I used to think IPv4 addresses were just random numbers until recently. It blew my mind when I started digging and understanding that they have an anatomy where every number after the dot means something very important.
Note: To understand what IP addresses are, please consult this post because I won't be going over them here. IP Addresses: Digital Connectivity
What is IPv4 in the First Place?
IPv4 is short for Internet Protocol version 4. As you might have already realized, it's the 4th version of the early test designs during the development of the Internet Protocol in test labs in the 1970s. The first real release, v4, came out in 1981 in a public document called RFC 791. RFC 791: STD 5: Internet Protocol
IPv4 is an Internet Protocol that's written in what's called Dotted Decimal Notation (e.g., 172.17.0.3), where each portion is separated by a dot, and these portions are called octets. For example, 172 is the first octet and 17 is the second octet (more on this later).
