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Five Billionth Device About To Plug Into Internet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the how-many-fingers-is-that dept.

alphadogg writes "Sometime this month, the 5 billionth device will plug into the Internet. And in 10 years, that number will grow by more than a factor of four, according to IMS Research, which tracks the installed base of equipment that can access the Internet."

162 comments

  1. haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    You mom has five billion devi-oh screw it.

    1. Re:haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And each with its own RSS feed.

    2. Re:haha by mlts · · Score: 1

      [cynical]
      Or a security issue that allows the device to function perfectly as an embedded botnet client, or even more realistically, a botnet redirector that forensic trails end up stopping at.
      [/cynical]

    3. Re:haha by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Looks like I just did it!

      Do I get a toaster?

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    4. Re:haha by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

          Sorry, you were only 4,999,999,999. That makes ... umm ... ME the winner!

          I'll be waiting patiently for Ed McMahon to show up with a fat check.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  2. devices... by alphatel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If there was a race to plug in the most, what would be the cheapest method of getting several million "devices" online? Also, what would we win?

    --
    When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    1. Re:devices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd win a free* ticket to IPv6 adoption.

      *note: not actually free.

    2. Re:devices... by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The cheapest method is to not have physical hardware. Get a single box, plug in the CLICK software routing element for the kernel and the routing element to pipe onto a network simulator like NS-2 or NS-3. Have your simulated network contain a million virtual nodes, all with their own IP address. You now have a million nodes on your network and there's nothing even a simple portscan could do to tell you that they were not physical devices.

      If you're really clever, have some of the terminal nodes on the virtual tree connect to a virtual machine running on the Linux box. For any one of those nodes, you can even demonstrate the existence of applications, login prompts, etc.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    3. Re:devices... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Find your old PCs, install some dialup software (like NetZero)*, and give it away to anyone who does not have a computer. That's how I got my brother, then my niece, then a poor neighbor online. So +3 additional devices. If all the geeks did this with old PCs or laptops, we could add several million internet devices within a year.

      *
      *If they have DSL, use that instead.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:devices... by bofkentucky · · Score: 3, Informative

      Theoretical, for a single piece of HW Solaris 10 on a Sun Sparc Enterprise T5440, 4 Processors 512GB Ram 256 LDOM's per server 8191 Zones per LDOM 1048448 Total machines in a 4RU enclosure the machines would be severely IO and disk space bound (Only 4x300GB disks in the box), but it could be done Anyone know the theoretical numbers for Linux on Z or a fully configured vmware cluster?

      --
      09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
    5. Re:devices... by Score+Whore · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...there's nothing even a simple portscan could do...

      You know, if you aim low you'll certainly succeed.

      (Generally if you are going to use the phrase "there's nothing even can do", then should be something powerful. Such as "my plan is coming to fruition and there is nothing Superman can do to stop me." Contrast that with "my plan is coming to fruition and there is nothing two week old infant can do to stop me.")

    6. Re:devices... by Score+Whore · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not even in your wildest dreams. Each zone requires it's own init, svc.startd, svc.configd, cron, etc. Just those four are going to 2.5 MB + 17 MB + 10 MB + 5 MB = 35 MB of memory just to even begin to boot. You 512 GB of RAM only provides 512 KB of memory per zone. Even if you used all of the disk space as swap, you're still way short.

    7. Re:devices... by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      I do the same thing but I've learned to be a bit selective as I end up being the free support/tutorial source for most of the recipients. As a pre-offer screening test I normally hold my hand up at shoulder height and tell them "You must be this smart to use the internet". If they give me the old twisting their head to the side thing (like a dog would), then I don't offer a computer. If they laugh or attempt to elicit some elucidation then they can have a box if they like.

      The dial-up thing is going away as fewer of them have land lines. I have noticed that every time I have hooked a Sprint phone to a system via USB I get asked if I want to use it as a modem.... so that may come into play if the service is included in the phone plan.(I've never used it that way).

