For a while now I have been noticing that when I use VNC I was getting the wrong computer on my network when I typed an IP address. An example would be 192.168.1.040 would get me 192.168.1.32 instead of the .40 workstation). This also was occurring when pinging from CMD.
This was getting progressively worse and now I notice it is always happening with 2 digit octets. I thought this might be due to something in my cache, my DNS server, host files, router or something of that sort. However I was unable to pin the cause down in any of those.
I have come to find out that whenever you type a .040 it is actually the octal form of that number which is 32.
My question is, when did this happen? I've been typing in 3 digit octets since I can remember. This is due to the fact that a lot of earlier devices "back in the day" required all 3 spaces to be populated by a whole number and was considered incomplete without all 3 digits in that octet. This just became habit for me to use a zero even if it was a 2 digit octet.
I have tried this on Windows PC's with Vista, XP, and 2K, both on my domain and off. See these resolved examples below:
Ping 192.168.1.007 = Pining 192.168.1.7
Ping 192.168.1.008 = Pining 192.168.1.8
Ping 192.168.1.009 = Pining 192.168.1.9
Ping 192.168.1.010 = Pining 192.168.1.8
Ping 192.168.1.011 = Pining 192.168.1.9
etc.....
Again. when did this happen? Did some MS service pack ninja come in at 3 AM and demand that IP addresses be resolved in this manner? Or has it always been like this and perhaps it was autocorrected for me somehow? This really bothers me. I'd hate to think that it's always been like this and it's taken me 12 years to find out that Microsoft has been doing this all along. Then again, I have more pressing issues on my mind. :)
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