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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Topgun on February 03, 2011, 09:02:27 pm

Title: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Topgun on February 03, 2011, 09:02:27 pm
http://betaus.mobile.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-54646720110203?ca=rdt
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 03, 2011, 09:03:46 pm
Shoulda hurried up with IPV6 instead of arguing over who was going to pay for it ;)
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: NGTM-1R on February 03, 2011, 11:42:17 pm
I vote for the snuffleupagus to panic too.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: IronBeer on February 03, 2011, 11:48:54 pm
Meh. Snuffle to the up to the agus.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: T-LoW on February 04, 2011, 02:41:00 am
When will they be depleted? December 21 2012? :shaking:
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: ssmit132 on February 04, 2011, 03:07:11 am
The article says Thursday, i.e. yesterday. :p
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Spicious on February 04, 2011, 03:09:47 am
We so should have reclaimed Egypt's IP addresses while they weren't using them.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Scooby_Doo on February 04, 2011, 03:21:22 am
Ummmm didn't we have this panic years ago?  Didn't NAT/PAT kinda solve it for the time being?
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Fury on February 04, 2011, 03:34:22 am
NAT doesn't change the fact that you always need to have a public IP address. NAT is extremely useful to have in local network, such as homes, offices and corporates. NAT means that if you have multiple computers connected to internet via one router, they all share the same public IP. Of course, NAT is also very good to have from security perspective.

Now, what about devices that don't connect through NAT? Devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops usually connect to internet directly using their own public IP-address.. Obviously wifi doesn't count as it is almost always used in local network to connect to internet via same router as other cabled-in computers. Numbers of mobile devices using internet connection have skyrocketed in the last few years.

Plus of course more and more people get computers with internet connection, with or without NAT. Particularly in the developing countries.

Right now IPv4 addresses have been exhausted and the world is running on reserve stock which won't last long. The funny thing that we could have easily avoided this because IPv6 has been available and usable since late 90's. Over ten ****ing years. And yet, almost everyone just sat on their ass and now they're panicking.

Guess that's human nature.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 04, 2011, 03:59:00 am
NAT doesn't change the fact that you always need to have a public IP address. NAT is extremely useful to have in local network, such as homes, offices and corporates. NAT means that if you have multiple computers connected to internet via one router, they all share the same public IP. Of course, NAT is also very good to have from security perspective.

Now, what about devices that don't connect through NAT? Devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops usually connect to internet directly using their own public IP-address.. Obviously wifi doesn't count as it is almost always used in local network to connect to internet via same router as other cabled-in computers. Numbers of mobile devices using internet connection have skyrocketed in the last few years.

Plus of course more and more people get computers with internet connection, with or without NAT. Particularly in the developing countries.

Right now IPv4 addresses have been exhausted and the world is running on reserve stock which won't last long. The funny thing that we could have easily avoided this because IPv6 has been available and usable since late 90's. Over ten ****ing years. And yet, almost everyone just sat on their ass and now they're panicking.

Guess that's human nature.

This++.

The problem, as I understand it, originates from an ongoing argument about who is going to pay for the upgrade, the ISP's or the Governments, it's akin to fiddling whilst there's a strange red glow on the horizon that is getting brighter. Odd thing is, large swathes of the Internet already support IPV6, it's the less developed countries that are still forced to use older technology that would probably be hit the hardest.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Ghostavo on February 04, 2011, 04:16:17 am
Wasn't there a drive to encourage the usage of IPv6 a few years ago? Something involving ludicrous amounts of free porn...
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on February 04, 2011, 04:36:06 am
The question is why in their infinite wisdom didn't they come up with a system that translated IPv4 to IPv6 automatically?  That way new equipment could already be using IPv6 while the old stuff continues to run as normal.  Sure your old IPv4 computer might not be able to access the IPv6 sat link in your car but tough upgrade when you can. 
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 04, 2011, 05:15:28 am
It's down to the packet header, the whole difference between IPV4 and IPV6 is that the address is four times the size, so you have a 128Bit address instead of a 32Bit. What amazes me is that they didn't use 64 or 128Bit in the first place, but I don't think it was anticipated that so many people would require an address in the future. It's possible software could be written to take that into account, but the logistics of it would mean huge delays in data transfer speeds.

Still, you are supposed to design systems to be Future Friendly, and 128Bits is more systems than could possibly realistically exist on a single planet, not without a fundamental shift in technology, at least.

