Getting your Current Internet IP Address

This page displays your current Internet IP Address and the User Agent string which your browser sends out. If you switch off the equipment connecting you to the Internet on a daily basis, and your IP address changes, then you have a dynamically allocated address (the most common form). If it remains the same, you have a static address.

Internet IP Address: [3.136.26.99]

User Agent: [Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)]

One useful description of the User Agent can be found in the Wikipedia. Microsoft windows usually stores the User Agent information under several registry keys. For more information, see the Microsoft description of the User Agent.

Test your Internal Network Security

You can use the IP Address above to test the security of your Internal Network (usually a wired or wireless Local Area Network [LAN] connected to your ADSL Router Modem or Cable box) as follows:

• Highlight the IP Address above and copy it to the clipboard (Right-click on the highlighted text and select the copy item from the pop-up menu). If the IP Address is aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd, where each of aaa, bbb, ccc and ddd is a numeric value between 0 and 255 (for an IPv4 Address), the copy action places that string of text on the clipboard.
• Open a new blank Web page (or Tab) in your Web Browser. Paste your IP Address string from the Clipboard into the URL Address box (Pressing the Ctrl and V keys together will do that).
• Press the Enter Key and your Web Browser will attempt to open the Web page at that IP Address. By default, the http:// ought to be added automatically to the start of the URL Address. If not, type in http:// at the start of the Address and then press the Enter Key. If you get a message that the page cannot be displayed, you know that TCP Port 80 on your Internal Network is not open. That is good.
• If you get a page displayed, then Port 80 is open, which is not good. If there is also a login window, or a link to login, your Internal Network might suffer a breach from a Bad Actor. The likely explanation for the display of the Web page is that you have a Web Server listening on Port 80. This is a potential problem with the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). Did you recently install a Webcam or a Smart heating control (like a thermostat)? If so, you need to take action.
  
  The simplest way is to ensure that Port Forwarding on your ADSL Modem Router (or Cable box) for Port 80 is being directed to a black hole. This can be done by making sure the target IP Address of the Port Forward rule is not being used on your Internal Network. For example, if you use IP Addresses like 192.168.0.xxx where xxx is between 2 and 255, then Port Forward to 192.168.0.190 if your IP Address usage is below this value. Consult your ADSL Modem Router (or Cable box) User Guide for more details.
• Repeat the above for https://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd (just edit the URL Address by ading s to the end of http) This will test Port 443). Testing other Ports, such as Port 22 (Secure Shell, SSH) and Port 23 (Telnet) require either a dedicated Web page (like Gibson Reasearch Corporation [GRC] Shields Up) or Telnet in Windows versions prior to Windows 8.1, or Test-NetConnection in PowerShell version 4 and later (available in Windows 8.1 and later). Ports 22 and 23 are favoured by people probing your External IP Address.

GRC Shields Up

You can test whether any other ports are open by using the Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) Shields Up Web page here (HTTPS Direct).

Telnet

In Windows 7, 8 and 10, Telnet (both the Client and the Server) are disabled by default. To enable either, you need to use the DISM (HTTPS Direct, Deployment Image Servicing and Management Technical Reference for Windows) EXE which requires Administrator privilege. For Telnet, you need to use one of:

• dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:TelnetClient
• dism.exe /online /disable-feature /featurname:TelnetClient

Note: the featurename is case-sensitive. To get a list of features, use dism.exe /online /get-features on the Command line. See this Technet link (HTTPS Direct) for more detail on the Telnet command.

Test-NetConnection

This Cmdlet was introduced in PowerShell version 4 (Windows 8.1 and later). To test whether a probe on Ports 22 or 23 will succeed, open a PowerShell Window (you might need Elevated Privilege) and then use one of these Commands at the PowerShell prompt:

• Test-NetConnection {IP Address at the top of this page} -Port 22
• Test-NetConnection {IP Address at the top of this page} -Port 23

Each Command will perform a Ping test to the IP Address, which should succeed if you Internet Service Provider (ISP) allows Pings on the IP Address space currently allocated to it. However, if either of the above Ports is closed, the Command will time out and the Command will return the value False. See this Technet link (HTTPS Direct) for more details on this command.

Programmatic Access

One way for a program to get either of the above two items (IP Address or User Agent) is to create an instance of the Microsoft XMLHTTP object (which has a ProgID like MSXML2.XMLHTTP). In Delphi, generally, you could make use of something like this:

  TheXMLHTTP := IDispatch(CreateOLEObject('MSXML2.XMLHTTP')) as IXMLHTTPRequest;
  TheXMLHTTP.open('Get', TheTargetURL, false, '', '');
  TheXMLHTTP.send(EmptyParam);
  TmpStr := TheXMLHTTP.responseText;

Where TheTargetURL value is that of the current Web page. This code can easily be transposed to other programming languages (such as VBScript) and the end result is a string containing output from TheTargetURL. If this is the current Web page, you can quite simply get the position of the [ and the ] characters which surround both items and, in code, extract the sub-strings required.