A Looming Shortage Of IP Addresses

[DeclinetoState]

Something else to worry about?
The seemingly boundless Internet is running out of a key resource: new IP addresses.

IP addresses, which are somewhat like telephone numbers, allow machines in homes and offices to locate and communicate with one another over the global network. The evaporating supply of new addresses — which some estimates say could dry up in about three years — could drive up the price of Internet access as well as disrupt the growth and performance of the network, warn some experts.

Worried that opportunists will hoard addresses to speculatively sell them, the organization responsible for handing out addresses in North America announced Wednesday that it would try to regulate the emerging trade. And in recent months, Internet administrators have been more forcefully urging software vendors, Internet service providers (ISPs), and major content providers to transition to a new addressing system.
More (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/03/tech/main3131734.shtml)

[DeclinetoState]

I have no idea what most of this means, but it sounds impressive!



Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a network layer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_layer) protocol for packet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet)-switched internetworks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internetwork). It is designated as the successor of IPv4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4), the current version of the Internet Protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol), for general use on the Internet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet).

The main improvement brought by IPv6 is the increase in the number of addresses available for networked devices. IPv4 supports 2<SUP>32</SUP> (about 4.3 billion) addresses. In comparison, IPv6 supports 2<SUP>128</SUP> (about 3.4×10<SUP>38</SUP>) addresses, or approximately 5×10<SUP>28</SUP> addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people<SUP class=reference id=_ref-0>[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#_note-0)</SUP> alive today. It was not the intention of IPv6 designers, however, to give permanent unique addresses to every individual and every computer. Rather, the extended address length simplifies operational considerations including dynamic address assignment and router decisionmaking, avoiding many complex workarounds that were necessary in IPv4, such as Classless Inter-Domain Routing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing) (CIDR). Its simplified packet header format improves the efficiency of forwarding in routers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router).
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6)

Most addresses now are in version 4. They will have to be switched to version 6 eventually.

I think.

[DesertFox]

Dunno if 528 internet addresses will be enough for me, with all these dang wimmen after my hide. :D

[DoctorDoom]

First, IPV4 #s allow only 0 to 255, based on the decimal values available with 8 binary digits. 00000000 is 0, 11111111 is 255.

IPV4 allows numbers from 000.000.000.000 to 255.255.255.255, for a total of 4,294,967,296 possible combinations.

IPV6 uses 8 groups of 4 hexadecimal digits. These are 0-9 plus A (10) to F (15). This is a valid IPV6 address:

2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

In decimal terms:

8193:3512:34211:2259:4889:35374:0880:29492

Each group is 16 binary digits, e.g., 1010 1010 1010 1010. They have 65,536 unique combinations. As a comparison, all the possible IPV4 combinations can be represented by 2 of the 8 groups.

The total number of combinations is 2^128 (8x16), or

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6



Your Windows calculator will read 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38. Its floating-point math can't hack more than 32 significant digits. For purists, the Haxial Calculator (http://www.haxial.com/products/calculator/) can run to a million digits (it will bog down the computer).



Wiki has a good article on IPV6 here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6). It's geek stuff, but the basics are there.

[DesertFox]

Thanks, Doc! It's all perfectly clear now! :D

[DoctorDoom]

Avec plaisir, monsieur!

[LadyHawke]

Hmmm - not saying that this situation doesn't exist - but only that maybe it's not the problem it's being presented as... Are we looking at the famed Hegelian Principle at work here? You know... create a problem, so you can offer a "solution" that folks wouldn't otherwise accept willingly?

This presents the perfect opportunity to impose more control over internet access - who gets access, and how often, and for how long - and for what purpose?

Let's see... if there's a shortage of IP Addresses, maybe "for the common good" all personal use of the 'net would have to be limited in order to insure that banking, business and government have all the access they need...

And the open, unfettered communication among "the great unwashed" (that's us!) would be cut off. Bears watching...

[lowlander]

Avec plaisir, monsieur!

Le croissant el toilet.

[DoctorDoom]

It's a real issue. Under IPV4 (a 1981 protocol in the 2007 Internet) , the actual number of available IP addresses is considerably less than the 4,294,967,296 mathematical limit. In practice large blocks of numbers are inaccessible. Some blocks are permanently assigned even if they're not in use. Other numbers are reserved for local use, e.g., 127.0.0.1 for one's own computer, and 192.168.0.1 for HughesNet's HN7000S modem.

There are ways to mitigate the crunch such as NAT (Network Address Translation), where a company can present one address to the Net while having hundreds of computers tied to its Intranet. However, the explosive growth of the Web is going to force either a change or chaos.

IPV6 is the inevitable answer to the potential grief. Trying to squeeze more use out of IPV4 to avoid IPV6 is exactly equal to libs demanding more energy efficiency and conservation as their "alternative" to providing new sources of energy.


This presents the perfect opportunity to impose more control over internet access - who gets access, and how often, and for how long - and for what purpose?That can be done now, and if IPV6 is stalled, it WILL be. There won't be a choice.

[Rhino]

Hmmm - not saying that this situation doesn't exist - but only that maybe it's not the problem it's being presented as... Are we looking at the famed Hegelian Principle at work here? You know... create a problem, so you can offer a "solution" that folks wouldn't otherwise accept willingly?

This presents the perfect opportunity to impose more control over internet access - who gets access, and how often, and for how long - and for what purpose?

Let's see... if there's a shortage of IP Addresses, maybe "for the common good" all personal use of the 'net would have to be limited in order to insure that banking, business and government have all the access they need...

And the open, unfettered communication among "the great unwashed" (that's us!) would be cut off. Bears watching...You can be calm. This is a problem, but it has been known for a long time, and was the primary reason for IPv6. IPv4 was developed for somewhat similar reasons. IPv4 addresses will work under IPv6. IPv6 just allows more addresses 'underneath'. So, in essence, someone like Earthlink can service multitudes more users internally under IPv6 while still using the same IP addresses it has assigned under IPv4. Basically, this isn't all that different than any other computer problem. The only real difference here is the 'chicken little' scare tactics, like in this article.

[DeclinetoState]

Regarding Rhino's comment, I thought the same thing when I read the comparison to Y2K, which the article seems to assume really was as much of a problem as many feared it would be prior to 1/1/00.