marquerading

Masquerading is a term used in computer networking to describe a technique that allows a device to appear to have a different IP address than the one it actually possesses. This is commonly employed by routers to manage the IP addresses of devices within a private network when they communicate with the public internet. When a device on a private network sends a request to the internet, the router replaces the device's private IP address with its own public IP address. This process is known as Network Address Translation (NAT).

The primary purpose of masquerading is to conserve public IPv4 addresses. Since there are a limited number of public IPv4 addresses available, NAT allows multiple devices on a private network to share a single public IP address. This is particularly useful for homes and small businesses that may have many devices but only one or a few public IP addresses assigned by their Internet Service Provider.

Another aspect of masquerading is its role in enhancing security. By hiding the private IP addresses of internal devices, masquerading can make it more difficult for external attackers to directly target specific machines within the network. However, it's important to note that masquerading is not a complete security solution and should be used in conjunction with other security measures. The term "masquerading" is often used interchangeably with NAT, especially in the context of Linux firewalls like iptables.