Are you maybe thinking of MAC addresses? That would be closer being the “identity” of a device and you can typically identify the manufacturer from it. You can’t see the MAC address of a remote router via the internet though unless you are on its local network.
An IP address is usually a temporary lease provided by your ISP, and residential connections usually get a new one every once in a while (like every 24 hours).
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What?! You need the MAC to identify a router and MACs don’t go over the internet.
I’ll let you go ahead and explain that one.
teslasaur@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
No, of course not the MAC. Just as an example nmap can guess the OS based on fingerprinted behaviours. There are pentesttools that can guess the OS.
Like i said. Old days. You could get access to a distribution switch where the physical security was all that mattered. The town where i grew up had some early variation of cg-nat that meant all devices where in a way on the same network. It created plenty of issues when trying to play online with friends during Quake/WC3 etc.
credo@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Maybe if you open a browser to it and external management is allowed, it might say linksys?
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 17 hours ago
Also nmap uses fingerprinting on port scans to identify devices. Or attempt to, a lot of the time it doesn’t know, or says “Linux”