0

When I connect to the internet, my provider assigns me an IP.

If someone else does that at the exact same time in another country with a totally separate provider, what keeps them from getting the same IP? Is there a super provider which all providers request IPs from? Or maybe, does each provider/country have its own ranges?

Seph Reed
  • 121
  • 4
  • 2
    The Internet works by cooperation and agreement. IANA owns the IP addresses, assigns some to each of the five RIRs, who in turn assign to companies (ISPs are also companies). ISPs not abiding by the agreements will soon find themselves cut of by the other ISPs to which they connect, thus isolating the ISP from the Internet. – Ron Maupin Nov 14 '19 at 17:58
  • https://www.iana.org/ Very interesting. Thank you. – Seph Reed Nov 14 '19 at 18:24
  • Even if an ISP assigned an ip address that belonged to another RIR it wouldn't work, as no traffic would be routed to or from the ip address. – joeqwerty Nov 14 '19 at 20:49
  • 1
    @joeqwerty there are numerous attacks, or just misconfigurations because of fat fingers, where one AS announces IP blocks that it should not announce and hence getting all the traffic. It happens even to the biggest one, Youtube was "diverted" by an ISP in Pakistan, see https://www.cnet.com/news/how-pakistan-knocked-youtube-offline-and-how-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again/ The solution against that is RPKI – Patrick Mevzek Nov 15 '19 at 06:46

0 Answers0