[General Battuta]

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

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

you never know.

But why would they all need their own IP addresses?

[Klaustrophobia]

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.

[General Battuta]

I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.

[Mongoose]

We can deal with IPv8 when that comes around, then.

[NGTM-1R]

I probably agree. Maybe all our individual nanobots will need an IP address.

Well how else are you going to control them?

[Flipside]

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

[Grizzly]

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.

[Spicious]

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.

[Flipside]

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.

[NGTM-1R]

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.

[Topgun]

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

[Flipside]

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?

[Bobboau]

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

[FUBAR-BDHR]

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. 

[castor]

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.

[Luis Dias]

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.

[Nuke]

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.

[jr2]

@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT firmware.  I bet they update to IPv6 if they haven't already.

[Topgun]

@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT firmware.  I bet they update to IPv6 if they haven't already.

I think that is what he was referring to.

[Nuke]

@Nuke, you could see if your router will take the open source DD-WRT 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.