Just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone for voting on the TopMudSites link this week. I think it's the biggest turnout I've seen since we first joined the ranking system.
-Shinigami
Yeah, this week has been great. Thank Krath for labs at school with 30+ computers. *chuckles*
I've been wondering about that. Topmudsites keeps track of votes based on IP, right? Do lab computers, presumably all connected to the internet via the same network, have unique IP addresses?
In some networks they have like lab601.<bla> lab602.<bla>... I know because I voted about 15 times. :p
[EDIT] Whoops. Dunno how this double post got here.
Quote from: "HaiWolfe"I've been wondering about that. Topmudsites keeps track of votes based on IP, right? Do lab computers, presumably all connected to the internet via the same network, have unique IP addresses?
Chances are that they won't have a unique address as far as the internet is concerned because most places don't want to pay for a large range of IP addresses when they can accomplish the same thing by using NAT (network address translation) or a proxy server and RFC 1918 addresses.
RFC 1918 addresses are non-routable IP networks that have been set aside for internal use. 172.16.0.0/16 is an example, the 192.168.x.x network is another. I also believe that 10.0.0.0/8 is as well.
Anyways, there are no routes on the internet for these networks, so internal nets can feel free to use them internall behind a NATing firewall or device or a proxy server.
NATing is pretty simple. A gateway machine or device on your network is dual-homed to the internet and when your host routes traffic to it. The NATing gateway then forwards the request substiting its IP as the source. When it gets a response it sends the traffic onto your machine. The destination host thinks its talking to the NATing gateway when its really talking to you.
Proxy servers take your request, go out and get the information and then take it and send it back to you, doing all of your DNS lookups for you.
Another reason why I doubt that your lab computers are all using valid routable IP addresses is because that means a failure or user error on your packet filtering gateway leaves your machine wide open to the internet.
But, who knows. At least I get to pretend I look smart.
At any rate, I wouldn't do too much lab computer hopping to up our vote, I think that's frowned upon at Topmudsites.
Jeeeeeeesus, we're still second, vote vote vote!!