US Shrugs Off World's IP Address Shortage 616
Clifton Griffin writes "C|Net has an article stating that the U.S. isn't making the push for IPv6 like others are even though the networking appliances and operating systems are ready for it. It goes on to explain that North America has 70% of the Internet address space and that there is a total of 1 billion IPs left, which may sound like a lot but considering we now have Internet-enabled cellphones and VoIP, it really isn't."
Old News (Score:2)
We all know that the government only cares about keeping big business happy and won't force them to spend money to change to a new system.
What needs to happen is let the rest of the world switch and then shut off access to IPv4 for the US to accept it.
Easy Explanation (Score:2)
BZZZT wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and with NAT your networks can even be connected and still work. Hey wait, if we can use NAT to hide non-unique addresses from the Internet and not lose connectivity... Why the big push for the switch?
The fact of the matter is users of the Internet DON'T WANT to be disconnected from the American section of the Internet. And the rest of the world switching to IPv6 while the US lags a few years behind won't bring that about, either. You can route between IPv4 and IPv6 networks (that's what the protocol was designed for) and there's no incentive for American businesses to spend money on an upgrade that they'll see no return on.
Really man, find a good reason to spit venom at the US and stick to it. Attacking us because the other nations of the world want a unique IP address on every phone, car, bike, toaster, and gilette razor while we don't see the need for it immediately is just silly. The world can do what it wants and we can do what we want without breaking anything.
Re:Enough (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so incredible frustrating. Some people's ignorance is, apparently, uncureable.
Yes, there is an address shortage. It is already there. Right now !
Proof is simple. People don't get all adresses they feel they need.
Truth is, Morons like you have at some point decided that they know better than me what adresses I need. So You just claim there is enough because You think everybody gets what You consider sufficient. Elitist crap asshole reasoning!
Results of plocies like that is that large carriers run public IP services on private adress space. My company is one of them. Another example: most GPRS services use private IPs and big fat lousy NAT kludges. I personally have recently had to write an analysis about a customer's bitter complaint that he couldnt use the VPN service we sold him from his cellphone. As it turned out, he used gprs, and the aforementionet NAT kludge somehow broke IPSEC.
Suckers like you are modern day internet luddites. You have - out of thin air - concluded that last year's technology is everthing anybody might ever need, and therefore decided that further technological advancement is superfluous. And so you fight tooth and nails any meaningfull progression.
I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:2)
~~~* plz 4ward this msg to ~*5*~ friend to shw u r a tru friend n you will get 50 more ip addyz frm bill gates! *~~~
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously though, once the world starts to move to a IPv6 platform, then what will the corporations do with their non compatible routers and networking equipment?
Maybe companies in poorer countries could aquire it for their internal networking. Stuff like this is real costly right now.
I would love to see some real good networking stuff on ebay for cheap.
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:5, Interesting)
You do realize that poorer countries will probably have to make the switch to ipv6, sooner than the countries that will (in your scheme) be donating the routers, don't you?
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:3, Insightful)
Every bit of network interface code needs to be updated.
This could be as much of a pain as Y2k was.
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:3, Informative)
Class-A 10.0.0.0/8
Class-B 172.16.0.0/12
Class-C 192.168.0.0/16
Other blocks of interest:
Multicast 224.0.0.0/4
IPV4<->IPV6 Anycast 192.88.0.0/15
Loopback 127.0.0.1/8
"This Net" 0.0.0.0/8
Re:I'll donate a few IP Addy's for a good cause (Score:3, Informative)
It's 127/8. (It's a
Now 127.0.0.1/24 SHOULD be the way it's done, IMHO. I can't even come up with any oddball reasons for having more than 255 localhost IPs.
Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a second, 1 billion is a lot of IPs. My web enabled phone has never been assigned an internet accessible IP address, it's on some kind of weird proxy service. My computers at work are on a NAT. So that leaves my computer at home, and it's had that "dynamic" IP assignment for months and months. No wonder we're shrugging it off. Get over it.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Interesting)
GE (3.x.x.x), GTEI (4.x.x.x and 8.x.x.x), army.mil (6.x.x.x, and 55.x.x.x), AT&T (12.x.x.x, 32.x.x.x), Xerox (13.x.x.x), HP (15.x.x.x, 16.x.x.x), Apple (17.x.x.x), MIT (18.x.x.x), Ford (19.x.x.x), CSC (20.x.x.x), ARIN.NET (24, 63-69), ucl.ac.uk (25), nipr.mil (33), inet-hou.com (34), merit.edu (35), psi.net (38), uu.net (40), v6nic.net (43), ampr.org (44), vt.edu (45), Nortel (46), Dupont (52), debir.de (53), usps.gov (56), equant.net (57), apnic.net (60, 61), ripe.net (62, 80-82).
Those are all of the ones that respond to an in-addr.arpa request. It would be interesting to see how many of those listed actually use their addressable space. ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC provide subdivided blocks of addresses to Europe, Asia, and North America. Net 34 (inet-hou.com) appears to be the personal property of a Houston resident named Richard Harrison. Net 44 (ampr.org) is the amateur packet radio subnet, and there are a few other ISPs there, like 40 (uu.net), 38 (psi.net), and probably one or both of the AT&T class A's. And there are a few universities both in the US and one in the UK. I would suspect that most of the corporate subnets are firewalled anyway, so moving any of those would represent only the inconvenience of renumbering their networks -- but it isn't as if the machines were actually reachable from the 'net.
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
Its sad that there is still no free VOIP client that works consistently behind a NAT (and there are many, many free VOIP clients). Direct P2P file transfers are similarly painful.
Yes, there are solutions, but they're either rare, expensive, hacks, or a combination of the above. Thinking that a NAT is fine just means that you don't do much with your computer.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
(As opposed to the pretty one? :/ )
Problems? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Problems? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, direct P2P is a hassle as well. I have trouble getting and sending AIM file transfers, which is the source of infinite consternation on the behalf of pe
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, better I've done video chat using MSN messenger netphone, CUCme, Netmeeting, and ICUII. Had to configure the router but it worked.
>Gaming?
Yes, both playing and serving. Had a RTCW beta server running on my Linux box with people connecting and playing outside my firewall. Quake servers, Counterstrike Server, even Moonbase Commander once, Age of Mythology beta test, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online. Just about everything.
>Serving?
Yes, I ran my own web server, FTP server, and mail server behind a NATted firewall/router for over a year on a cable modem. The only reason I stopped was because I moved away from the service area.
>Anything other then basic web browsing behind a NAT?
Yes, SSHing, telnet, MUDing, IMing, FTPing, Napster (shhhh) back when it was still up. IM file transfers.
My NAT router/firewall cost $50. One of those rare, expensive hacks I guess.
It's not like port forwarding is a big deal, or expensive, or really screws up the network.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Informative)
When your IP changes, your server (whatever the type) is disconnected. You need to use a service like dynDNS or some such, which works but is a hack.
Also, try having 2-3 people behind a NAT and playing those same games online, possible but not as easy.
I still dont think the IP addy space is running out. Seems like another Y2K scam if you as
Re:Shrug (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.. I use Creative Voice Blasters with fobbit phone to talk via VoIPtwice a day without a hint of trouble, I play many games online with others.. Q3,wofenstin,Ut2003.. my daughter play's sims online. and we play PLaystations online games all the time (for free might I add.. in your face Xbox Fanboys) I also serve my own web pages and webcams, email server and ssh/sftp..
no hassles at all. and it takes 3 seconds to change the rules in the hardware router/firewall.
anyone having trouble either doesn't have a clue about what they are doing, or has the wrong hardware misconfigured horribly.
