The host file is your local dns, and as far as I can remember it cannot redirect an ip to another ip. There's nothing to enlighten, it's the block list you saw ip in it that was, erm, you know.
I'm still not clear. As far back as I can remember, domain entries in a hosts file were restricted to the actual domain names. I understand that domain names are actually human understandable text behind which is an IP number acquired from the local cache or remote DNS server (like Googles 8.8.8.8). As far as I know, domains listed in a hosts file need to be in the form of the written text and will be ignored if they are entered as IP numbers. Was this never true? Has the convention changed and now we can put pure IP numbers into a hosts file? Several postings and scripts on MDL are putting the above IP numbers into peoples hosts files. If they are actually doing something, then that's great! But if they're not doing anything useful then I would prefer taking them off my domain blocklist and stop re-posting misleading information. This is the enlightenment that I seek!
w10 whitelists special domain names or domain parts of it (URL or parts)...means it doesn't matter if those URL's are listed in the host file or not they will be resolved/translated to their real IP address... The host file is actually a custom dictionary. Which domain translates to which address...usually the job of the DNS