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Millions of Internet Addresses Are Lying Idle

Posted by timothy on from the gathering-their-strength-for-hallowe'en dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The most comprehensive scan of the entire internet for several decades shows that millions of allocated addresses simply aren't being used. Professor John Heidemann from the University of Southern California (USC) used ICMP and TCP to scan the internet. Even though the last IPv4 addresses will be handed out in a couple of years, his survey reveals that many of the addresses allocated to big companies and institutions are lying idle. Heidemann says: 'People are very concerned that the IPv4 address space is very close to being exhausted. Our data suggests that maybe there are better things we should be doing in managing the IPv4 address space.' So, is it time to reclaim those unused addresses before the IPv6 crunch?"

5 of 500 comments (clear)

  1. screw ipv4 by k3v0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    lets just switch to IPv6, it's more functional and future proof

    1. Re:screw ipv4 by Finallyjoined!!! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Internally yes. Externally no. However my point was; everyone who stands up and says "Screw IPv4 let's move to IPv6" should be sat in front of a border router & told to get on with it.

      Everyone can eat salami, precious few can make it.

      --
      If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
    2. Re:screw ipv4 by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What you'd do is upgrade the router. That's it.

      Basically new routers would do a 1:1 version of NAT going from IPV6 externally to IPV4 internally. You'd likely still be using the set aside non-connected blocks without problems. As things evolve you'd probably be able to do IPV6 easily internally and ditch that as the network devices support it.

      The difficulty of upgrading to IPV6 has never been on that end it's the other infrastructure and the ISP services which were where the actual work, challenge and money were located.

      I'm sure that there are other ways of doing it, but that's really the simplest and it allows people to transition on the less important end as they care to or not. It wouldn't make a difference for anybody else.

  2. Credit crunch by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is curiously similar to the current credit crunch. When a fix is not guaranteed to happen soon, people start hoarding.

  3. Give back class As by Neil+Watson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps some of the institutions that still have class A networks reserved from the old days, with no reasonable need for them, should give them back.

    --
    UNIX/Linux Consulting