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm using NAT right now, and running VoIP (vonage) flawlessly, gaming with both Xbox and PC (I get fragged a lot, but it's because I'm a mediocre player, ping time ain't a factor). At the same time I'm also using a VPN (so it looks like I have full routing to a corporate network). NAT and DHCP have made home networking so simple that a lot of products require little or no configuration, which means a lot more people can take advantage of them.
IPv6 is a very interesting technology, but there's simply nothing that makes it worth investing time and money for most companies and end-users. When there's some "killer app", that makes it worthwhile to switch to IPv6.... I will take the plunge like everyone else.
I think it's a good idea to make users sit behind a proxy. It reduces security risks for inexperienced users, makes it easier to identify mp3 downloaders, and keeps the terminally clueless from turning on IIS and having their machines owned in 30 seconds flat. NAT, squid, and other technologies pretty much made the address "shortage" a non-issue, by increasing exponentially the efficiency of IP address allocation. A certain famously demanding lady from NSI also deserves some credit, for brow-beating ISP's into being more realistic about address space requests.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
NAT at best is a stop-gap solution. What needs to be done is a smart re-allocation of unused IPv4 addresses. How many does Apple, Microsoft, IBM, MIT, etc have that they will never use in a million years?
One day IPv6 will be here, but we'll need to break up the huge IPv4 blocks fist.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, I'm behind a NAT at work right now. That's part of the reason I can't initiate a video chat with my wife right now. I don't really expect the same freedoms on a work network as I do on a home network, so when they use NAT and it breaks stuff, I don't complain.
I think it's a good idea to make users sit behind a proxy.
NATs and proxies are unrelated. While a NAT might work around not having a prox
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux box for firewall/routing
Linux server (web/ftp/mail)
W2K desktop - gaming, p2p, general use
Laptop - email, web, work (VPN)
PS2 - games
Tivo - Tivoweb online scheduling, data updates via IP
Guess what? It all works. About the only thing I don't do which you mention is VoIP, but the others are all fine. I get great performance up and down for the p2p I've tried (e.g. kazaa, edonkey, gnucleus). Gaming on both the PC and PS2 works without a hitch. For the SOC
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
I've easily reconfigured my firewall/NAT appliance to enable just about every application I've tried. Used this way, I might as well have one IP per computer. But getting multiple computers running the same game or application to connect to the outside world starts to get more difficult. Onl
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Informative)
Klite/Kazaa and my VPN works fine, as does serving a battlefield, counter-strike, web and ftp server. The only things I can't seem to run are Microsoft's video conference software and old MSN gaming zone games.
NAT is a hack itself. IIRC, the fellow who came up with the concept called it a waste of time for anyone who wasn't totally hard up for IP space.
A billion IPs are available. None of your appliances are going to connect via a 'real' IP address, either
Re:Yes, I know that (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
It's enough for ~15% of the people on this planet to get 1 more IP.
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv6 provides the following significant other benefits:
The reason the US isn't implementing IPv6 has nothing to do with address space. It has to do with the IPSec and mobility requirements. You can't wiretap an encrypted, variable-path connection so easily. And that puts ISPs and backbone providers at risk from Big Nasty Thugs in the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason the US isn't implementing IPv6 has nothing to do with address space.
I could be wrong, but it might have something to do with the cost of upgrading all of the routers. And I'm not talking about just hardware costs, I'm talking about the amount of time it will take net admins to upgrade their equipment. "Spend money to make money" doesn't seem to apply in this economy.
What is the benefit (Score:5, Insightful)
If I have enough IP's why should I bother changing.
Actually the other people can take the risk, do the upgrade, solve the problems, then the cost to change is cheaper.
Once the benefit outweighs the cost, people will do it. It just doesn't make sense yet.
Re:What is the benefit (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, there's an idea - why don't they just go metric with IP addresses? Rather than just go up to 255.255.255.255, try 999.999.999.999. Problem solved!
of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:5, Insightful)
Without demand for IP space there will be no longer a need to charge ridiculous amounts for IP blocks (or even single IPs). Hell, there won't be a need to bundle home routers with Internet service to give NAT capabilities to the home.