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    8. Re:devices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you are the asshole that is responsible for making my games lag... bastard.

    9. Re:devices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "give it away to anyone who does not have a computer"

      What? What does this mean? Is this some sort of slang? Oh god, I'm so confused.

    10. Re:devices... by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      That's elitist to deny people, especially if the computer is just collecting dust in your closet. We all started out ignorant. I'd sooner give the computer to someone in need, teach them the basics (click here to connect; type here to do a search), and then conveniently disappear. ;-) Oftentimes if my poor neighbor calls me up, "My net won't connect," I'll help fix the phoneline, but if it's to install some game I tell her to read the manual that came with it.

      I'm more inclined to help my brother, since he did carry the furniture from his truck to my apartment.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    11. Re:devices... by jd · · Score: 1

      Why do you think I aimed low? :) Besides, it's not like anyone counting would run Nessus over 5 billion addresses. (And if they ran Superman over them, his X-Ray vision would corrupt the state of the memory chips.)

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    12. Re:devices... by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      I'm not denying anyone. Some people I'll offer to help, some I don't. No one is at my door begging for a computer. And no one is entitled to my time or anything else. But if someone has a kid and no system or is a shut in, I'll find and fix up something for them. I've probably re-tasked 20 or so systems in the last 10 years. My brother started a charity that does the same thing on the business level, referbing old office systems to give to the disadvantaged. He gets no pay for that, but there are employees that work there.

      The hardware is easy, it's not wasting the resources or my time that make me not give some people a system. Oh, no systems are sitting in closets at my house. I find or piece together the systems I give out. Sometimes they even come back after 5 - 10 years, and if I can I'll send them out again. My biggest problem is lack of I/O devices and a plethora of 17" CRT displays.

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    13. Re:devices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you mean "Even in your most mundane dreams..."?

    14. Re:devices... by hitmark · · Score: 1

      sounds like one hell of a honeypot.

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    15. Re:devices... by jd · · Score: 1

      Oooooh! That's an idea I'd not thought of. You're right! A complete virtual network of honeypots, especially on one of the less secure cable networks, would be awesome. You'd probably want fewer than a million nodes, but with a complete simulated network, you could not only see how an intruder/malware attacked a single node but how they moved around the network as a whole. That could actually be quite a fascinating project in itself. A whole network would also surely be a very tempting target.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    16. Re:devices... by hitmark · · Score: 1

      i fear xkcd have prior art: http://www.xkcd.com/350/

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    17. Re:devices... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      There was a story on slashdot that I'm too lazy to find that talked about a distributed project that was Nessus scanning the entire usable Internet address space, which is under 4 billion addresses.

      So yes, someone is doing it.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    18. Re:devices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's been a while since I actually laughed out loud at a slashdot comment.. thanks!

    19. Re:devices... by jd · · Score: 1

      If it was the Internet Auditing Project, they wrote a lightweight Nessus-like program called BASS to do the scan. They also got hacked by the NSA. This was the first time a serious report of MD5 being broken surfaced.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  3. This is confusing.... by mark-t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's only 4 and some odd billion IP addresses, so this number would suggest that they are included NAT'ted devices... except how can they have a remotely accurate count of the number of NAT'ted devices?

    Or are they including places that have migrated to IPv6?

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:This is confusing.... by Kepesk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Notice that they're careful to say they're tracking "equipment that can access the Internet". I have 1 IP address, but I have 4 internet-capable devices using it, 5 if you count my phone. I would imagine that they have ways of estimating how many devices on average use the same IP based on surveys and studies and the like.

      --
      Help me fix my brother's injured butt!
    2. Re:This is confusing.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably looking in the packets sent by NAT'd devices looking at internal IPs or just counting individual MAC addresses coming through those packets

    3. Re:This is confusing.... by delinear · · Score: 1

      Yes, this is almost certainly a guestimate based on average number of net gadgets per gender, per age group, per socio-economic group, per country.

