How to find out your IP address and the IP of someone else's computer

In this article we will look in detail at how to find out the IP address of a computer using special services and programs. A unique computer number on a network may be required for many purposes, including for working in a number of applications.

If several computers are connected to the same network, their IP addresses will always be the same. Therefore, it is enough to find out the unique network number of just one machine.

It is important to know that there are both internal and external IP addresses. The first type is used exclusively within the local network, that is, it is unique only to your provider. The second type exists in a single version, that is, other people cannot have a similar IP address.

A computer's unique network address most often consists of four groups of decimal numbers (from 0 to 255). As an example, here are several IPs: 192.142.4.5, 15.74.31.11 and 178.126.54.40.

IP addresses come in two digital formats: IPv4 (Internet Protocol v. 4), written in 32-bit format (for example, 64.125.8.36), and IPv6 (Internet Protocol v. 6), written in 128-bit format (for example, 2a00 :1fa0:84f2:3961:755c:9b76:5fba:2bb4).

According to the type of IP address determination, there are static and dynamic. Static IPs are permanent for the device, while dynamic IPs are automatically assigned to the device for a limited time: from the beginning to the end of the session.

The methods presented below will tell you how to find out the internal and external IP address of a PC. Carefully follow the instructions in the instructions and then there will be no problems.

What is an IP address

IP address (Internet Protocol Address) is a unique numerical sequence that identifies devices on networks and provides connections between them. Why is this particular standard used?

The computer, server and smartphone do not understand the symbols familiar to humans. All data between physical systems is transferred in the form of numbers. In order for information to reach the desired device, the latter are called a special numerical sequence. This is very convenient: the machines will never get confused, and there are so many numbers that it is easy to make them unique.

A simple example: there are ten computers on a local network. Device user “No. 1” wants to send a letter to user “No. 7”. How to do it? Most likely, it will send the data through special software, such as mail. But how does an email client deliver information to the correct recipient? All he needs to do is contact the main server and request the IP address of computer “No. 7”, and then send a letter using the internal protocol.

The ability to find out the IP address of someone else's computer on the local network

You can determine the IP of a specific computer connected to a local network if you know its name. To do this, open the “Command Prompt” and enter “ping -a” from the keyboard, specifying the name separated by a space - the address will be indicated in the line. Another option: “ping NAME”, where NAME is the computer name.

But if there is no data about someone else’s device, you can only use the “arp -a” command, which displays a table of active IPs on the network.

When connecting a local network to the Internet, the "arp -a" command displays both private and global IP addresses

Types of IP Addresses

The most well-known type is external IP address , which displays the device on the global network. It is issued by the Internet provider, giving the router, modem or directly connected computer access to the server.

IP can be dynamic or static. A dynamic address is issued automatically when connecting to the Internet and changes after reconnection. Most often, users are given exactly the dynamics, since it is profitable for the provider to “drive” addresses between clients; such an IP is called “gray”, that is, it was used by several devices.

A static address is permanently assigned to a specific device. Many providers offer static IP as an additional service. An obvious plus is that there are no traces of other users who could “tarnish” the reputation of the address (for example, get blocked by IP on some resources). Also, with a permanent address it is easier to configure equipment and control device connections.

There is another type - internal . It is used by the device to solve local problems: working within a closed network of computers, connecting peripherals, communicating with a router. Printers, TVs, smartphones, and smart appliances receive addresses.

Do not confuse IP with MAC; the latter is assigned at the factory and identifies physical properties. MAC is rarely used by ordinary users, but it can help out on a local network: for example, parents can block their child from accessing certain Internet resources using the MAC address.

What IP addresses are used on the local network

All network IP addresses are divided into 2 categories:

“White” (external, global, public) - used to connect to the Internet and interact with global networks. Routed, i.e. tracked, distributed and received data. Definitely unique.
“Gray” (internal, private, local) - values reserved for local networks. Allow different devices to communicate with each other within the same local network.

Gray IP addresses allow different devices to communicate with each other within the same local network

Why is it useful to know IP addresses?

Once you find out the external IP address, you can check it for “purity”, see detailed information about the provider, and also work with remote systems, indicating the latest information. Gamers who open a server on their computer send the external IP to other players.

Sometimes it is more useful to know the internal address than the external one. You will be able to see connected devices in the router and remove “uninvited guests”. Sometimes, when connecting additional equipment (printer, SMART TV, etc.), you have to manually change or specify device addresses.

Assigning a computer ID

The device ID is used by home and corporate users, system administrators, and information security specialists. A computer or laptop network adapter ID is needed in the following cases:

linking software licenses to the device;
remote control;
blocking software operation from a remote device;
binding server settings;
technical diagnostics and repairs from a remote computer.