Looks like a lot of possible lost revenue. God forbid that happens.
$10 for an extra IP is the average cost for broadband (used to be about $5), most ISPs don't even want to give you a static IP (back in 1995 it cost $30/extra for a static IP on dialup!)
I have something like 1 million+ IPs assigned to me with IPv6 and I am using 10 (for what you ask? for vhosts because that's all IPv6 is useful for).
Would I be using more than the 1 IP I am "dynamically" assigned if it wasn't "free"? No.
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:5, Interesting)
Having a static public IP can be extremely handy though. Whenever I have a cool graphic or whatnot I want my friends to see, I just stick it up on the webserver and send the email in a link. Because many of my friends use pine or AOL or Hotmail or whatnot, that's the most reliable way of distributing the file. Even my Mom likes getting a link and being able to click on it rather than saving the file off somewhere and trying to open it later. And that's only one of the many many useful things you can do once you have a server and a static IPs, especially once you learn CGI and the power of perl.
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I have this with a dynamic IP right now.. in fact they can change my IP address every hour and it will still work...
www.dyndns.org is your friend.
dyndns (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:4, Interesting)
given that, we dont block any ports, give out real IPs, and my ISP at home far away also blocks no ports and gives out real IPs.
and given THAT, as an isp netadmin, and as an isp customer to someone else, i'd gladly pay 5 bucks/month to a paranoid isp to unblock my ports and give me a real ip. ARIN charges you like 2 grand a year for your own
Re:of course they are shrugging it off... (Score:3, Insightful)
The day we get IPv6 end-to-end, I guess we'll see a lot of hacked windowsboxes that used to be nated out of reach...
Further there are several Microsoft OSes that doesn't even know IPv6 exists yet; Microsoft certainly have to take a big part of the blame for this issue
Easy fix (Score:5, Funny)
nat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:nat (Score:3, Funny)
Nevermind the fact that they can use a PHP interface for their kitchen (via a VNC+SSH tunnel) so that they can get the oven preheating, the dishwasher warming bread plates, and the fridge defrosting the meat for that night.
Re:nat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:nat (Score:5, Interesting)
do cell phones, refirgerators, and other "appliances" really need a dedicated static i.p. address? why can't they use NAT and private addresses?
But if you have, say, 2 appliances that you need to be able to access from the outside, you'd need to keep them apart. For example one could be on port 31337 and the other on port 31338 and those ports are forwarded to 10.0.0.1:22 and 10.0.0.2:22. Of course, setting that up manually is a bit of a chore, plus you'd have to remember all of it. It would be neat if there was a standardized protocol to do this. Guess what, hotshot! This is your lucky day! There *is* such a protocol, and it *eliminates* all problems you could think of. It's not called uPNP,it's called... wait for it.. IPv6 !
Re:nat (Score:4, Funny)
Re:nat (Score:3, Insightful)
Fridge (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously though, for an IP enabled fridge to be of any use you'd have to have a way of knowing what's in it. Strike me down, but this seems like a reasonable application of RFID.
Considering the costs (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, beeing a very technically forward place this should not be a problem, but some kind of a push is really needed. Especially for low-budget companies, instutions etc that make out a big part of the IP customers - they simply don't always have the "cash" for the migration. And "why migrate when this works fine for us" is a
Here we go... (Score:5, Insightful)
Canned response 2: NAT is only good for outgoing.
Canned response 3: NAT is an easy way to secure machines.
Canned response 4: NAT is an abomination in the eyes of the Internet gods.
Canned response 5: Even when we have IPv6, ISPs will charge huge amounts for IP addresses.
If you write P2P software you will know that NAT is a major pain in the ass and requires very bizarre architectures involving reflectors owned and run by third parties (or at least port forwarding). More IP addresses cannot be a bad thing and we have to move sooner or later.
