nanog mailing list archives

Re: Found: Who is responsible for no more IP addresses


From: Jima <nanog () jima tk>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 23:27:52 -0600

On 1/27/2011 6:24 AM, Nick Hilliard wrote:
On 27/01/2011 11:21, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
"I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion IPv4
addresses would be enough to do an experiment," Cerf was quoted as
saying,
adding it is his "fault" that "we were running out of the addresses.""

Fortunately, web developers have fixed the problem according to Fox news:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/26/internet-run-ip-addresses-happens-anyones-guess/


"Web developers have tried to compensate for this problem by creating
IPv6 -- a system that recognizes six-digit IP addresses rather than
four-digit ones."

It will be difficult initially, though:

"But IPv6 isn't backwards-compatible with IPv4, meaning that it's not
able to read most content that operates on an IPv4 system. At best, the
user experience will be clunky and slow. At worst, instead of a webpage,
all users will be able to view is a blank page."

I'm glad Fox has cleared all this up for us.

Actually, Fox News got the article -- glaring technical inaccuracies and all -- from www.news.com.au:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/the-internet-has-run-out-of-ip-addresses-and-what-happens-after-that-is-anyones-guess/story-e6frfro0-1225995086627

Of course, you won't find (most of) the inaccuracies there now; they edited the article after the fact (and after Fox copied them). The only proof I had for myself reading it later were my logged peanut-gallery comments in #ipv6:

14:03 < jima> "Web developers have tried to compensate for this problem by creating IPv6 - a system which recognises six-digit IP addresses."
14:04 < jima> web developers? *wince* six-digit IP addresses? *cringe*
14:05 < jima> i'm gonna give mr. hutson a piece of my mind! ...if i could figure out who he is. :-\

After the edit, I did snark via Twitter, "Media Trolling 101: 1. Write #IPv6 story w/ glaring tech. inaccuracies. 2. Get story picked up by FoxNews. 3. Fix inaccuracies. 4. Laugh." ( http://twitter.com/neojima/status/30644080144818176 )

So, yes, while this was an example of news coverage gone terribly wrong, we can't blame Fox alone. (There is, however, such a thing as "fact-checking," but that's a secondary point.)

     Jima


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