340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 new web addresses created by internet chiefs..

The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 07/16/06 | Jonathan Richards

[jdm]

For more info, visit:

www.340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.UNNNGH

:O)

[proxy_user]

I would have thought that the need for IP6 would have diminished because of widespread NAT'd private subnets. I would not want my phone or refrigerator to be directly on the public internet.

[nhoward14]

Finally, a number Carl Sagan would enjoy.

Meanwhile, the US government is thinking ... if we put a 1 cent tax on every IPv6 address... we could afford to buy 12 more hammers a year!

[RandallFlagg]

UNNNGH!!!

[supercat]

Using NAT routing, there can be over four billion different machines connected to the Internet without any particular problem. Routers have to be aware of any UDP protocols that are supposed to work through them, but that seems to be pretty well in hand for existing protocols. It should not be hard to specify a means by which new UDP protocol authors would be 'strongly encouraged' to use a TCP connection to set up UDP parameters in a standardized way; NAT routers could then handle all such UDP protocols, present and future.

One of the design features of IP is that the address can be used for routing. I've heard talk of mobile machines being given 'permanent' addresses, but that would seem to require a huge architecture to keep track of where all the machines were. Better, I would think, would be to simply require mobile machines to connect to a "home base", which would then keep them informed if anyone wanted to talk to them.

[Cyclopean Squid]

At least an octillion of those will be porn sites.

[nhoward14]

The 4 billion address number in IPv4 includes the private network addressing spaces. The other problem is that IPv4 IPs are not sold individually. They have to be assigned in blocks which adds to the speed at which they are used up.

[Moonman62]

I heard that Carl enjoyed numbers.

[Jalapeno]

I suspect it is an issue of distribution, as they are running out of class A and B addresses to dole out to controlling entities. (A.B.C.D) Not an issue of one computer per human as described.

[Publius6961]

Well, that ought to take care of our galaxy...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Well, that ought to take care of our galaxy..."

And I'm STILL waiting for my flying car! ;)

[sourcery]

When the internet was developed in the 1980s, programmers had no idea how big it would become. They gave each address a “16-bit” number, which meant that the total number of available addresses worked out at about four billion (2 to the power of 32). But as use grew, it became clear that the old protocol, IPv4, wasn’t big enough, so a new one was written based on “32-bit numbers”. That increased the number of available addresses to 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion — enough for the foreseeable future, Mr Kessens said.

Unless Mr. Kessens is a technically incompetent dork, I am quite certain he said no such thing.

16-bit numbers range from 0 to 65535 if they're "unsigned," and from -32768 to 32767 if they're "signed." Unsigned 32-bit numbers range from 0 to 4,294,967,295. The number of IP addresses supported by IPv6 (340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456,) requires 128 bits (16 bytes)--a value which can be computed as 2 to the power of 128.

[Ol' Sox]

I would not want my phone or refrigerator to be directly on the public internet.

Don't worry, this is just preparation for the One World Order. When we are all one, you'll be happy that Big Brother is monitoring your 'fridge so you don't get fat.

/sarc...or?

[COEXERJ145]

Reading that number gave me a headache. LOL!

[supercat]

I would have thought that the need for IP6 would have diminished because of widespread NAT'd private subnets. I would not want my phone or refrigerator to be directly on the public internet.

Exactly. Even if you want a means of talking to your phone or television from elsewhere, I would see nothing wrong with simply opening an encrypted channel to your router that says, "I'd like to talk to the refrigerator via this channel."

[Fresh Wind]

50 billion the number of e-mails dispatched every day wordwide

And 49 billion of them are Viagra ads.

[nhoward14]

The 32 bits is the individual fields in the address.

IPv4 is 16bit.16bit.16bit.16bit for 64 bit addresses.

IPv6 is 32bit.32bit.32bit.32bit for 128 bit addresses.

[cloud8]

Betcha someone has bought up billions of 'em.

[sourcery]

The 32 bits is the individual fields in the address.

That's almost certainly what the reporter meant, but it's quite certainly not at all what he actually said.