Re:Here we go... (Score:3, Insightful)
ASPs and others offering network interconnectivity services on a regular basis shouldn't ever use it in a way visible to customers, as it will result in a lot of address collision and annoying NAT-NAT double conversions that are
Re:Here we go... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not suggesting that you think this is true, but it's a very wide misconception. NAT gives a lot of people a false sense of security. ``My system is on a non-routed IP address, there's no way anyone can break into it.''
The problem, of course, is that they proceed to route it through a NAT, run externally visible services on it[0], network clients that are actively connecting out on the internet--possibly introducing back doors[1], etc...
[0] I br
Cell Phones (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you sure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are you sure? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, I'm pretty sure they need data services in Afganistan more than running water or electricity. Really.
Cyber-Kyoto? (Score:5, Funny)
I like the way... (Score:5, Funny)
Does it surprise you. (Score:2)
Re:Does it surprise you. (Score:2)
Name a single ISP anywhere in the world that is planning on rolling out IPv6?
Re:Does it surprise you. (Score:2)
*.ne.jp
Who does care? (Score:2)
Beuller? Beuller?
Ugh (Score:2)
Seriously, have you seen IPv6 IPs? They're not numbers anymore, like 216.239.57.99 (google.com), but more like afbc.3fa31b.ca329b and the such. it's just hideous, and not as well known how to work with by regular schmuck programmers.
You can buy your own singular IP for about 50 bucks. It's very helpful if you don't want to change it each time you change ISPs, especially if you're running a personal box as a server.
Re:Ugh (Score:2)
And BTW, IPv6 still uses numbers. They are just in hexadecimal.
Moron (Score:2)
This seems to sum up this guys knowledge of the Internet. Move along, nothing to see here.
American Attitude, but why not? (Score:2, Insightful)
*Gene
Given the military is switching (Score:2)
I have a hard time seeing industry not doing the same-- even if it is kicking and screaming.
Actually, I'm kinda hoping this transition to IPv6 will kickstart hightech spending and put this economic lull to an end... GWB might want to think of doing that instead of tax breaks.. anyways.
I blame the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
*rimshot*
I'll be here all week folks.
Insightful IPv6 article (Score:5, Interesting)
NAT sucks (Score:5, Informative)
3. Profit!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you cheap service, they'll give you an unwieldy NAT setup behind a dynamic IP address. If you want your own fixed IP address, you'll pay the tollkeepers a handsome fee to get it.
What IP shortage? (Score:2)
People said the same thing before CIDR and NAT caught on... and we still have people shouting "Class A!" "Class B!" who are proclaiming the sky is falling on IPv4.
Cellphones eating your IP space? NAT 'em, except for the business users who want to VPN and pay for the priveledge (and stop kicking us off for inactivity while they're at it!). I'll bet that alone would save the Verizons and Sprints enough coins for an extra life.
IPv4 will be around for a good long time. At least a decade more. IPv6 is coo
Until Then, Let Market Rule (Score:2)
I really would like to see IPv6 take off and become widely used, even in the U.S.
Until then, why not start a market where IPv4 addresses may be bought and sold and even leased for a while?
A central marketplace would enable the IPv4 address changes to be forwarded automatically into the big DNS servers and a small tax on the transaction could fund the minimal cost of doing the updating.
Finally, if the price for IPv4 addresses gets too high, then IPv6 will become naturally attractive, much in the same way
A bit of math (Score:4, Interesting)
Number of people on earth: 6.35 Billion according to ibilio [ibiblio.org]
At this moment, Every other person on earth could have their own IP address. And we'd still have a billion IP's to spare.
Throw NAT into the equation just for fun.
With proper addressing schemes, IPv4 still has a ton of life left in it. It's nice to know IP6 is out there. But just because it's better doesn't mean it will ever gain world wide acceptance.
