 The hidden addresses are changed into a single (public) IP address as the source address of the outgoing IP packets so they appear as originating not from the hidden host but from the routing device itself.Because of the popularity of this technique to conserve IPv4 address space, the term "NAT" has become virtually synonymous with IP masquerading.As network address translation modifies the IP address information in packets, NAT implementations may vary in their specific behavior in various addressing cases and their effect on network traffic.