Knowing your correct public IP address for your videophone is (almost) as important as memorizing your correct street address. You don’t want your neighbor to get that pizza or 20″ LCD television that should have been delivered to your home! (I once got a very nice box of several expensive champagne bottles meant for another house, but that’s another story for another time.) Same thing as knowing your correct public IP address — you want callers to be able to connect to your videophone (VP). However, so many people don’t know how to find their public IP addresses. After this mini-tutorial, you’ll no longer have any excuse for not knowing your correct public IP number. (Memorizing that weird string of numbers, well, that’s a whole different ballgame! Not even I have my public IP address memorized.)
First, some background. Our D-link DVC-1000, Sorenson VP-100 / VP-200, and Ojo Snap videophones have the ability to call each other using either phone numbers or IP addresses. However, once in a while an IP address is required instead of a phone number — i.e., sometimes when calling between D-link and Sorenson videophones, or when the “directory server” is down (which happens with dismaying regularity).
When that happens, people scramble around looking for their IP addresses, and often give out the wrong string of numbers. Let me tell you right now; your public IP address does not start with “192.168 ….” Nobody will be able to contact you using those numbers. That string of numbers is your private IP address, meaning you have an internal network centered around a router or high-speed modem. That’s perfectly normal, but the private IP number starting with “192.168″ won’t work for someone trying to call you from outside. That’s like giving out only your room number instead of your street address.
What you need is your public IP address. It’s the address that goes to your router or high-speed modem (and then on to your VP). Sometimes it changes, sometimes it stays the same — it depends on the type of high-speed Internet service being provided to your home or business.
Two ways you can find your public IP address. There are surely other ways; if you know of any, leave a comment.
1) Via your computer. This is recommended when using your VP as part of a small network — i.e., your home, or a small business having only one videophone and a few computers. Using your computer, go to a website that can tell you your public IP address, such as www.whatismyip.com or www.ip-adress.com (yes, the latter with just one “d” — that isn’t a misspelling!). I recommend the second one, ip-adress, because it shows your approximate location on a map as well. The home page of several relay service providers — CSDVRS and HOVRS — tells you your IP address as well. Nice of them.
2) Via your videophone. This is recommended when using your VP as part of a large network — ie, a large business or a government agency; however, you can use this method at your home or small business. If your videophone is properly connected to the Internet, then use your VP remote control to click on “Settings,” then “Network,” then “Public IP” (hot diggity-dog!). Your public IP address, whether in black or grey letters, should be listed in the first option (”Use detected public IP address (xx.xx.xx.xx)”). The first option doesn’t have to be selected (although selecting this option is recommended), but that’s where you can find the public IP address for your VP. Note that the second option oftentimes has your private IP address — most commonly “192.168.0.125″. Remember what I said before — if it starts with 192.168, it ain’t the number you want to give out.
Write down your public IP number in your address book next to your phone number and email address. Next time we plan to VP, don’t you dare give me a “192.168 …” string of numbers. Offends my Proud Geek sense! Instead, try either of the two methods above and give me the Right IP Stuff.
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Dear coming out of the closet techno geek,
Is it true if a person has a power outage, then there’s a chance IP address changes? If so, then the person didn’t know he/she moved to a new home! Any recommendations?
Only if you have your own APC Back-Up power, you may continually to use your VP during the blackout. That would be unnecessary to request/obtain the new IP Addy.
Due to the moving, you could obtain new IP Addy via the new Internet service at your new residence. However, I am not sure if you may still have your own IP Addy when you move to new location in the same county.
I do not think that you may need to change the phone numbers for VP only in anywhere. It is up to you. Moreover, you can easily to revise your own Dlink DVC-1000/2000 VP or/and Ojo VP as soon as you receive your new home phone number. However, you would have to request Sorenson customer service to grant a new phone number since they are only authorized to change the phone number for your only Sorenson VP-100/200 just like the phone companies do. No idea about Ojo service.
