Network Address Translation (NAT)

As you have probably noticed, network devices are constantly becoming more sophisticated. One advance is the appearance of routers that perform network address translation.

A network address translation device obscures all details of the local network and hides the very existence of the local network. Figure 9.9 shows a network address translation device on the Internet. The NAT device serves as a gateway for computers on the local network to access the Internet. Behind the NAT device, the local network can use any network address space. The network does not have to use specially assigned Internet addresses because the local network is not even part of the Internet. The NAT device instead acts as a proxy for ...

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