I am really quite pathetic with technical stuff. I want to know what is an IP address? Now, I actually do know a little about it. But why I am asking this question is basically because I want to know something else.
For example, if I buy a internet device in UK and want to use it in say Afghanistan will my IP address remain the same? Or will it change? Or maybe I won't be able to use it outside UK at all? Advise friends!
1 person likes this
2 responses
@murkie (1103)
• Philippines
23 Nov 12
well rockyk, the lamb says it all..
ip is assigned by your provider. even if you have a static ip, i think you still need to get it from your provider. btw, most devices use dynamic ip.
probably you already know something about dynamic and static ips. if you go to your lan properties, you'll see tcp/ip, open the properties, then you can choose either "obtain ip automatically" or "use the following ip address".
i too am not a techie, so i'm not sure if that goes for all other internet capable devices.
and in case you are curious about the mac address: i guess that's the one that does not change.
1 person likes this
@rockyk (159)
• India
23 Nov 12
Well, thanks! I do know a little about static and dynamic IPs not much. I am interested in finding out if someone is lying actually. So, the person says I am sending an email from India but the IP address says UK. That's not possible I would think. Right?
By the way, what is a mac address?
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Nov 12
The MAC address is a unique number assigned by the manufacturer to each device. It is quite separate from an IP address and is used mainly by devices communicating over a network. Your modem, router, PC, mobile phone and printer, for example, all have MAC addresses which uniquely identify that device. Your router records the MAC address of devices trying to connect to it and assigns them their own internal IP address. It may then connect them to the Internet using the IP address which your Internet provider gives it. The latter is your public IP address and is the number by which ALL of the devices on your network are seen to be using. It is the router's job to sort out internally which device to route data to, assuming that you have several devices - say a PC, a couple of laptops and a phone - connected to your network and using the Internet.
To see where an email ACTUALLY came from, find where you can view the FULL HEADER of the email (different email systems have completely different ways of showing this option) and examine the 'Received from:' entries, noting the time stamps. The earliest entry will usually give the public IP address of the machine (or rather, the modem) from which the email was sent.
The only time that this can be made to 'lie' is if the user is intentionally using a PROXY server, which will hide his real IP address and make it appear as if the email was sent from one of the IP addresses assigned to the proxy server. This is usually fairly easy to identify because, if you look up that IP address, the server name/owner of the domain will NOT be that of a recognised Internet provider or email server and will usually be geographically different from the country the email purports to come from.
Most spammers do not use a proxy, either because they cannot be bothered or because most proxy services do not want their IPs labelled as 'known to spam' (and therefore blocked by email providers), so their terms clearly state that spammers will have their accounts terminated.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
23 Nov 12
No it will certainly be a different IP address. The IP address is the identification used on the internet to locate the computer or other device, much in the same way that a telephone number is used. The IP address is allocated by the Internet Service Provider that you connect to in order to gain access to the internet, so it will be registered to that specific server.
At home I use Plus Net, who have allocated me a static IP address, so it is the same every time I go online. When I take my laptop abroad I connect to the server that is used by whoever pays for the internet service, such as the hotel or local café. They allocate me an IP address from their database, which shows where I am in the world.
I often use BBC I-player here in England, but when I visit Spain I cannot use the service because the IP address shows that I am in a country that is not allowed access.
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