Do my computer and phone have the same IP address if they’re connected to the same wifi? If so, how do the websites distinguish my computer from my phone?
In: 5
Imagine two apartment buildings, A and B. A’s address is 123 Main Street. B’s address is 223 Main Street. Those addresses are like your IP addresses. Your home network is like an apartment building, it has one IP address.
Each of those buildings has individual apartments with their own numbers. Lets say there are 5 apartments in each, and they are number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. those are like your devices addresses on your local WiFi network. If you want to go to an apartment in your same building you can ignore the buildings address, you are already there. Same with devices on your home network, they can talk to each other without using the Internet. But if you want to talk to another building you have to know their IP address.
Here is where things change. If I live in building A and you living in building B and we want to send letters to each other, we have to know the full address. But in the internet thats not the case. When I send a message to you using the internet I don’t need to know your full address. I just give your name and IP. When it gets to your building the building looks up your room number and delivers it to you. Even if you change apartments, as long as you are in the same building, I can send letters to you without doing anything different. Your building routes the traffic to the correct apartment, and if you send a letter to me my building does the same.
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