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The Internet Sky Is Falling

For years there have been fears that IPv4 addresses were running out, and the Web would be more paralyzed than the U.S. Congress. I had the honor of interviewing Vint Cerf on this very subject over ten years ago, and came away a bit nervous. Cerf's answer? Move over to IPv6.

As I understand it, there were some tweaks (kludges?) to IPv4 that expanded the address space and bought us an extra decade or so. Now that time is running out, and without a new kludge, we could be plum out of IPv4 addresses, tout de suite.

According to Internet registries, the situation is so bad that all remaining addresses could be gone by the end of the year.

The real issue is that converting to IPv6, even though it's been available for many years, ain't always an easy thing. But again, you are the experts. Is IPv6 a piece of cake or a piece of something else? Tell me at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 08/06/2010 at 1:18 PM


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