What is the difference between an IP Address and a MAC Address?
What is the difference between an IP Address and a MAC Address? What is an IP Address? An IP Address is a numeric representation of a device (computer, game console, etc.) on a computer network that uses TCP/IP to communicate (the logical connection of most of the internet). What is a MAC Address? A MAC Address is a numeric representation of a device (computer, game console, etc.) on a computer network that uses Ethernet to communicate (the physical connection between most computers and…
Why do computers need both MAC Addresses and IP Addresses?
We know from previous posts that each computer has both an IP Address and a MAC Address assigned to it. But, why is this? If every computer in order to communicate with each other needed to be physically connected to each other, all networks either would become complicated very quickly or they would stay small. Imagine if in order to go to google.com you had to have a physical wire connecting your computer out to Palo Alto California, just to see their website. Now imagine, you also needed a…