External IP Discovery

Why do I need my IP?

Knowing your Internet Protocol or IP Address is important for many network or internet applications.  This address, just like your home address, is a unique identifier that lets other computers on the network or internet know where to send any data when attempting to talk to your computer.  There are two important IP addresses for your computer, your internal address for use in talking to other computers on your local network, and your external address, which is used to talk to the internet.  This article is focused on how to find your external address.

How do I find my IP?

The easiest way to discover your external IP address, is to simply use the website https://whatismyip.com.  If you go to that website, you'll see the following information:

This is a display of your external IP information.  As seen, there are four pieces of information.  Let's go through them.

IPv4:  This is your Internet Protocol version 4 address.  It's the address most commonly used in internet transactions.  It consists of 4 numbers ranging from 1 to 255 separated by a period.

IPv6:  This is your Internet Protocol version 6 address.  This address is little used outside of high level networking at the moment, though it's getting more prevalent as IPv4 addresses become more scarce.  It consists of 8 sets of 4 hexidecimal characters separated by a colon.  Unlike the 4.29 billion potential IPv4 addresses, IPv6 can have up to 340 undecillion addresses (trust me, it's a big number).

IP Location:  As it says, it's the location registered for the IP you're broadcasting to the internet.

ISP:  The name given by your Internet Service Provider.  As you can see on the example, someone at Spectrum failed their spelling test.

Security

Just a note, be sure to provide this address only to trusted sources.  Just like you wouldn't want your home address in the hands of a group that's sending out mail bombs, you don't want your Internet adress in the hands of hackers.