Why is a network ID not needed to connect to an IP address?

Posted by baddogai on Super User See other posts from Super User or by baddogai
Published on 2011-01-07T08:18:47Z Indexed on 2011/01/07 9:55 UTC
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Filed under:

networking

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tcpip

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ip

I know how IP basically works, and knows that an IP address composed of a network ID portion and a host ID portion, but when I type a IP address, say 8.8.8.8 into the web browser, I didn't supply any subnet mask information.

So, how does the browser know where the dividing line is between the network ID and host ID? Since 8.8.8.8 may mean 8.8.8.8/8, 8.8.8.8/24 etc.

In a nutshell, the IP address I supplied is ambiguous.

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