I'm sure that most of you know that you can check which machines have connected to your email-account, so most of the time you will see your own IP address, if not then you have been hacked of course. But anyway, I recently put my cable modem into bridge mode and I have now connected my Linksys router to the cable modem. The Linksys router is also connected to a Devolo powerline adapter, which provides internet access to my laptop. But I noticed that Yahoo Mail and Gmail now list my own machines with some type of weird address, it's not a normal IP address. The problem is that this ''weird IP address'' is always differerent, has anyone got a clue what's going on?
BTW, the topic of this thread will soon be changed, because this ''weird IP addres'' which is shown by both Yahoo Mail and GMail doesn't look anything like a MAC address, my bad. The question is why can't Yahoo Mail and GMail see my true IP address, is it because of bridge mode? EDIT: The topic title has now been changed, at first it referred to a MAC address, which isn't correct. But anyway, this is what my IP address looks like when looking at the connected devices in Yahoo Mail and Gmail, and it always changes when I login again, does it ring any bells?
@Rasheed187, I do not see any issue here. The weird address you are referring to is most likely your IP address. If you are concerned about the format of the IP address, it is because your ISP uses IPv6, and IPv6 addresses are supposed to look like your quoted address. See here for explanation and IPv6 examples: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ts4500-tape-library?topic=functionality-ipv4-ipv6-address-formats And if it is changing, then most likely your ISP assigns you a dynamic IP address that changes periodically. You can also google search "my IP" to get your current public IP address. It should match what Yahoo and Google are reporting. And it has nothing to do with your modifications. An IP address is assigned to your cable modem by your ISP, it will only change if/when your ISP wants to change it.
That's the thing, it even gets weirder because when I check with Surfshark, I get to see the weird IP address, which according to you is the IPv6 format. But when I check with PIA, it shows me the normal IP address. Keep in mind, both addresses are always the same, which means I don't have a dynamic IP address. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/what-is-my-ip https://surfshark.com/check That's exactly the problem, these IPv6 addresses that Gmail and Yahoo Mail report do not match with my public IP address, and are always different, while I clearly don't have a dynamic IP address, at least not according to the PIA and Surfshark IP check. So the question remains why Gmail and Yahoo Mail can't correctly display my public IP address. It seems this all started when my cable modem went into bridge mode. What I can try to do is to disconnect the Linksys router and connect my PC directly to the modem and see what happens. And thanks for the help of course.
They most likely are showing correct information. Machine can have IPv4 and IPv6 addresses assigned at the same time. Google domain is resolved to both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (this may be oversimplified, didn't check this exact case recently), so OS or program chooses iPv6 to connect. I guess PIA may have not its domain resolved to IPv6 or it is not reachable so there is some kind of fallback to old IPv4. Have you tried ipconfig? And listing all devices connected to router etc?
You ISP has most likely implemented dual-stacking in its network, so they probably have both an IPv4 and IPv6 address assigned to you, and depending on the website in question, you are either connecting through IPv4 or IPv6. Read here about dual-stacking: https://whatismyipaddress.com/dual-stack Surfshark has already confirmed that you have an IPv6 address in addition to an IPv4 address, but you can also run tests on the following website to double check, especially if dual-stacking is enabled: https://whatismyv6.com/ Are you saying that the Google and Yahoo reported IPv6 does not match the Surfshark's IPv6 address?.........This is strange.........It might be that your ISP has assigned you a static IPv4 but a dynamic IPv6. You will have to talk to someone from your ISP to figure that out. However, if you google search "gmail showing my IP as IPv6" you will find that you are not alone with this issue.
So I just remembered that even though your IP address is assigned to you by your ISP, and it will not change by changing the internal Wi-Fi configuration of your home network, but if you add or remove a device that has its IPv6 connection setting enabled or disabled, then depending on that device, you may see either an IPv4 address or IPv6 address or both. For example, my router had IPv6 disabled in its settings, so when I learned a while back that my ISP had implemented dual-stacking, and the ISP provided cable modem was IPv6 compatible, I was frustrated to find that I could not browse with an IPv6 address. Then I discovered the disabled setting, and since then I have had an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address. I had completely forgotten about it. And to be frankly honest, it does not matter in the end, as you end up on the same internet either way. Since you mentioned that your issue only started after putting one device in bridge mode, so I am guessing one of your devices had its IPv6 setting disabled before, and the other has its enabled, so this is why you are now seeing two IP addresses. (p.s. You also need to have (TCP/IP v6) enabled on the network adapter in your computer to browse with an IPv6.)
@Rasheed187, I did some more digging into my own IPv6 address and it turns out that my IPv6 address that websites are detecting is not the IPv6 that is assigned to me by my ISP, but the IPv6 address assigned to my device by my local router. So, Google detects a different IPv6 for my PC and a different one for my cell phone. And these IPv6 addresses change periodically depending on device restart, or when my router renews a lease to a device. Also, my IPv6 connection type is DHCPv6, so depending on whether my ISP uses stateless or stateful DHCPv6, my IPv6 from ISP may change as well. This is most likely why you are seeing different IPv6 addresses logged on your Google and Yahoo accounts. IPv6 address is formed of 128 bits divided into 8 segments. The first 4 segments are routing prefix and should stay the same, but the last 4 segments are generated randomly on the client's side, and will be different for each client device. If someone is interested here are some useful links with good information: Intro to IPv6: http://www.steves-internet-guide.com/ipv6-guide/ Why IPv6 is still dynamic: https://superuser.com/a/1479337 Stateful vs Stateless IPv6: https://superuser.com/a/1374251 Thanks for asking this question, it has provided me the opportunity to increase and refresh my knowledge.
