2 iphones with same IP address??

[Boring Kitty]

Is this possible?
I am currently trying to prove that it is not and would love explanation as to why it would appear that 5 separate users on my website happen to have the same IP address. I think it's one person with multiple screen names and want to make sure. Thanks a lot

[MileHighRob]

2 threads with the same question?

[Boring Kitty]

Thought I deleted the other. My bad.

[MileHighRob]

Originally Posted by Boring Kitty

Thought I deleted the other. My bad.

No problem. Just giving you a hard time.

Seriously though people comb these boards obsessively. If there's an answer out there for you, you'll get it without having to double post.

Welcome to EIC!

[patrickj]

It's absolutely possible. Just as one quick example, many small to medium businesses use NAT (Network Address Translation) so that all their network traffic outside their own LAN uses just one public (internet routable) IP address, while all machines / devices on their internal network will still each use unique private (not routable on the internet) addresses.

So you could have several users all coming from one company network.

[iphonewarrior]

Originally Posted by patrickj

It's absolutely possible. Just as one quick example, many small to medium businesses use NAT (Network Address Translation) so that all their network traffic outside their own LAN uses just one public (internet routable) IP address, while all machines / devices on their internal network will still each use unique private (not routable on the internet) addresses.

So you could have several users all coming from one company network.

Indeed you are correct.

There maybe many people from the same NAT trying to look up something, it may have come up in a conversation at their work or something... just guessing.

By the time i'd pressed reply. You beat me to it

[Boring Kitty]

Ok, well what if the "people" in question are clearly not co workers, and are clearly "residing" in different areas of the country. Does this have bearing?

[patrickj]

Originally Posted by Boring Kitty

Ok, well what if the "people" in question are clearly not co workers, and are clearly "residing" in different areas of the country. Does this have bearing?

How are you determining where they reside etc.?

Depending on how your website is setup, and what hosting company you use / the tools they provide, it should be fairly easy to determine where traffic / comments etc are coming from.

[Hawk]

Let's simplify this a little.
If 2 phones are on 2 different networks, they technically can have the same internal (inside a private network) IP address. example: if your phone on your home network has IP 192.168.0.100, someone else on a different home network can easily have the same IP address.
Now, if both phones are on the same network, you can manually assign the same IP address, but it would cause a conflict and only one or none of the phones would be able to communicate.
Another instance would be that from my office, ALL network traffic goes through our fire wall at one point, and externally on the web, everything would show the same IP address. Example: 27.254.4.57 (i made this up) would be the exit port in the firewall to reach the internet, and everything behind the firewall would show that IP address when they are connected to the web - from the web side.

But that is about the only circumstances that 2 different devices would show the same IP address. Otherwise, if the IP addresses are automatically assigned, each device would get it's own IP address based on the "hardware address" of the device. (also known as a MAC address - not related to Apple) every piece of communication hardware out there has a unique hardware address so that over-lapping (which is what you are asking about) does not occur. There are ways around that, but it would have to be intentional and the IP address manually configured, and again one or both devices would fail to communicate.