When you connect a device to your computer does it automatically connect to the internet?

Answer 1

Not necessarily. For example, a USB printer is attached to your computer but does not gain access to the internet, nor does a keyboard or mouse that is attached by USB or wirelessly. I think what you might mean to ask, however, is whether a device that is attached to your wireless network that can see your computer (such as another computer, wireless printer, etc.) is automatically able to access the Internet. The answer to that is maybe. It depends on whether the device is designed to even try to gain access to the Internet. There are certain types of devices that may utilize the internal wireless network but that do not have the "intelligence" to attempt to venture beyond the local environment.

An example of this is a wireless security camera such as I installed recently for a client. It connects by standard wireless networking back to its DVR on the same local wireless network and so the camera in and of itself does not have any Internet access: it knows only about its DVR since that is all with which it is designed to interface. The DVR itself can be made addressable if access from across the Internet is configured and the router is set to forward the ports over to the DVR for said access.

So, the answer is that it is a possible maybe but is determined by the device and whether all the appropriate ducks are set up in the appropriate row to make it happen.