Cyber Security(Part-3 Internet Addresses)

 What is an Internet Address?

  An Internet Protocol (IP) address is the unique identifying number assigned to every device connected to the internet. An IP address is a numeric label assigned to devices that use the internet to communicate.

Internet Addresses:

With so many devices connected to the internet, we require some mechanism to uniquely identify every device that is connected to the internet. Also we require some centralized system which takes care of this mechanism so that the signs which are used to identify each device are not duplicate; else the whole purpose is defeated. To take care of this, we have a centralized authority known as Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which is responsible for assigning a unique number known as IP(Internet Protocol) address. An IP address is a 32-bit binary number which is divided into four octets and each octet consists of 8 binary digits and these octet are separated by a dot(.). An example of an IP address is

           11110110.01011010.10011100.1111100

Each 8-bits in an octet can have two binary values i.e. 0 and 1. Therefore, each octet can have minimum value 0. i.e. 00000000 to maximum value 256 i.e. 11111111 and in total have 28 = 256 different combinations.