private IP addresses in traceroute

[Justinh]

My computer is plugged into my pass-thru cable modem (so the PC has the WAN IP address). I did a traceroute to cnn.com and got:
10.180.x.x
172.30.x.x
10.16.x.x
10.16.x.x
10.16.x.x
68.66.x.x ...

It took (5) hops before it hit a WAN IP address. How can this be? The first (or second at most) should have been a WAN IP.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Quite normal. It's the routing through your ISP's internal network.