: Difference between private address and Mac address
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[Obligatory Mr. Robot meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/MrRobot/comments/9loizq/i_dont_watch_new_shows_much_there_are_just_way/).
A MAC address is a hardware limited number associated with your network card. It uses hexadecimal, with 16 digits, 0-9 plus A,B,C,D,E,F. The MAC looks like this: FF:FF:FF:00:00:00, with the first 3 sections as a specific network card manufacturer designation, then the last 3 sections being specific to your network card. (Do note that certain operating systems can “randomize” or spoof a fake MAC address for security reasons. Namely Linux and Android can do this.)
Your private internal IP address is what is used to communicate with other devices on your local network. These can be 192.168.x.x, 172.16.x.x, or 10.x.x.x. These addresses are specifically reserved for local networks and will not work on the internet.
There is also some other special reserved addresses, like 127.0.0.1, which is a loopback address. If you ping this address, you are pinging yourself. Commonly referred to as your “home” address.
There is also [APIPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-local_address#IPv4) which will give you a 169.254.x.x IP address, when there is no DHCP server available on your local network.
This isn’t even considering IPv4, as detailed above, versus IPv6.
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