The meaning of MAK is unique. Therefore, it identifies a network device on computer equipment. By ID in the relevant reference information you can find out the manufacturer, brand and batch of the device. You can find out the network adapter ID value on a Windows system using different tools:

via Start;
using the command line;
application of software for technical diagnostics.

They are used equally widely, but have different duration of implementation. You can find out the MAC address of your computer’s network card by entering the appropriate instructions in the Windows 10 command line. This information can also be found through the operating system interface. To do this, it has built-in additional programs that show the technical parameters of the devices included in the computer or laptop.

How to find out external IP address

Finding out the external IP is very simple: just type the phrase “my ip” in Yandex, and the search engine will return the public address. For in-depth statistics, the services 2ip.ru or whoer.net are used. On the last site you can see if the IP is blacklisted or has security problems.

A public external address is not a cause for concern. This is just information about the provider’s server with which Internet resources will connect. As a last resort, use a VPN.

How to view your computer ID using diagnostic programs

AIDA64 is considered a popular software for diagnosing computer equipment. You can download it on the official website of the developer. The installation is standard, the interface is simple for users without deep technical knowledge. The software is paid, but there is a trial period of 30 days, during which it is quite possible to find out the computer ID in Windows 10 and even conduct technical diagnostics. The network adapter identifier in the described diagnostic software is located on the following branch:

in the main AIDA64 window, select Network - Windows Network - name of the target network card;
the technical characteristics of the selected equipment will appear in the list below, where you need to pay attention to the line Hardware address (this is the computer ID).
Read also: How to bypass Google account after resetting settings. 3 ways

Please note that the MAC address of a network device can be changed. This is done when absolutely necessary, for example, when there is no desire to manually change the computer’s binding to certain network settings of the provider. This is done through the built-in task manager block in the network card settings. Despite the classic appearance of the ID (2 characters and a colon or dash between them), the changed address should be written down without special characters. It is not recommended to change the ID yourself, as there is a risk for the user to simply get confused in the previous equipment settings.

Search for internal IP

Depending on the operating system, the principle of searching for internal IP also changes. On Windows, the easiest way to work is through the command line. To open it, right-click on “Start” and select the “Command Prompt” heading. If you have Windows 7, hold down “Win+R”, type cmd and press “Enter”. In the window that appears, write ipconfig and “Enter” again. An IPv4 address is the numeric name of a computer.

If you need to add your own IP, go to Control Panel and find Network and Sharing Center. It will reflect all external and internal connections. Let's say you want to change the Ethernet configuration. Click on the corresponding heading and in the window that opens, click on “Properties”. Among the marked components, we are interested in “IP version 4”, so we open it. Uncheck the “Obtain an IP address automatically” checkbox and specify a different address.

Android shells differ in the location of the settings, but most often information about the local IP is located in the wireless connections section. If you can’t find the data, install the free program IP Tools: Wi-Fi Analyzer .

To view IP in macOS , go to “System Preferences” and select “Network”. In the window you need to find the desired connection and click on it. The internal address will appear under the status and configuration settings.

In iOS, finding network information is also easy: go to Wi-Fi settings and click on the round “i” icon.

Solving tasks 12 Unified State Exam in computer science

IP address and domain name of the site: construction rules

12_7: Solution to task 12 (Polyakov K., option 17): Four scraps of paper were found at the crime scene. The investigation established that they contained fragments of the same IP address. Forensic scientists have labeled these fragments with the letters A, B, C and D. Recover the IP address. In your answer, provide the sequence of letters representing the fragments in order corresponding to the IP address.

✍ Solution:

Let's remember the rules for constructing an IP address.

Let's exclude fragments that cannot correspond to the beginning of the IP address: this is fragment B (an IP address cannot begin with a dot).

Let's exclude fragments that cannot correspond to the end of the IP address: this is fragment B (the absence of a dot at the beginning, and, at the same time, in the remaining fragments there are no ones where there would be a dot (***.) at the end).

Fragment A must either be in last place, or after it there must be only B (since the point must come next).

Fragment B can only be at the end, since the fragment following it will increase the number to a value greater than 255 , which cannot be in the IP address (for example, 322).

Let's go through the remaining options and find the required IP address:

VGAB: 222.222.222.32 Answer: VGAB
12_8: Solution to task 12 (Polyakov K., option 7): On the server school.edu there is a file rating.net , accessed via the http . Fragments of the address of this file are encoded with the letters a, b, c... g (see table). Write down the sequence of these letters that encodes the address of the specified file on the Internet.

a	.edu
b	school
c	.net
d	/
e	rating
f	http
g	://

✍ Solution:

Answer: fgbadec

Determining the network address by IP address and network mask

12_3: Solution to task 12 (Polyakov K., option 25): In the terminology of TCP/IP networks, a network mask is a binary number that shows which part of the IP address of a network host refers to the network address, and which part refers to the host address in this network . The network address is obtained by applying a bitwise conjunction to a given node address and its mask.

