Here is an IP Address:
213.197.78.198

What  must I do to find out "all" about it.

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Request for Question Clarification by tox-ga on 07 Nov 2002 15:51 PST

david_j_kaplan-ga,

Please clarify what you mean by "all about it".
Do you mean who owns it? Or what ports are open on it? Or what
vulnerabilities it has?

From preliminary searches, it appears to be a dial-up line.  That
would mean it'll stop existing when the person using it disconnects.

-Tox-ga

david_j_kaplan,

The IP address you have provided resolves to
line-78-198.dial.freestart.hu.  From that, we can further determine
that it belongs to freestart.hu, a Hungarian internet service
provider.  From the name, the chances are very high that it was
assigned to a dial-up customer when they connected and will drop after
they connect and will be assigned to another customer when they
dial-up.  Some additional information on Freestart.  They are one of
two providers in Hungary that provide free internet access.  It is
only available to users who live in Budapest.  In April of 2002,
Freestart was taken over by Euroweb.

For more information on Freestart:
Google Cache
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:wDec_NlhtWwC:www.buyusa.gov/hungary/en/page114.html+hungarian+ISP+freestart&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Information on the Hungarian ISP market (covers Eurowebs takeover of
Freestart)
http://exportit.ita.doc.gov/Ocbe/ForeignM.nsf/679c088699b484498525674e0000eb9f/cd5b5fd95394029085256c480080e57f!OpenDocument

I found this information by doing a reverse DNS search, which provides
the name of the server that is providing a particular IP address and
then did a search on freestart.hu

Thanks for your question and if you need any further clarification,
please let me know.

Regards,

-THV

Search Strategy:
Reverse DNS search
freestart hungary ISP

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Request for Answer Clarification by david_j_kaplan-ga on 08 Nov 2002 03:32 PST

In this case the subject "What's in an IP Address" contains important
information.  I mean what can I deduce by knowing an IP Address, what
internet tools do I use and how do use them to obtain that
information.  I am not sophisticated and so an answer should not
assume that I have a large vocabulary and significant context to bring
to an answer.

I did not mean that the only IP Address that I cared about was the one
given.  That was a real example but only an example.

From my point of view the answer given by  tar_heel_v-g was a
beginning, but needs to be completed to be a full answer.

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Request for Answer Clarification by david_j_kaplan-ga on 08 Nov 2002 03:56 PST

Also notice that the question was ,"
What  must I DO to find out "all" about it."

The question was not tell me all about it.

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Clarification of Answer by tar_heel_v-ga on 08 Nov 2002 05:47 PST

David,

Thank you for your clarification.  An IP address is an identifier for
a computer or device on a network. Networks use the IP address to
route messages to devices on the network.  In this case, the IP
address allows communication on the Internet.  The format of an IP
address is written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number
can be zero to 255.

Every device on the Internet, including websites, are identified by IP
addresses.  For example, if you type  216.239.53.101 into the address
field in your browser, you will see that it directs you to
www.google.com.  Being that rembering words and associating those
words with locations is easier than remembering a number that can be
up to 12 numbers with decimal points, a system was created that
translates IP addresses into words and vice versa.  This system is
called Domain Name System, or Services, also known as DNS.  Using this
system, you can find out where any public IP address  is associated. 
By using what is called a Reverse DNS Look-Up, I found out that the
address you provided resolved, or pointed to, Freestart.hu.  When
looking up IP addresses to determine where they resolve, the majority
of the time, the last word and the extension are the domain that owns
that particular IP.  The IP address you provided, 213.197.78.198, when
typed into a reverse DNS system, came back with
line-78-198.dial.freestart.hu.  Notice the last two words,
line-freestart.hu.  By typing that into your browser, you are directed
to the public website of Freestart.  You can also use this system to
translate domain names, or the name associated with an IP address,
into that IP address.

Once you translate the IP address into a domain name, you can then use
what is known as a whois lookup to find out the owner of that domain
name.  This information will provide you with the information about
the people or company that registered that particular domain name. 
Using your example, after I determined where the IP address resolved,
I ran a whois search on freestart.hu. Here is the information I found
:

domain:      freestart.hu
org:         org_name_eng: Freestart Ltd
org:         org_name_hun: Freestart Kft
address:     Alkotás 17-19
address:     1123 Budapest
address:     HU
phone:       +36-1-225-6000
fax-no:      +36-1-225-6027
hun-id:      1000240192
admin-c:     2000254424
tech-c:      3980104001
zone-c:      3980104001
nserver:     ns1.freestart.hu
nserver:     ns2.freestart.hu
registred:   Saturday, April 22, 2000
changed:     Wednesday, July 10, 2002
registrar:   1970413001

person:      András Pórffy
email:     porffy@ew.hu
address:     Városmajor 13
address:     1123 Budapest
address:     HU
phone:       +36 1 224-4000
fax-no:      +36 1 224-4100
hun-id:      2000254424

role:        Euroweb Hostmaster
address:     Városmajor utca 13.
address:     H-1122 Budapest
address:     HU
phone:       +36 1 2244000
fax-no:      +36 1 2244100
hun-id:      3980104001

org:         org_name_eng: EuroWeb Internet Provider Corporation
org:         org_name_hun: EuroWeb Internet Szolgáltató Rt.
(Registrar)
address:     Városmajor utca 13.
address:     H-1122 Budapest
address:     HU
phone:       +36 1 2244000
fax-no:      +36 1 2244100
hun-id:      1970413001

This tells us who owns this name, their address and phone number, when
they registered the name and a contact within that company.

The tool I used to find this information can be found at 
http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php.  Simply type in the domain
name or the IP address and it will give you the respective
information.  You can then use their whois search, at
http://www.kloth.net/services/whois.php to find the domain owner
information.

I hope this provides the information you are looking for.  If there is
anything else I can provide, please let me know.

Regards,

-THV

References:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/IP_address.html

Here is a question to the researcher.  Where did he/she obtain the
information about  http://www.kloth.net.

David..

Thanks for the rating and the generous tip.  I obtained the info about
kloth.com from doing a search on Google for "reverse dns"

Hope this helps!

-THV