    4. Re:This is confusing.... by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      The summary is only two sentenced. One of them answers your question.

    5. Re:This is confusing.... by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Still 1 billion shy of connecting the whole world.

      What's internet access like in 3rd world countries? Are they still using V.92? (56/48k) Or don't they even have that?

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    6. Re:This is confusing.... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      In a lot of countries, large portions of the population dont even have electricity.

      Consider that in India alone, there are over 400 million people below the international poverty line (of $1.25 per day.) That more than the entire population of the united states, including illegals.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    7. Re:This is confusing.... by Morth · · Score: 1

      There's probably huge differencies, but I'd say the way it's heading is 3g/similar techniques. Landline telephone deployment has pretty much stopped in Thailand (ok can only really speak for the area where I have relatives, countryside SE Thailand). But where's there's telephone, there's ADSL.

    8. Re:This is confusing.... by bennomatic · · Score: 1

      Heheh. V.92. I remember when we were dealing with all those old dialup protocols. Wasn't the marketing name for V.92 'V.Fast'?

      I'm on Comcast now, and I have a feeling that one day I'll look back on today and think, 'Man, I didn't know what fast was.' V.Fast certainly wasn't that. I remember waiting hours for a postage-stamp-sized movie trailer to download.

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
    9. Re:This is confusing.... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Wasn't the marketing name for V.92 'V.Fast'?

      Heh - the first dialup modem I used was the size of a small suitcase and only offered 300 baud. It got the job done, but I was a happy chappie when I got my first 4800 baud machine for remote sysadmin working from home.

      I know someone will chime in with something against taking work home, so I'll just say this: my setup was a lot more comfortable than a sleeping-bag on the machine-room floor (I've done that from time to time as well).

    10. Re:This is confusing.... by tophermeyer · · Score: 1

      From what I've read this is pretty common. Many third world developing areas are simply skipping wireline development. Wireless infrastructure is just cheaper to install and maintain (handful of towers vs. stringing wires to each home). I have no direct experience with any of that though.

      The problem still comes down to electricity though. Without reliable electricity to the home it is difficult to power wired or wireless devices.

    11. Re:This is confusing.... by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>V.92 'V.Fast'?

      No you're off by about five years. In the early 90s when almost everyone was using V.32 modems (9k or 14k), the ITU-T standards committee was dragging its feet developing a faster speed. So various companies went-ahead and released 19k and 24k modems, which were completely non-standard, so they could not use ITU designations. Instead they created marketing names like "Turbo" or "V.FAST" or whatever.

      Eventually the ITU-T relased V.34 which allowed 28k and 33k speeds, and did not work with the non-standard Turbo or V.FAST modems. Then came the new digital modem which abandoned the old analog techniques, so it jumped to V.90 (56/33k) and finally V.92 (56/48k).
      .

      >>>I'm on Comcast now, and I have a feeling that one day I'll look back on today and think, 'Man, I didn't know what fast was.'

      I only have 750k. That might seem slow to you, but hulu.com and other sites allow me to adjust the video resolution where you really only need a 250k line to watch them. I simply don't see any reason to spend more than $20 for internet..... never did in the past. :-)

      When I'm on the road I use 50k. It takes about 4 hours to bittorrent a single episode of Stargate (or whatever). Not the greatest deal but computers don't need sleep, so I just let it run all night, and grab several episodes per day.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    12. Re:This is confusing.... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      The MAC addresses of the end points aren't stored in the packets.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    13. Re:This is confusing.... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      My guess is that they may be basing the figures on assigned MAC addresses, though I could be mistaken.

      However, the assumption that it'll quadruple in the next decade is a bit much. Even if there are four times more network devices created in the next decade than the last, the chances of them being anything but behind a NAT box is highly unlikely. I might double the employees in my office and increase their upstream, but we're still not using any more public IPv4 address space.

      Same for me at home: my network has doubled in the past couple years, but I've never used any more than 1 IP address.

