joseephuss
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http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2011/02/01/f-vp-misener-internet.html
Internet overseer hands out last IP addresses
Last chunks of IP addresses given away — but someone's working on how to create more
In my books, Feb. 1, 2011, will go down as the day the internet got too big for its britches. The net has officially outgrown the scale of its original design.
Earlier in the day, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the international organization that hands out IP addresses on a global scale, handed out two of the very last IP address blocks to APNIC, the internet registrar for the Asia-Pacific region.
This is the beginning of the end of IP addresses as we've known them, or as some have dubbed it, the first days of the IPocalypse.
So what exactly are we running out of? IP addresses.
If you don't know exactly what an IP address is, there's no need to worry, because it's a pretty simple concept.
Basically, an IP address is a unique number assigned to every device that's directly connected to the internet. Your computer at home, if it's directly connected to the internet, has an IP address. Your wireless router probably has an IP address. Your smartphone probably has an internet IP address. IP addresses are a big part of how devices on the internet are able to talk to one another.
4.3 billion addresses not enough
But here's the thing: there are only so many IP addresses that are possible. It's a finite number, about 4.3 billion addresses. And the last two big chunks of available IP addresses were just handed out
............................................................................................
An unpronouncable number to come
The good news is that computer scientists have known about this limitation for years.
To prepare for it, they created a whole new addressing scheme, called IPv6 (or simply v6), which allows for a huge number of IP addresses.
In addition to the current 4.3 billion addresses, IPv6 allows for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses. So, a lot.
Even though this new IPv6 system has been around for a while, most of the internet as we know it isn't ready for IPv6. ISPs have been particularly slow to adopt the new system.
The other really tricky bit is that the old IP address scheme and the new IPv6 address scheme aren't compatible with one another. It's likely that both systems will run alongside one another for years to come.
Another possible solution to IP address exhaustion is something called "Carrier-grade NAT," which allows existing IP addresses to be shared. Instead of me having my own IP address and my neighbour having her own IP address, we might share a single address.
That solution comes with its own set of challenges, some of which will be familiar to anyone who's ever shared a single phone number, or used a party-line telephone. Sharing can be tricky.
IPv6 seems to have the most momentum behind it. This June, a number of heavy-hitters like Google, Facebook and Yahoo are getting behind something called World IPv6 day, which is a sort of large scale "test flight" for the system.
Internet overseer hands out last IP addresses
Last chunks of IP addresses given away — but someone's working on how to create more
In my books, Feb. 1, 2011, will go down as the day the internet got too big for its britches. The net has officially outgrown the scale of its original design.
Earlier in the day, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the international organization that hands out IP addresses on a global scale, handed out two of the very last IP address blocks to APNIC, the internet registrar for the Asia-Pacific region.
This is the beginning of the end of IP addresses as we've known them, or as some have dubbed it, the first days of the IPocalypse.
So what exactly are we running out of? IP addresses.
If you don't know exactly what an IP address is, there's no need to worry, because it's a pretty simple concept.
Basically, an IP address is a unique number assigned to every device that's directly connected to the internet. Your computer at home, if it's directly connected to the internet, has an IP address. Your wireless router probably has an IP address. Your smartphone probably has an internet IP address. IP addresses are a big part of how devices on the internet are able to talk to one another.
4.3 billion addresses not enough
But here's the thing: there are only so many IP addresses that are possible. It's a finite number, about 4.3 billion addresses. And the last two big chunks of available IP addresses were just handed out
............................................................................................
An unpronouncable number to come
The good news is that computer scientists have known about this limitation for years.
To prepare for it, they created a whole new addressing scheme, called IPv6 (or simply v6), which allows for a huge number of IP addresses.
In addition to the current 4.3 billion addresses, IPv6 allows for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses. So, a lot.
Even though this new IPv6 system has been around for a while, most of the internet as we know it isn't ready for IPv6. ISPs have been particularly slow to adopt the new system.
The other really tricky bit is that the old IP address scheme and the new IPv6 address scheme aren't compatible with one another. It's likely that both systems will run alongside one another for years to come.
Another possible solution to IP address exhaustion is something called "Carrier-grade NAT," which allows existing IP addresses to be shared. Instead of me having my own IP address and my neighbour having her own IP address, we might share a single address.
That solution comes with its own set of challenges, some of which will be familiar to anyone who's ever shared a single phone number, or used a party-line telephone. Sharing can be tricky.
IPv6 seems to have the most momentum behind it. This June, a number of heavy-hitters like Google, Facebook and Yahoo are getting behind something called World IPv6 day, which is a sort of large scale "test flight" for the system.