Edit: It should be noted that IPv6 routers etc are 100% backwards compatible, so there's no reason not to start the transfer over in places like the US, Japan and Korea and that would at least free up those addresses for the countries that are lagging behind, the problem is that the headers from IPv6 countries would be unreadable by those running IPv4, so you'd need some kind of NAT-resembling system on a countrywide basis to be able to connect to IPv4 sites. It's a real nightmare.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Shade on February 04, 2011, 05:29:46 am
Quote
128Bits is more systems than could possibly realistically exist on a single planet, not without a fundamental shift in technology, at least.
Understatement of the year. Considering that in theory IPv6 allows for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 addresses per person currently alive, I'd say it would take more than a shift in technology to exhaust them. Unless colonizing a couple of extra galaxies counts as a shift in technology :D
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 04, 2011, 05:51:57 am
Quote
128Bits is more systems than could possibly realistically exist on a single planet, not without a fundamental shift in technology, at least.
Understatement of the year. Considering that in theory IPv6 allows for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 addresses per person currently alive, I'd say it would take more than a shift in technology to exhaust them. Unless colonizing a couple of extra galaxies counts as a shift in technology :D

Yeah Interstellarnets might push it, but I suspect by then a new protocol will be in place ;) The truth is, TCP/IP is a pretty flexible protocol, but the headers were designed in the day when sizes had to be extremely limited for the sake of speed.

Edit: I wonder if you could add something at the application layer to deal with part of the problem, but it would mean either having a pool of 'anonymous' IPv4 addresses that could be assigned and then released when finished with or having area-based IPv4 addresses applied via your assigned IPv6 one. Neither approach would make Governments or Organisations happy because it would be practically impossible to track a single person through an IP number (not that this is easy even now).
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Kosh on February 04, 2011, 06:03:29 am
Quote
What amazes me is that they didn't use 64 or 128Bit in the first place,


Usually things like this are a result of the hardware limitations at the time of their creation. Since IPv4 dates back to the late 70's that seems to be the most likely culprit.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 04, 2011, 06:31:28 am
Exactly, and speed as well, IPv4 was in use when 1200 Baud was considered fast for an online connection.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Kosh on February 04, 2011, 06:44:45 am
Pong also had state of the art graphics......


And if you remember any of that first hand you're truely ancient.  :P
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 04, 2011, 06:46:55 am
I used to go across the road and play our neighbours Binatone when it was the only Console on the market :nervous:
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 04, 2011, 10:31:37 pm
Quote
128Bits is more systems than could possibly realistically exist on a single planet, not without a fundamental shift in technology, at least.
Understatement of the year. Considering that in theory IPv6 allows for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 addresses per person currently alive, I'd say it would take more than a shift in technology to exhaust them. Unless colonizing a couple of extra galaxies counts as a shift in technology :D

you know i bet they said the same type of thing back in the day about disk space.  i don't have first hand experience with this, but some of you probably remember when a megabyte file was ****ing HUGE.  hell the computer that flew a rocket to the moon used 6 kilobytes of memory.  some of the hard drives today could probably allow for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 documents per person on earth :P

you never know.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: General Battuta on February 04, 2011, 10:48:34 pm
Quote
128Bits is more systems than could possibly realistically exist on a single planet, not without a fundamental shift in technology, at least.
Understatement of the year. Considering that in theory IPv6 allows for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 addresses per person currently alive, I'd say it would take more than a shift in technology to exhaust them. Unless colonizing a couple of extra galaxies counts as a shift in technology :D

you know i bet they said the same type of thing back in the day about disk space.  i don't have first hand experience with this, but some of you probably remember when a megabyte file was ****ing HUGE.  hell the computer that flew a rocket to the moon used 6 kilobytes of memory.  some of the hard drives today could probably allow for around 5.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 documents per person on earth :P

you never know.

But why would they all need their own IP addresses?
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Klaustrophobia on February 04, 2011, 10:55:12 pm
i know it's not really a good parallel, but my point was i'm sure IP will follow the same path as nearly all technology in that what is thought overkill now will not be sufficient later as stuff changes.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: General Battuta on February 04, 2011, 11:04:00 pm
I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Mongoose on February 04, 2011, 11:14:06 pm
We can deal with IPv8 when that comes around, then. :p
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: NGTM-1R on February 04, 2011, 11:22:10 pm
I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.

Well how else are you going to control them?
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 05, 2011, 03:26:56 am
Well considering the next step in increasing CPU speed was to diversify the work between several CPU's, maybe you'll get something like Multi-connection Internet which works on the same theory, one computer downloading data over several connections at once.

