5
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If I am thirty-two, I am the smallest and I am alone.

Twenty-two multiplied by four is twenty.

Eight, twelve and sixteen are my own.

If you can see me, we both have one of me.

If you don't have one of me, you can't see me.

HE has a lot of me and rides me worldwide.

What am I?


Hint 1: (more like a commentary)

I expected it'd be easier to try to make sense out of those numbers and arithmetics first.

Hint 2:

You have one of me now because you can see this riddle.

Hint 3:

HE is capitalized correctly, it's not He.

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1 Answer 1

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You are:

An IPV4 IP address

If I am thirty-two, I am the smallest and I am alone.

In CIDR Notation, /32 designates the smallest possible network of one IP address

Twenty-two multiplied by four is twenty.

In CIDR Notation, the /20 subnet has four times as many hosts as the /22 subnet (4,096 vs 1,024)

Eight, twelve and sixteen are my own.

I think these are CIDR notation subnet masks reserved for special purpose address blocks

Edit: From RFC 1918: The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space for private internets: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix) 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix) 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

If you can see me, we both have one of me.

Both the server and viewer need to have an IP address to view this question

If you don't have one of me, you can't see me.

Without an IP address a viewer could not view this question.

HE has a lot of me and rides me worldwide.

Not quite sure; there is an internet backbone provider called Hurricane Electric (HE) so they would have/provide a lot of IP addresses and use them to deliver content

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    $\begingroup$ "reserved for special purpose" → hint: 1918 $\endgroup$
    – iBug
    Mar 18, 2021 at 3:50
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, edited my answer $\endgroup$ Mar 18, 2021 at 14:36

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