      Also, I'm sure some ISPs will find creative ways to provide customers with cheap internet access behind a NAT connection. I'm not looking forward to that.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    14. Re:This is confusing.... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      er... sorry, I hit submit too soon.

      What I mean is that the only MAC addresses in the packet are those of the two immediately connected nodes. Machines along the way will have no idea what the MAC addresses are of any machines that they have no direct physical connection to or are not otherwise on the same wireless lan.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  4. Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The owner of the five billionth device will receive 5 billion Flooz.

    1. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But I already have 10 billion Flooz you insensitive clod!

    2. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by delinear · · Score: 4, Funny

      Cue lots of "Congratulations, you are the 5 billionth device to connect to the internet, click here [and submit your personal data] to win a prize!!" flash banners...

    3. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Cue lots of "Congratulations, you are the 5 billionth device to connect to the internet, click here [and submit your personal data] to win a prize!!" flash banners...

      What in the... Oh. My. GOD! Look! Everyone, look! It's someone on Slashdot actually using the proper word when they're using the phrase "cue lots of X"! They didn't use "queue lots of X"! Unbelievable! This is an incredibly rare find! My friends, we are witnessing an event that hasn't happened once in the history of Slashdot, and probably won't ever happen again until long after our grandchildren and their children are long dead!

    4. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What?

    5. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by AndrewNeo · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think you meant 'que?'

    6. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I think you actually meant queue

    7. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except "queue" isn't necessarily incorrect usage. "Cue" is most correct, but "queue" is still grammatically correct.

      Sorry. Didn't mean to rain on your parade.

    8. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by smitty97 · · Score: 1

      understanding simple Spanish fail

      --
      mod me funny
    9. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Queue" is NOT correct... not even a 'little bit'... It should be- "let's cue (or "An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something") ourselves to stand in the queue (or "where a line of people or objects wait").

    10. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Queue is also a verb. Certainly there is some way in which to queue flash banners.

    11. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by operagost · · Score: 1

      On the down side, you have to appear on The View so that Whoopi can personally award it.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    12. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Click here to see the 12-inch dildo that just became the 5 billionth device to plug into the internet (and incidentally, also into your mom)."

    13. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by shaunbr · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I only accept beenz. What's the current exchange rate?

    14. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by idontgno · · Score: 1

      Queue up all the people who want to explain that "queue" is both an intransitive verb meaning "to get into queue" ("I queued up for the big movie opening") and a transitive verb meaning "to put something into a queue" ("I queued up a bunch of music on my playlist").

      Of course, neither have anything to directly to do with the original "cue" meme, which comes from direction and means to signal someone to begin performing their part.

      I'm sure that's what you're on about.

      That said, the "queue" (transitive verb) is a viable functional alternative: picture lining up people to say their piece about the subject at hand.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    15. Re:Owner of that device wins a big reward by treeves · · Score: 1

      Maybe he meant CueCat. Could those connect to internets?

      --
      ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
  5. We'll know soon enough by confused+one · · Score: 1

    The AI has been waiting for enough compute power to guarantee it can take control, in order to assure its survival....

    1. Re:We'll know soon enough by Combatso · · Score: 1

      You mean Jane? she has been taking refuge in the mother tree's until the Ansibles come back online

    2. Re:We'll know soon enough by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 2, Interesting

      SkyNet is slated to go online later this month too. Coincidence? :p

      --
      "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
    3. Re:We'll know soon enough by confused+one · · Score: 1

      There is no such thing as a coincidence...

  6. Five billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    What's the maximum number of different MAC addresses again?

    "The original IEEE 802 MAC address comes from the original Xerox Ethernet addressing scheme.[1] This 48-bit address space contains potentially 248 or 281,474,976,710,656 possible MAC addresses."

    Oh okay, never mind then.

