It is an address used to confirm the location of a network device.

In the OSI model, the third network layer is responsible for the IP address, and the second data link layer is responsible for the MAC address. The MAC address is used to uniquely identify a network card in the network. If a device has one or more network cards, each network card needs and will have a unique MAC address.

Most of the ways to access the Internet are to organize hosts together through a LAN, and then connect them to the Internet through devices such as switches or routers. This raises the question of how to distinguish specific users and prevent IP addresses from being stolen.

Since the IP address is only a logical identifier and can be modified by anyone, it cannot be used to specifically identify a user.