That still wouldn't push the limit, I know, but it's always better to have huge redundancy, just ask the UK Government ;)
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Grizzly on February 05, 2011, 05:17:23 am
I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.

Well how else are you going to control them?

Use a router.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Spicious on February 05, 2011, 05:20:52 am
Well considering the next step in increasing CPU speed was to diversify the work between several CPU's, maybe you'll get something like Multi-connection Internet which works on the same theory, one computer downloading data over several connections at once.
That's been done for a while.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 05, 2011, 05:23:34 am
Well considering the next step in increasing CPU speed was to diversify the work between several CPU's, maybe you'll get something like Multi-connection Internet which works on the same theory, one computer downloading data over several connections at once.
That's been done for a while.

But not on a wide scale, I can see the multi-X approach increasing in technology in the future.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: NGTM-1R on February 05, 2011, 06:16:25 am
I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.
Well how else are you going to control them?
Use a router.

Then you can't hack them to take over the world in great hilarity or nihilistically grey goo the world like Nuke, but do it very slowly since you have to one by one.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Topgun on February 05, 2011, 04:13:53 pm
Well considering the next step in increasing CPU speed was to diversify the work between several CPU's, maybe you'll get something like Multi-connection Internet which works on the same theory, one computer downloading data over several connections at once.

That still wouldn't push the limit, I know, but it's always better to have huge redundancy, just ask the UK Government ;)

Multiple internet connections does not mean you need multiple ip addresses. ip address != mac address
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Flipside on February 05, 2011, 04:17:20 pm
That's why I say 'maybe', 'something like' and 'fundamental shift in technology' ;) The current method of connecting to the Internet wouldn't allow this, I agree, but if there was a fundamental shift in technology then who's to say?
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2011, 05:31:33 pm
I could see a possibility of something like assigning a vast number of ip addresses to a single computer to access many different resources, it could be used to enhance abstractability. In the simplest of terms every connected printer, scanner, hard drive could be given there own address, or even better there own subnet, I could see an atmosphere of "oh we'll never run out" resulting in a situation were ever computer has a subnet the size of the whole ip4 space assigned to it
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on February 05, 2011, 05:34:34 pm
Well considering the next step in increasing CPU speed was to diversify the work between several CPU's, maybe you'll get something like Multi-connection Internet which works on the same theory, one computer downloading data over several connections at once.

That still wouldn't push the limit, I know, but it's always better to have huge redundancy, just ask the UK Government ;)

Multiple internet connections does not mean you need multiple ip addresses. ip address != mac address

Correct I had 3 56k modems shotgunned at one time (for playing FS2).  One IP address. 
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: castor on February 05, 2011, 06:24:17 pm
you never know.
Its quite in the different ballpark though. Looking at the weight of Earth (5.97×10^24 kg), there probably isn't enough accessible raw materials on the planet to produce the internet connectable objects to deplete IPV6 address space.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Luis Dias on February 05, 2011, 07:05:31 pm
This is a silly discussion  ;). 128 bits means that there is a possibility of having a number of IP's in the order of 3*10^38. The entire solar system has a mass of 1.9911×10^33 grams (see wolfram alpha). This means that for a single gram in the solar system, you'll still have more than 10.000 IPs to share.

In a nutshell, I wouldn't worry that much until someone finds faster than light travel.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Nuke on February 05, 2011, 08:44:46 pm
so everyone either has to flash their router or buy new network cards, and all those people running anything less than xp need to upgrade. i think my router is the only thing i have that doesn't run ipv6, but if linksys doesn't provide new firmware, theres a linux based router firmware ive always wanted to try. organizations with huge ipv4 installations could probably patch their routers to convert the ip headers at the router to and from ipv6 at the router, so that everything behind the router can still be ipv4. i really think it all comes down to "il fix it when it breaks", and most network admins with half a brain already have plan to convert their networks over should that happen.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: jr2 on February 06, 2011, 04:25:14 pm
@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com) firmware.  I bet they update to IPv6 if they haven't already.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Topgun on February 06, 2011, 05:36:56 pm
@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com) firmware.  I bet they update to IPv6 if they haven't already.

I think that is what he was referring to.
Title: Re: THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!!!!!!!!!! (IPV4 Depletion)
Post by: Nuke on February 06, 2011, 07:12:41 pm
@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT (http://www.dd-wrt.com) firmware.  I bet they update to IPv6 if they haven't already.

i think its compatible, but until the internet stops working, il be happy to use the existing firmware.