Simple IP address question, explanation wanted

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curiousdude

Honorable
Oct 18, 2013
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I've tried googling this but didn't exactly find the answer I wanted. I'm trying to understand how IP address network traffic work.

I don't have a website, or any server or anything set up. It's a small home net work for just personal internet use. I decided to turn the log traffic to the "on" in my network. I then looked at the log, and found that there were incoming IPs'. I'm wondering, since I don't have any website set up or anything, why would I have incoming IP address. So I thought, perhaps it's the website I go to, they are collecting my IP address (and correct me if I am wrong, still new/learning about this).

Anyway, that's not as important, but something really struck out to me when I decided to track one of those ip address on an ip address tracking website. When I did this, one of the address came back to my previous company. I've left that company, but why is their IP address shown on my router? I did not visit their website or anything at all, but why is the incoming traffic logging my previous company's ip address? Can some one explain to me how this works.
 
Solution
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Your PC will have an unrouted IP address like 192.168.1.X.
Your modem or router will have a real internet IP address on the outside link and then an internal IP in the same range as your PC.
What this means is that nothing on the internet can connect directly to your PC. It must connect to the external IP address and this will only get passed back to your PC if there is a specific port forwarding rule in the modem or router, or if this is a response to a request from your PC.
If you are seeing a packet coming in from your old work, it probably means something on your home network has initiated the connection.
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VincentP

Splendid
Oct 18, 2013
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Your PC will have an unrouted IP address like 192.168.1.X.
Your modem or router will have a real internet IP address on the outside link and then an internal IP in the same range as your PC.
What this means is that nothing on the internet can connect directly to your PC. It must connect to the external IP address and this will only get passed back to your PC if there is a specific port forwarding rule in the modem or router, or if this is a response to a request from your PC.
If you are seeing a packet coming in from your old work, it probably means something on your home network has initiated the connection.
 
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BuddhaSkoota

BuddhaSkoota

Admirable
Aug 16, 2014
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The IP addresses don't necessarily indicate a connection to a web page. There are likely services running on a computer that requires a connection to a server.

Did you use your computer to connect to your previous company's network at any time, or use any company software? Configure an email client to check company email? It may not be malicious, but possibly something that you have forgotten you used at some point during your employment.
 
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