The internet is a huge system. How can specific things be easily found in such an enormous space?

Any device that connects to the internet is assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) Address. This address is different from any other device on the internet, so it makes it easy to find. That means that every network router, every computer, every smartphone, every smartTV, every internet-enabled toaster …all have their own, unique IP address. Obviously, with such a huge system, the details about IP addresses is more complicated!

Each IP address can be dynamic or static. Dynamic addresses are used for devices that might move to different locations or might not be online all the time. Your personal computer or laptop, any smartphone, and most consumer devices are all assigned dynamic addresses. They get assigned a new address every time they reconnect to the internet. Static addresses are typically kept for businesses or organizations that have file servers that are always connected. This is expensive to maintain, so it’s mostly used by businesses and organizations. Wikipedia’s servers, for example, have a static IP address.

There are also different versions of IP addresses. The most commonly used version is IPv4, or version 4. This is the older version and is made up of four 32-bit numbers that can each be from 0 to 255. (For example, one of Wikipedia’s IP addresses is 208.80.154.224) That system worked for many years on the internet and was set up because it was felt that, with over 4,000,000,000 different combinations, it would serve the internet just fine. As the internet expanded and more devices connected to the internet (like smart watches, TVs, refrigerators and more!), it was decided that more addresses were needed, so IPv6 (version 6) was set up. (Don’t try to use version 5!) This uses 8 groups of 128-bit numbers, shown as four hexadecimal digits each, separated by a colon. So an example of an IPv6 address is 2620:0db8:3c4d:0015:0000:0000:1a2f:1a2b (these can be shortened, so that a real IPv6 address for Wikipedia is shortened to 2620:0:861:ed1a::1). This numbering system could theoretically have up to this many different addresses: 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That should last for a while! 

For more information on IP addresses, check out my online course “Conquer Computer Science: Networks and Data Transmission”