Using the given host IP address and mask, determine the network address :

IP address: 145.92.137.88 Mask: 255.255.240.0

When writing down the answer, select the four elements of the IP address from the numbers given in the table and write down the letters corresponding to them without dots in the required order.

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
0	145	255	137	128	240	88	92

Typical training tasks

✍ Solution:

To solve the problem, you need to remember that the IP address of the network, as well as the network mask, are stored in 4 bytes written with a dot. That is, each of the individual IP address and netmask numbers are stored in 8-bit binary form. To obtain the network address, it is necessary to perform a bitwise conjunction of these numbers.
Since the number 255 in binary representation is 8 ones, then when combined bitwise with any number, the result will be the same number. Thus, there is no need to take into account those bytes of the IP address that correspond to the number 255 in the network mask. Therefore, the first two numbers of the IP address will remain the same ( 145.92).
It remains to consider the numbers 137 and 88 of the IP address and 240 of the mask. The number 0 in the mask corresponds to eight zeros in binary representation, that is, a bitwise conjunction with any number will turn this number into 0.
Let's convert both numbers of the IP address and network mask into the binary system and write the IP address and mask below each other to carry out the bitwise conjunction:

137 : 10001001 88 : 1011000 - IP address 240 : 11110000 0 : 00000000 - network mask 10000000 00000000 - result of the bitwise conjunction

Let's convert the result to the 10th number system:

100000002 = 12810

In total, for the network address we get the bytes:

145.92.128.0

We match the letters in the table and get BHEA .

Result: BHEA

We invite you to watch a detailed video analysis:

Determining the network mask

12_1: Unified State Exam in Computer Science 2022 task 12 FIPI option 1 (Krylov S.S., Churkina T.E.): In the terminology of TCP/IP networks, a network mask is a binary number that determines which part of the IP address of a network host relates to the network address , and which one - to the address of the node itself in this network. Typically, the mask is written according to the same rules as the IP address - as four bytes, with each byte written as a decimal number. In this case, the mask first contains ones (in the highest digits), and then from a certain digit there are zeros. The network address is obtained by applying a bitwise conjunction to the given host IP address and mask.

For example, if the host IP address is 211.132.255.41 and the mask is 255.255.201.0, then the network address is 211.132.201.0

For a node with an IP address of 200.15.70.23, the network address is 200.15.64.0 . What is the smallest possible value of the third byte from the left of the mask? Write your answer as a decimal number. Typical training tasks

✍ Solution:

The third byte from the left corresponds to the number 70 in the IP address and 64 in the network address.
The network address is the result of the bitwise conjunction of the mask and the IP address in binary:

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -> third byte of the AND mask (&) 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 02 -> 7010 = 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 02 -> 6410

The smallest possible result of the mask could be:

1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 - third byte of the AND mask (&) 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 02 -> 7010 = 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 02 -> 6410

Here the most significant bit is taken as one, although the result of the conjunction could have been taken as zero (0 & 0 = 0). However, since the next one is a guaranteed one, it means that we also put 1 in the most significant bit. As you know, the mask contains first ones, and then zeros (it cannot be like this: 0100..., but it can only be like this: 1100...).
Let's convert 110000002 to the 10th number system and get 192.

Result:192

A step-by-step solution to this 12th task of the Unified State Exam in computer science is available in the video tutorial:

12_2: 12th task. Demo version of the Unified State Exam 2018 computer science: In the terminology of TCP/IP networks, a network mask is a binary number that determines which part of the IP address of a network node refers to the network address, and which part refers to the address of the node itself in this network. Typically, the mask is written according to the same rules as the IP address - in the form of four bytes, with each byte written as a decimal number. In this case, the mask first contains ones (in the highest digits), and then from a certain digit there are zeros. The network address is obtained by applying a bitwise conjunction to the given host IP address and mask.

For example, if the host IP address is 231.32.255.131 and the mask is 255.255.240.0, then the network address is 231.32.240.0. For a node with an IP address of 57.179.208.27, the network address is 57.179.192.0 . What is the largest possible number of ones in the digits of the mask? Typical training tasks

✍ Solution:

Since the network address is obtained as a result of applying a bitwise conjunction to a given host IP address and mask, we get:

255.255.?.? -> mask & 57.179.208.27 -> IP address = 57.179.192.0 -> network address

Since the first two bytes on the left in the host IP address and the network address are the same, it means that in order to obtain such a result in a bitwise conjunction in the binary system, the mask must contain all ones. Those.:

111111112 = 25510

In order to find the remaining two bytes of the mask, it is necessary to convert the corresponding bytes in the IP address and network address to the 2nd number system. Let's do it:

