Correct me if im wrong please, but dont registration and domain hosting sites (GODADDY etc.) take back the domains if they are unpaid?

So there would still be a number (possibly a very small one) of domains that WILL turn over eventually.

Maybe.

Oh, and +1 to UN propaganda specialist, nice reference

If Cap and Tax schemes can solve the global warming hoax, it certainly can solve the IPv4 problem as well. Al Gore should be in charge of this tax since he invented the internet along with global warming.

@ Martin:

What you fail to understand is every time they publish this story, it's "2 years or less until we run out."

If we really truly running, out, why do spammers have access to so many new ones?

All that's necessary to extend the "runoff" date by another decade or so is have DSL & Cable companies set up NAT for personal DSL / Cable access and that would free up tons of IP4 addresses & also help trace infected PCs.

But hey... why let facts & information get in the way of a good story? ;-)

There is roughly 3% reserved for special use e.g. 192, 127, and 10. So nearly 90% used and <10% free does make sense.

IPv6 has trillions of trillions of trillions of addresses. That's right, no exageration.
My biggest interest in IPv6 is static IP. Maybe a static IP to every computer in my house. No more NAT or whatsoever.
Yes, I'm a nerd...

And extremely old. I learnt about it when I attended the University and that was like in 2000. And it was around for a few years back then.

So until everyone says: no more ips I think nobody will do a thing.

Including theinquirer :) ... to address the poor reader who couldn't access the site on IPv6 address.

Of course they publish the same article every few years, the addresses actually *are* running out and the exhaustion point is getting closer, and nobody seems to be doing much about it. Given that head-in-the-sand attitude (as reflected in some of the more clueless posters here) it's no surprise they are shouting louder and louder.

400m may seem like a lot, but they are being sucked up at the rate of about 200m per year, so it's really not that many.

All of this can be solved with 1:1 NAT, 4to6 and 6to4 gateways. That way, everybody can have their own 0/1 network. Billions and Billions of your own addresses! (apologies to Carl Sagan).

So, as Rob Lamm of "Chicago" once wrote, "Being pushed and shoved by people trying to beat the clock, oh, no I just don't know ... I don't know ..." :)

Nearly 90% used implies that the percentage is less than but near to 90%.

Therefore the percentage left is actually slightly more than 10%.

As a result, the title of your article "Under 10 per cent..." is incorrect.

It's not like it's even difficult maths. (100 - x 10 where x < 90)

The forefathers did an excellent job of allowing for that many since the web was unknown at the time of conception. The add on has been in the works since at least the year 2000 when I first heard about it. I am not concerned at all.

I wouldn't give them up if I were HP. Owning that range as a result of a company acquisition is a great bonus.

And what would "general consumption" really mean? Giving them to ISPs? Other countries? It's not like there's just a pool of free IPs that anyone can use--somebody controls them. So if it's HP because they bought a company that was early in line to acquire IPs, it's not like they're any less worthy.

E.q. long gone Digital had A class range on its possession, 16.0.0.0/8. Digital was bought by Compaq which in turn gets swallowed by HP, also in possession of class A address range, 15.0.0.0/8.

Now one might wonder what the heck does HP now do with TWO class A networks.

Would it be time to get say 16.0.0.0/8 to be revoked for more general consumption?

That's a big number. People have been whining about this issue for years. Something about how every last overpopulated country won't be able to give each citizen his or her own IP. Well boo hoo. Make due with it. Not everyone is entitled to their own static IP. Never was. Even if we had some odd 2^128 IP addresses, it's not going to make a difference any time soon. We're not going to suddenly see every last object being given an IP.

I almost shudder to think that it'll be extremely hard to blacklist countries and continents that I block out now to prevent their garbage (i.e. malicious content, spam, etc.) from polluting my networks.

When your feeble mind has finished beating off to porn on the internet, feel free to join the conversation.

...anyone have a suggestion for an up-to-date IPv6 reference? Trying to drink from the firehose on Amazon mostly turns up stuff from 2006.

[Just checked, and it looks like O'Reilly updated one in 2008, but the ToC is surprisingly Windows-centric. Is that the best on offer?]

Don't they issue this same story every few years?

Maybe you should just set it up to publish as a cron job.

Hi,

An interesting article, yet when I try to get to www.theinquirer.net via IPv6 I find it isn't there. Shouldn't sites like this who are reporting the issue actually impliment the solution before telling others to do so.

Karen

Seriously, people. We were supposed to run out a couple of years ago. Now we have enough until 2014. All of your FUD has done nothing to force ISPs to ugprade. DSL Modems, Cable Modems, Wireless Routers, they are all still IPV4 only. Nobody is scared, nobody cares.