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IPv6 is Here
shawn(at)fsu writes "Reuters is running a story that Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) says that "IPv6 been added to its root server systems" I like how they said that it will run along side IPv4 for 20 years to get rid of the bugs.
A few previous Slashdot stories out of many here, here and here"
or does "virtually unlimited" seem like a very silly and shortsighted estimate of the number of possible addresses? Especially because the uses/monopolization of these addresses will probably grow in unforeseeable ways.
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
Let's add "good netizens who want to be anonymous". Maybe I'm not thinking clearly, but I don't see a way of making the net spammer-proof without ending the concept of internet anonymity.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Having more IP addresses doesn't mean that they will be statically assigned, nor that they will be assigned on a "per-user" rather than on a "per-device" basis. Even if each individual were assigned a block of addresses for their devices (this packet comes from John's palm pilot, this from his cell phone, and that one from his refrigerator...) you'd still have the problem of multiple users with a single physical device (public library computers, internet cafes, office beer fridges...) so, unless each device includes biometric identification and logging, you'll never be able to attribute every internet communication to a human party, even when one exists. I won't even get into the privacy concerns there.
The vast majority of bad netizenship occurs at protocol levels above IP -- spammers abuse SMTP, advertisers abuse DHTML, hackers abuse various services running on open ports. While some of this bad netizenship can be addressed at lower protocol levels (e.g. by blackholing certian IP ranges) the real solution is in fixing the higher-level protocols.