Internet Protocol Address

What are they?
An IP or Internet Protocol Address is a unique identifier that every machine has on a network. They are used to identify what machines on a network information should be sent to. All computers that have an IP have at least an IPv4 with newer networks starting to include an IPv6 as well. IP's make it so users can ping other IP's to see if they are connected to the network as well as latency between the machines. It can also be used to locate a machine in the real world. For users trying to remain anonymous programs like IP Scramblers should be used in order to prevent others from obtaining your IP.

IPv4
IPv4 Uses a 32 bits to create a single unique address on a network. Each IP is four numbers separated by dots. Each number is the decimal representation for an octet or eight digit binary number. This was developed before the internet was a large institution and because of this there are only 4.3 billion unique addresses with each section only having 232 possible combinations.

IPv6
IPv6 use 128 binary bits to create a unique address. Unlike IPv4 this uses 8 groups of hexadecimal numbers separated by colons ie. 2001:cdba:0000:0000:0000:0000:3257:9652. Some times when the groups are all zeros they are omitted and just shown as empty brackets as such, 2001:cdba::3257:9652. IPv6 has 2128 different combinations thus increasing the total number of possible unique addresses.

Static Vs Dynamic IP
Static IP's are assigned by the user and as the name suggests they do not change unless done so by the user. Dynamic IP's are out of the users control and are changed when they access a network. They are often assigned by the users internet service provider. These can be changed after each use or even in extreme cases every time an action is completed.