Abstract: The utilization is described of an automatically generated Internet protocol (“IP”) address in a networked environment. An IP address is automatically generated and used while an IP address server is unavailable or unreliable. The system used either the automatically generated IP address or the assigned address depending on certain circumstances. For example, if the IP address server repeatedly assigns conflicting IP address, the system continues to use the generated IP address despite having received an assigned IP address from the IP address server. Also, if the communication is within a common local area network, the generated IP address is used so as to avoid encryption of the communication in accordance with TCP/IP protocol.