Mookie,
Thank you for providing additional valuable information. I used humor by saying I moved to a new home when (IP) address changed. :P
:-)
If that person has a high-speed Internet service with a “dynamic” (changing) public IP address, then yes, it’s possible that the public IP address would change. If service’s with a “static” (stable) public IP address, then it should stay the same. Can find out by reading the terms for your high-speed Internet service and looking for “static” or “dynamic” IP address assignments. If you’ve got dynamic IP address, then best to check what your IP address is every once in a while.
On a related note — when using VP via a laptop’s webcam, and you bring it to a coffeehouse with high-speed Internet service, the IP address WILL have changed. Can use method #1 above to find out what the IP address now is.
Great blog. I prefer giving out my VP IP address rather than the VP phone number, because the chances for a successful connection seem to be higher. Yet it appears that a good number of people who I give my VP IP address to prefer that I give them my VP phone number. What’s up with that?
Shane,
Give me your IP Addy so that I can hack into your computer(s)…
Shane,
Darn it…that is too late to add my message after 20 minutes.
You can easily provide your personal dynamic domian (DNS), such as Shane4Deafdc, instead of your IP Addy/VP #. No body would know where you reside or probably hack into your computers at home.
There seem to be a few misconceptions here. It does not matter one iota for security whether you give out your IP address, a dynamic DNS address or your phone number. They all allow someone else to retrieve your IP address, and this is the way that things have to be, because in order for two devices to connect to each other over the Internet, they need their respective IP addresses. All the phone directory or DNS servers do is to translate from an easy-to-remember form to IP addresses. The Sorenson VP is no different, except that Sorenson refuses to share its directory with non-Sorenson videophones.
Second, the best defense against getting hacked is to keep your firewall up, keep your antivirus protections up, and keep your OS and all your programs up to date. In addition, a cable/DSL router is a terrific first line of defense, because by default it prevents anyone from the outside from connecting to your home network.
Common sense in what programs you download and install also goes a long way.
CV,
Nobody is perfect.
Of course, you are precise about updating their strong spyware/antivirus software, clearing cookies, and cleaning disk. That would make harder for hacker to enter any cleaned computers. However, a few clever professional hacker can leave the hidden Trojan while the Internet surfer easily click. Vigilante hacker nabs child porn surfing judge: http://www.itweek.co.uk/vnunet.....nabs-child
I wonder if any hacker could access via the remote control to anybody’s computer between the points.
No body can hack into any VP unless the VP owner leaves the opening channel (See General: Always Answer Incoming Calls) in the bedroom. Maybe the viewing caller is so advantageous ….
That hacker exploited a known vulnerability in Windows at that time that has since then been fixed. Again, your best defense is to use common sense in what you download, and keeping your computer up to date. Either of these would have prevented the attack that your link refers to.
Why do people prefer phone numbers? Uhh, good question. (Meaning, I don’t know!) Maybe inertia, maybe psychological, maybe it’s easier to enter than a public IP number. (By the way, when typing a new IP number into your videophone to call, you can use the “asterick” key on your videophone remote control to type a period.)
Sometimes when I use a VP phone number to call someone, I get an error message that says “person/phone number is not in the directory” or something like that. Then when I ask them for their IP address, it often works.
Because phone numbers are worlds apart from IP addresses in how easy they are to remember and to write down, simple as that. They happen to be in a form (by design?) that makes it easy for the human brain to chunk them. IP addresses are too long and too random for this.
Dynamic DNS services are a good alternative if a phone number does not work.
But isn’t better if we get domain for our vp.. I think CSD try to get us to do that
Hmm, I want to look into how to do that (using a domain like “shane4deafdc.com” instead of an IP number or phone number) — unless someone here can share how? I’d love to do that for my VP at home!
Try this one: http://www.no-ip.com/services/.....c_dns.html
For freebie info, you can create your own personal domain with subdomain, such as biz, net, info, org, etc..
Oh yes, NO-IP.com is best thing we have. It will work anytime. It will keep up with your changing ip as long as your computer is running. When you shut it down, it can change ip number. When start up, NO-IP.com will update what ip will be by itself.
No matter what, we should avoid giving IP to anybody.
Period.