24.
“Due to the immense number of computers connected to the internet, we ran out of IP addresses* to hand out to each individual device (since the late ’90’s if you can believe it).”
“To solve this, a method known as ‘Network Address Translation‘ was implemented so that we could group devices behind a single central network device. That central network device is known as a router, though nowadays most people associate that with the WiFi network. Without our routers and NAT, things would be very different. Imagine having to wait for an address to free up before you could connect to your favorite website!
*There are more physical devices than there are public IPv4 addresses, however a “newer” standard known as IPv6 is slowly becoming the standard. There are trillions of trillions of IPv6 addresses so we will not be running into the same issues as IPv4 any time soon.”
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