Question about IP address

[Sash]

Question about IP address

Hi, can any one solve this little question I have about IP address? Ok say you have a ISP right and a IP address which changes every time you log on. Can some one find out what ISP you are currently with by that IP address? I am all so fire walled. Some web sites like win drivers say that they have logged your IP address

[PJPilate]

I'll try to tackle this....

IP addresses are assigned by ICANN (hope this is right)... IPs are assigned in chunks to companies that request it, who then assign them to smaller companies and so on... So, if you have an ip that starts with like.... 24.xxx.xxx.xxx, odds are that you are on a cable modem (most likely @home), other ISPs break down their IP pools into smaller ones for smaller companies to use for webservers, firewalls, routers, etc.

So, as for knowing the ISP from the IP address, certainly you can. If the person wants to get that info, they can look at the hostname of your computer (yourpc.location.isp.com/net) and know where the IP comes from.

As for the firewall, when you are behind those, you have an internal and external IP. the internal one is something like 10.x.x.x or 192.x.x.x, and the external one is the firewall, which all the websites "log" This makes you safe from DoS and other attacks, since the firewall does blocking of incoming traffic

[yingling]

Yeah, what he said!

[ephmynus]

Also, a simple tracert may be able to show you the ISP. A tracert will show you all the steps it takes to get from your origin to the destination of your choice (ip address). Many times, the information shown in a tracert will also show your ISP name just be looking through the context. I know Bellsouth and @home as well as many others will show up through a tracert of the particular IP address.

[Larommi]

In addition to tracert, a program like neotrace gives you access to more information from every hop.

[Sash]

Why do some web based forums log your IP address? I am only curios because the another day I went on a forum and posted a reply to some one and it said on the right side of the screen IP logged. I thought a firewall was to hide your IP address so it couldn't be detected? All so could you give me a bit more info about what is a firewall and whats it meant to do? Ps is the windowsXP protection firewall any good?

[Gollo]

The reason they log the ip is if the person begins to spam the site or flood the forums than they can block it out or find out who the person is.
And no a firewall does not hide the ip given by your isp it only hides your computer. If it hid your IP you wouldn't be able to log onto the internet.
A firewall shuts all your ports on your computer so that when somebody does a scan of your IP address they wont be able to initiate communication with your pc and maybe take it over or something to that effect.
I've heard that the firewall built into xp is flaky. I haven't used it this is what I've heard. Anybody else?