IP Address Explanations

What is an IP address?
An IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a technique of identification provided to computers that are connected to the Internet. It is typically comprised of a unique series of numbers and serves a similar purpose as identification cards for employees.

What is the purpose of an IP address?
When computers are connected to the Internet, there is naturally a need to have them distinguishable from all the other thousands and thousands of computers online. This is where IP addresses come in. Each computer that connects to the Internet will be assigned a unique connection identifier: this is what we call the IP address. In an Internet café for example, where there are typically several computers hooked up to a main server, each of them will have its own unique IP address, as will the main server.

Dynamic IP vs. Static IP
You should know that the IP address is not a user identifier. The current technology allows servers to assign dynamically new IP addresses to each reconnection, and this means that you won’t have necessarily the same IP address on each connection. This is what we call a dynamic connection. On the other hand, you have another technology that preaches the static connection. You might have guessed that this type of server assigns a static IP address to each user. The latter won’t give you the chance to change your IP address, unless you contact your ISP to ask for it. Each one of these technologies has advantages and inconveniences. When you have a dynamical connection, you will be on less risk to be traced and followed by websites, and get monitored. They won’t be able to identify you effortlessly. On the other hand, the static IP technology is mainly better when it gets to distanced and remote connections where you have to connect to a remote device that should have a unique IP. If the device changes IP each time it connects to the Internet, then you will have a hard time identifying the IP address to reconnect to the device.

Security and Safety
What you should also get aware of, is even if you cannot be traced right away with your IP address, people can still get access to your system by some unethical methods via your IP address and try to identify you and steal sensitive informations and compromise your security. You should also know, that law enforcement agencies can get in touch with any ISP (Internet service provider), and can identify the person who is or was behind an IP address at a certain time and place. This is why most illegal online transactions are usually not completed via direct Internet connections, but they are buffered via an anonymous connection. The main use of this anonymous connection was originally to keep honest users away from hackers who try to get access to computers via the typical ISP connection. As a result, some services got developed to provide a buffer between your computer and your ISP that will change, clear and hide your traces. In addition, the service is designed to secure the tunnel of information sent during business intercourses that held sensitive informations. Nowadays, lots of people use it to have peace of mind by reducing their personal Internet connection exposure to potential hackers.

Technical information
IP addresses come in a few different classes, namely: Class A, B, C, D and E. According to Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR), the IP address’ particular class depends on the numbers of bits that a certain computer is using. The bigger the support a particular computer provides, the greater the numbers of bits it uses.

How then can you identify which specific class a computer belongs to? Here is a breakdown of each classification and the bits in each class:

Class A
Class A addresses have 16,777,214 hosts over 127 networks. Its initial byte is 0 - 127. There are only 126 Class A’s in existence.

Class B
Class B addresses have 65,532 hosts over 16,000 networks. Its initial byte is 128 – 191 and there are only 16,384 Class B’s in existence.

Class C
Class C addresses have 254 hosts over 2 million networks. Its initial byte is 192 – 223 and there are 2,097,152 Class C’s currently in existence.

Class D
Class D is a multicast address for multiple clients or devices connected to a single host.

Class E
Class E is reserved.

CIDR’s concern is to make sure that no IP addresses are wasted, which means that every assigned Internet protocol addresses must be in use. Back in 1970, IP addresses were only classified as A, B and C. Realizing that some IP addresses were being wasted, they added two other classes to supply users with minimum use.

Are IP addresses safe?
Since local area network users and main servers have their own IP addresses, it naturally follows that each country has its own too. In this way, it sort of serves as an area code for every country. The identifier for each country is found in the first numbers in the IP address. This makes it easy to identify which country a certain user is in.

As for the safety issue, IP addresses are not always a reliable indicator of location. Even though the country of origin can readily be identified, proxy servers can be used to show a totally different IP address than the actual one.

A proxy server acts as a buffer between your computer and the Internet. It can also greatly increase the speed of your connection to the Internet, thus increasing overall performance.

An anonymous proxy server is a type of proxy server that will hide your IP address. These can be used to protect you from being spied on, followed or monitored by unscrupulous elements on the Internet, who may otherwise be able to steal personal information from you or cause harm to your computer. Of course, the inverse is also true. Anonymous proxy servers have been used by people with less than honorable intentions as well. Virtually the entire community of hackers is well versed in using this technology for illegal means. The anonymity that these proxy servers provide gives them free reign to carry out their activities with less risk of being caught.

Hide your IP address
Many websites and most hackers use IP addresses to monitor your personal informations, your activity and your emails. Your security can be seriously compromised once someone has access to this information. We highly recommend all our visitors to hide their ip address. We will be offering very soon a service in association with a major US ISP to deliver you the best tool to hide your IP.