If you haven’t heard, current projections have the address space for internet addresses (version 4 – IPv4) being exhausted in the next year (current “X-day” as they’re calling it is January 20th, 2011).  The IPv4 address format is 4 octets separated by periods.  You may have seen this with your home network or internet provider with addresses like “192.168.1.1”.  Four octets is 32 bits of information which results in 4,294,967,296 unique addresses.  This doesn’t map directly as there are ranges reserved for specific purposes but regardless, the allocation to the multitude of devices, networks and computers is exhausting the available addresses.

For years, we’ve had the solution: IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6).  Not only does it expand on the address space (moving to 128 bits which delivers about 3.4×1038 addresses with a format like fe80:0:0:0:202:b3ff:fe1e:8329) but it adds capabilities for additional options including security, multicasting (sending the data to multiple destinations), and others.  Industry and government have been slow to make the changeover.  Much like Y2K this will start getting hyped later this year but largely we shouldn’t worry.  The only major concern is for older and lower-end network equipment that do not support IPv6 addresses.  It is unlikely that they will be able to be upgraded in place for the most part, requiring a replacement (think home routers, cable/telco routers for providing home service).

Think, though, of what 3.4×1038 addresses means: everything will be getting an address – your refrigerator, furnace, car systems (yes, individual systems within your car – some of which is already done today), phones, cell phones, televisions, etc.  The changeover will be most problematic for those of us who can remember these addresses like phone numbers.  The longer and more complex IPv6 addresses, even with the abbreviations allowed, will be difficult to remember.

Welcome your networked overlords now.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.