Thanks for the info and especially Raza0007 for all of the research. I think I understand it a bit better now. It seems that I indeed have both a IPv4 and IPv6 address, but some websites can't detect both of them. For example, the first link detects them both but the second only detects my IPv6 address. But it must have something to do with my cable modem and router. I did notice that ''IPv6 automatic configuration'' is enabled on my Linksys router, but I didn't turn it off because I was afraid of causing problems. https://whatismyipaddress.com https://www.iplocation.net/find-ip-address Yes you're right, my bad. I figured out that the first part of the IPv6 address is always the same, so I assume that this is the way to identify my own devices on Yahoo Mail and Gmail, which is the most important to me. So it's not a dynamic IP adress, but still static. But I'm not a big fan of this new IPv6 address stuff, it's too cryptic.
With IPv6 enabled, I usually connect to Google with an IPv6 address, but occasionally Google will connect me with an IPv4 address, and during this connection, it cannot detect my IPv6. So most likely websites use their own algorithm to determine who to connect to IPv6 and who to connect to IPv4. The first half of the IPv6 is what identifies you on the internet, for tracking purposes. The last half of your IPv6 is generated by your router randomly, and is different for each device you own, and together both halves give your devices a unique address. This is possible because of the very large IPv6 address space. Your router can assign each device in your household a unique IPv6 address, and change it frequently, and still ensure that it is unique on the internet. If you include the reserved addresses, the theoretical total IPv6 addresses available are 3.4 x 10^38 Now dividing this by the estimated world population of 8 billion, each person on our planet can have 4.75 x 10^28 unique IPv6 addresses. i.e. "47,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000" unique IPv6 addresses per person! Which is a ludicrous amount of addresses for one person!
Website (or any other Internet server) is listening on IPv4, IPv6 or both and exposes those addresses via DNS system (or not). It is the client (i.e. web browser) decision to either use IPv4 or IPv6. Generally client does not use both at the same time for same domain. As far as I know it is impossible to use IPv4 and IPv6 in single TCP connection.
You may be right. I don't have a lot of experience with IPv6. But the following website seems to indicate that websites do have the option to override browser/OS if they want to. The website is implemented in four different flavors. Click on the four links on the website: http://ip4.me/ The first link on this website will force the browser/OS to use an IPv4 connection only. The second link is IPv4 based but is dual stacked with IPv6, and gives the choice to the browser/OS to choose what they prefer. My browser/OS always connects with IPv6. The third link will force an IPv6 connection only. If you don't have IPv6 and are not dual stacked, the page will not load. The fourth link is IPv6 based but is dual stacked with IPv4, and gives the choice to the browser/OS to choose what they prefer. My browser/OS again always connects with IPv6.
If DNS does not have valid record for IPv4 or IPv6 for particular domain, client of course won't connect via this protocol. It is domain-wide choice: it won't work differently for different clients*. *Maybe some geooptimizations or ISP optimizations could be applied, but it is of very limited granularity. In general all or nothing solution
I believe sometimes the choice is taken away from the end client by the DNS provider. I use Cloudflare DoH and this is what Cloudflare has to say in its documentation: https://developers.cloudflare.com/s...es-ipv6-support/#configure-ipv6-compatibility They do provide an option for web hosting domains on one of their paying plans to configure this setting, but its not available for end clients like me who are using their free DNS service.
I don't have time to read all, but isn't it about their host protection? Cloudflare is most known for its host protection which acts like reverse proxy. DNS is just a side hustle for CloudFlare for a lack of better word. From a client perspective reverse proxy would be treated like a host, because it does not have access to host directly.
Cloudflare provides a lot of website hosting related services like reverse proxy, DDoS protection, even website registration, but as a consumer my only exposure to them is through their free DNS service. And if you go through them with dual stacking enabled, they prefer IPv4 connection, unless the hosting website explicitly tells them otherwise. At least this is what their documentation says.
Thanks for the feedback, I wasn't active for a while, so I forgot to reply. But another thing that is worth mentioning is that apps that monitor the network, like TinyWall and SpyShelter, also display a mix between IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. I don't know if this also plays a role in them not being able to resolve the IP to hostname. Honestly, I believe this IPv6 is too cryptic, they should come up with something better.
BTW, for the first time I now see that Yahoo Mail and Gmail sometimes show the IPv4 and sometimes the IPv6 address. I personally didn't change any hardware setting though.
My ISP (BT-British Telecom) doesn't use Ipv6, it's not implemented on their routers. Surfshark has advised me to turn off ipv6 in the adapter properties. It can cause instability. Surfshark vpn uses its own filtered DNS system and can have an inbuilt antivirus system. It has an option to rote thru IP addresses presented to the world by your pc. Gmail (IMAP) works fine w/o ipv6 for me.