Just ask Preston Tucker, The makers of the Betamax, The Newton development team, etc
Not that I am anti-american (Score:2)
Just Revoke these netblocks (Score:5, Funny)
Santa Cruz Operation Ltd (SCOL)
Santa Cruz Operation Incorporated SCO1 (NET-150-126-0-0-1) 150.126.0.0 - 150.126.255.255
Santa Cruz Operation Ltd SCO-1 (NET-192-86-169-0-1) 192.86.169.0 - 192.86.169.255
Santa Cruz Operation Ltd SCO-2 (NET-192-153-2-0-1) 192.153.2.0 - 192.153.2.255
Santa Cruz Operation Inc SBCIS68512 (NET-63-199-9-216-1) 63.199.9.216 - 63.199.9.223
Santa Cruz Operation Inc. SBCIS21385 (NET-63-192-223-80-1) 63.192.223.80 - 63.192.223.87
DoD making a big push for IPv6 (Score:4, Interesting)
Will they make full compliance by 2008? Probably not, knowing how government institutions work. However, DoD purchases a lot of computers, a lot of networked devices, etc. I remember hearing about 70% of their traffic goes accross the Internet (years ago, and they create a lot of traffic.) They have been a big influence on the 'net in the past [shu.edu], and I think this will be a big catalyst to IPv6 in the future.
Individual IP addresses aren't globally assignable (Score:5, Insightful)
Arin should charge more for ipv4 and less for ipv6 (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the situation is currently backwards to the way it should be. Arin ( and other Ipv4 providers ) should be charging next to nothing for Ipv6 netbocks ($100 or so) and slowly start charging more for Ipv4 blocks each year. So for the first year charge $100 for each Ipv4 block (on top of any other fees). The second year they would charge 500 and the year after that 1000 and then 3000 and so on... Until we start charging more for Ipv4 address's than Ipv6 we will not see any major move to Ipv6. The more people that can get switched over to Ipv6 the sooner the better.
ok, I'll do it. where do I start? (Score:4, Interesting)
If your ISP doesn't support IPv6, are you SOL?
Tell MIT to release their Class A (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tell MIT to release their Class A (Score:3, Insightful)
there are quite a few
012/8 Jun 95 AT&T Bell Laboratories
013/8 Sep 91 Xerox Corporation
015/8 Jul 94 Hewlett-Packard Company
016/8 Nov 94 Digital Equipment Corporation
017/8 Jul 92 Apple Computer Inc.
018/8 Jan 94 MIT
019/8 May 95 Ford Motor Company
020/8 Oct 94 Computer Sciences Corporation
032/8 Jun 94 Norsk Informasjonsteknology
034/8 Mar 93 Halliburton Company
038/8 Sep 94 P
Get off your butts... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, there appears to be a misconception that Governments or ISPs must be the ones to make the conversion first. IPv6 is designed to run side by side with IPv4. I was given 1 IPv4 address from my ISP, but I can use the IPv6 6to4 transition mechanism and get 80 bits worth of routable addresses. And my ISP didn't have to do anything to set it up. (Static IP needed)
Solaris, Linux, and Windows supports this right now. So I say get off your butts and get on IPv6 today.
From the Firewall-Wizards mailing list, about IPV6 (Score:4, Interesting)
"IPV6 is insane overcomplexity if that was the only problems we wanted to solve. We could have doubled the address size of V4, bumped the version number, and left-filled from zero. As far as the "route glut" problems that stimulated the original design of IPV6, we could have used conventions (e.g. something like CIDR addressing which hadn't been thought of when the V6 effort started) that could easily have solved those issues.
Basically, the standards pukes are having fun playing their little games but none of it's really going to solve real problems. IPV6 is gonna be like ISO protocols all over again: what if they gave a protocol and nobody came?"
IPv6 is a good thing, USA or not! (Score:3, Insightful)
Assignment can be automatic, while not exactly "two googols" of addresses, 2^128 minus those reserved is quite some number! (use your 'bc' and see it for yourself) If there are seven billion people on the planet (and that is an overestimate) we are looking at over some 1.8 x 10^26 "class C equivelant" per every human on the planet! (sorry Griffen, you grossly under-estimated in the same line you grossly over-estimated! -- ditch that Microsoft crap!) I seem to come to a figure of over '60 quadrillion class C equivalents' per second of 7 billion people living for 100 years and the last part is probably a gross exagreratation of what the average human life expectancy will be. Sure the US of A is scared!