20810 = 110100002 19210 = 110000002

Now let's see what the mask for this byte can be. Let's number the bits of the mask from right to left:

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 -> mask & 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 = 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

For the 5th bit we get: ? & 0 = 0 -> the mask can contain both one and 0. But since the assignment asks us for the largest possible number of ones, it means that it is necessary to say that in the mask this bit is equal to 1 .
For the 4th bit we get: ? & 1 = 0 0 can be in the mask .
Since the mask contains first ones and then all zeros, then after this zero in the 4th bit all the rest will be zeros. And the 4th byte from the left of the mask will be 010.
Let's get the mask: 11111111.11111111.11100000.00000000.
Let's count the number of units in the mask:

8 + 8 + 3 = 19Result:19

For a detailed solution to task 12 of the demo version of the Unified State Exam 2022, watch the video:

12_9: Solution to task 12 (from K. Polyakov’s website, option 139): Two nodes located in different subnets have IP addresses 132.46.175.26 and 132.46.170.130 . The masks of both subnets have the same number of units. Specify the smallest possible number of units in the masks of these subnets.

✍ Solution:

In a subnet mask, first there are 1 bits that correspond to the subnet address in the computer's IP address. Since the subnet addresses of the two computers from the problem statement are different, but the number of units in their masks is the same, it is necessary to determine the first bit on the left in the IP addresses of the computers, which will be different for them. This bit will refer to the subnet address, and the remaining bits to the right of it may refer to the computer address.
Thus, we find the first distinct bit on the left:

175: 10101111 170: 10101010

We get that in the subnet mask all bits, including the one that corresponds to the selected ones, will be equal to one. Let's display this by converting only the byte of interest to us into the binary number system. Let's select that part of the addresses that corresponds to the smallest possible subnet address (correspondingly, the smallest number of units in the mask):

address 1: 132.46.10101111.26 address 2: 132.46.10101010.130 mask: 255.255.11111100.00000000

255 for a mask is 8 units. Let's calculate the total number of units in the mask (it is the same for both computers):

8 + 8 + 6 = 22Answer:22

Number of different mask values

12_6: Solution to task 12 (Regional work, Far East, 2018): For a node with IP address 93.138.161.94, the network address is 93.138.160.0 . For how many different mask values is this possible? Typical training tasks

✍ Solution:

Result: 5

Video analysis of the task:

Determining the computer number

12_4: Solution to task 12 (Polyakov K., option 33): If the subnet mask is 255.255.255.128 and the IP address of the computer on the network is 122.191.12.189 , then the number of the computer on the network is _____. Typical training tasks

✍ Solution:

The single bits of the mask (equal to one) determine the subnet address, because The subnet address is the result of the bitwise conjunction (logical multiplication) of the mask bits with the IP address.
The rest of the mask (starting with the first zero) specifies the computer number.
Since in binary representation the number 255 is eight ones (11111111), then with a bitwise conjunction with any number, the same number is returned (1 ∧ 0 = 0; 1 ∧ 1 = 1). Thus, we will not consider those bytes in the mask that are equal to the numbers 255, because they define the subnet address.
Let's start our consideration with byte equal to 128 . It corresponds to byte 189 of the IP address. Let's convert these numbers to the binary number system:

128 = 100000002 189 = 101111012

Those bits of the IP address that correspond to the zero bits of the mask are used to determine the computer number. Let's convert the resulting binary number to the decimal number system:

01111012 = 6110 Result:61

For a detailed solution to this task, watch the video:

Finding out someone else's address

If you have received a letter and you want to find out the name of someone else's computer, you can use the mail.ru mail resource. For this:

open the received letter;
in the menu, find the link “more” and “service headers”;
the necessary information will be written on the text page that opens.

It is difficult to imagine how many users are on social networks every day. Millions of people correspond there, like and leave comments. If for some reason you need to find out the address of your interlocutor, you can use the IPLogger service.

Using it, you generate a special short link and send it to your interlocutor. After he clicks it, he is automatically redirected to the site specified in the link. Now in the statistics you can see the IP of the person who followed the link.

You can also view the computer name by IP of someone else's user through Yandex mail. To do this, you need to open any letter and click on its properties, in the field that opens with incomprehensible inscriptions, find the desired line. The third-party sites mentioned above can also help with this.

I hope my article was useful to you, and you understand how to find out the ip of your computer, just choose the option that is convenient for you. In fact, this data is not particularly informative for users, including attackers, unless they are advanced hackers and want to get their hands on something important. The only thing that can be found out from the IP is the approximate location of the device from which the letters or messages on social networks were sent.

What does a network address look like?

An IP address is a 32-bit (IPv4) or 128-bit (IPv6) binary number. A convenient form of writing an IP address (IPv4) is as four decimal numbers (from 0 to 255) separated by dots, for example, 192.168.0.1.

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