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I'm suspicious that that IP address isn't random at all!

Agreed: to me the word "random" makes it seem like the IP address was randomly generated.

Interestingly enough, the author himself uses the word "random" to describe the address, but then implies it is indeed unique: "it didn't resolve to anything".

I believe he really meant "unknown" there, but he is a professional researcher, so what do I know? I guess we will have to wait for the paper he mentioned he was writing on the subject.

English use of random to mean "a bit unusual".

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/random

> 3. informal (of a person) unknown: some random guy waiting for a bus.

It's not great journalism, but this is the register.

That usually makes sense when the object in question is fungible -- whether the person waiting for the bus was Joe or John or Jeff makes no difference.

But it's needlessly confusing to use "random" to describe something that's represented numerically unless it's mathematically random. "Arbitrary" or "unknown" is better.

Agreed that it's a bit ambiguous, but in modern British English this usage of "random" is really common. I didn't even think about the headline until people started discussing it.

The back-door owner owns different IP addresses and the data are randomly sent to his addresses. This can also explain "random"~~

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