Somehow i fail to see the added expence in all of this. It may cost Microsoft $Billions, but the people that are going to need this don't care in the least if Microsoft lives or dies. IPv6 is today and i must admit i was quite impresed a number of years ago when i plugged in my old laptop running FreeBSD into an IPv6 network powered by OpenBSD and it worked instantly! It is this way today on all major Unix type platforms.
Finally, i see only one downside to this and it is not important: "You probably won't be able to memorise all of your IP numbers and ranges no matter what tricks you use for IPv4 today". Get over it, it used to be cool to memorise your entire address book, but when mobiles came out, phone numbers got bigger and became 'throwaway' too. (This is quite litteral here in Europe as GSM mobile phones are usually given away with each and every subscription.)
Open source just catching up? Eh? (Score:3, Funny)
The open-source community has also begun incorporating IPv6 into its own operating systems."
Oh yes, we have 'just begun' to put IPV6 support in Linux, FreeBSD, etc.. I think these features were evident in the open source OS's before Microsoft and Apple made the switch.
I could be wrong. It's happened once or twice before.
Re:Open source just catching up? Eh? (Score:3, Informative)
9. @ IBM (Score:4, Informative)
So called because all the dotted ip addresses beginng with 9, (i.e.
9.0.0.1 through 9.255.255.254 belong to them).
Thats 0.4% of the ENTIRE IPV4 address space, assigned to one company. IRC, MIT has a similar allocation...
Re:Change (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Change (Score:2, Interesting)
But you are right, the switch over to IPv6 will be costly and that's a big reason why it hasn't been widely adopted. But here's my thinking on this: if you look at this for the long-range economics, more IP addresses will be a good thing. Every device you own can have an address and when a device has an address, companies can
Re:Change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Change (Score:3, Informative)
Btw, you can get on the IPv6 network now. Join the 6bone [6bone.net]. You don't even need a native IPv6 provider, you can use 6over4 to connect to the network over an IPv4 only network.
Re:Change (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Change (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Change (Score:4, Insightful)
1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A
Apparently IPv4 only nodes are represented in the IPv6 space with the first 6 numbers being
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF
and the last two numbers containing the IPv4 address e.g.
10.1.2.3 would be
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF:A:1:2:3
and may also be written as
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF:10.1.2.3
Re:Change (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sky is Falling (Score:2)
Damn stereotypes. Next you are going to be saying all Americans have a holier-than-thou attitude problem.
Re:there is a total of 1 billion IPs left (Score:2)
Re:there is a total of 1 billion IPs left (Score:4, Insightful)
The world population currently stands at over 6 billion, and growing. If only 17% of the world uses simply one extra IP, then your supply is exhausted. Of course, this ignores issues generated by distributing IPs in blocks rather than individually, restricting certain IPs, etc.
Think of IPv6 as "preventative" medicine. Sure, you might feel healthy despite having a 44" waistline, smoking 3 packs a day, and consuming gallons of lard for breakfast each morning, but what do you do when you suddenly realize you should change? It's certainly not an instantaneous solution, and it's far better to have stopped the situation from happening in the first place.
Re:there is a total of 1 billion IPs left (Score:5, Informative)
The planning didn't really hold water when TCP/IP became mainstream...
Look at the low-end of the IP-range (where most of the big assignements are), IBM are assigned 9.0.0.0/8, leaving them with 255^3 (- unusuables) 16 million addresses. That's enough for a small country. Ironically they don't even use them for their own website which is hosted on 129.42.0.0/16 which is a different subnet also owned by IBM so add another 16,000 addresses to those 16 million and probably countless other subnets held by IBM or IBM subsiduaries in different parts of the world...
Get the picture now?