PC and cell phone share same IP address?

Question

So there is a forum I go to. I have two accounts on this forum. One, I use my laptop, and the other I use my cell phone. My laptop is connected to my wifi, of course, but I never use my home wifi on my phone. I always go off my data plan. How would the mods know that I have multiple accounts if I never use my home wifi when I'm using the account that goes through my cell phone? One mod claimed the accounts have the same IP, but how is that possible?

Answer 1

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Answer 2

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Answer 3

It's not possible for this situation. I will give you a quick example, Lets say you are connecting to www.bank.com. The phone company sends an IP Address for that site. This is range A. Now you start walking away from range A, and now you have reached another range called B. This will start sending IP address's to that phone. The IP Address can be the same or might be different. Depending on what the DHCP, and DNS configured for the IP address. It can also have multiple IP Address's. Stated from the DNS. It's not possible for them to have the same IP address as the phone company will be sending out a different IP address then the ISP (Internet service provider) through your WiFi. I don't know much on how mobile companies work, but I do know that your network will configure multiple client IP address's. So to answer your question, no its not possible. Unless you somehow logged in using the same network.

Answer 4

If you are using two different ISP connections (on through a broadband connection and one from a cellular network connection) they must have different IP addresses. However, if your phone has its WiFi switched on, and it finds a network that it is set up to connect to, then it will use WiFi rather than cellular Internet. If the phone and your PC are using the same router, they will share the same public IP address.



Even if you have your mobile Internet turned on in the phone, do you ever use it on WiFi networks? Could you have forgotten to disable the WiFi before going to the phone based account?



I suspect that many YA users have multiple accounts. For example, my ISP is currently using Yahoo mail servers, and I can log in to YA using my ISP provided email address and its password. The email address does not have yahoo anywhere in it. The mods have never queried my multiple accounts even when I access them from the same computer. I cannot access my different accounts (this one and my email account) from the same browser.

Answer 5

Either you have got mixed up and swapped user names between the two devices, or you have used WiFi on the phone.



Or, you have used the laptop via a personal hotspot on the phone? Possibly used that setup away from home and forgotten to disable it??





They could also be geo-IP checking both IP addresses and finding they are close together, plus other things like phrasing in posts and timing of posts/reploies..

Answer 6

"One mod claimed the accounts have the same IP, but how is that possible?"



It's not possible for the IP addresses from which the accounts are accessed to be the same.  If both accounts were created using the same connection, though, that information was likely recorded at the time.

Answer 7

There is something your not saying...



Like maybe saying "Well I did log on once through my laptop to my phone's account"... Then yes... They can see that Computer connecting to two different accounts... and flag you for it... and always keep a record of it.



I just find it particular coincidences that they called you out on something that is true.



A webmaster... or mod... depending on their access to the Webserver can see more things than you can believe.



Heres a small list:

Your Computer Name

Your UserName on that Computer Name

Your WAN IP... of Course... a Given.

Your Browser... make and version.



Here is what they are called actually:



HTTP_USER_AGENT - Your Browser

HTTPS - Session ID

REMOTE_ADDR - Your IP Address

REMOTE_HOST - Your Computer Name

REMOTE_PORT - Your connecting port

REMOTE_USER - Your Username on that Computer

REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER - If you was redirected.. Username who redirected you.

Answer 8

Every piece of equipment that connects to a network has a unique IP address