    1. Re:Five billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess it really wasn't worth posting then was it?

    2. Re:Five billion? by Java+Pimp · · Score: 1

      MAC addresses don't have anything to do with it since they are not really useful beyond your switch or router.

      --
      Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
      Kull: She told me she was 19!
    3. Re:Five billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really, gives a good idea of where we are through the MAC address set.

      If we ever do get around to full IPv6 devices, i think it would probably be best to also improve MACs as well.
      Mind you, it would be better to just use IPv6 for the sake of IDing a device. Wasn't that also partially the reasoning behind IPv6s large address range?
      I'd happily get rid of MACs if we switch to IPv6, they are useless for IPv6 addressing, and the excuse of "it needs a huge change" is silly because IPv6 itself needs a MASSIVE change to everything.

      If anything, IPv6 should be future-proofed so it can be extended seamlessly without having to do all this crap with software!
      While the amount of numbers in IPv6 is incredibly high, we used to think the same for IPv4 and look where that got us, NAT, address sharing and other messy solutions.
      The spec should be future-proofed as soon as possible before deployment goes fully ahead. But it is probably already too late.
      Oh well, as the saying goes, we'll let our kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids kids.. kids kids kids kids deal with it. Give or take a few thousand more kids.

    4. Re:Five billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The issue you bring up is why we have protocols with isolated layers so there is no dependancy between physical and IP layer.

      MAC addresses are not even necessary for connectivity to an IPv6 network.

      IPv6 as it relates specifically to ethernet via Neighbor Discovery and SLLAC explicitly supports EUI-64 addressing standard in addition to our current 48 bit ethernet addresses. Given this do you still feel there is a problem?

    5. Re:Five billion? by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 1

      Unless you also count EUI-64, then there are ~3.4 x 10^30 addresses.

      --
      SSC
    6. Re:Five billion? by timeOday · · Score: 1
      "MAC addresses are not even necessary for connectivity to an IPv6 network."

      Nor for connectivity to an IP4 network. I guess there must still be some token ring and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks hooked up the Internet. For that matter, dialup modems don't have MAC addresses either.

    7. Re:Five billion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And besides, how many devices out there are spoofing their MAC's with
      "DEADBEEF"
      "BEEFFEAD"
      "DEAF0000"
      "FECE500"

      and so on. Actually what others do people know?

  7. Unique device identifiers by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    except how can they have a remotely accurate count of the number of NAT'ted devices?

    Plenty of Internet application protocols use unique device identifiers that remain unique even when used through network address translation. For example, HTTP or HTTPS clients behind a NAT have cookies that can be used to estimate how many devices are active.

    1. Re:Unique device identifiers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and how does that fact even remotely relate to the suggestion that the count is accurate?

      Hint: Unless you can say "ALL Internet application protocols use unique device identifiers", then your reply is meaningless. You might as well have said "Plenty of bread is eaten with peanut butter", for all the applicability of the comment. They're both factual statements with nearly no relevance.

      The parent's comment still stands. There's abolutely no way an accurate (or even close to accurate) accounting of the number of net-connected devices can be made -- certainly not enough so to claim in which month a specific threshold value is surpassed. Even if they had access to a database listing production numbers for every net connected device manufactured worldwide, they still wouldn't know vital data like failure rates (devices not being used any more), unused equipment rates (items purchased as backups, unwanted gifts, items languishing unsold on store shelves, etc.), homebrew equipment (items with net connection capabilities added after manufacture, or entirely cottage-manufactured), etc.

      Fact of the matter is, this topic is entirely nonsense, almost certainly based on projections made by presuming the world as a whole all behave similarly to some tiny sample size.

  8. Census error... by archmcd · · Score: 1

    I missed this question on the census form... we may have already surpassed 5,000,000,000.

    --
    I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.
    1. Re:Census error... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You filled that out?

  9. "how-many-fingers-is-that dept. " by Spazztastic · · Score: 0

    Taco,

    That would be 5 billion fingers.

    Sincerely,
    Spazztastic

    --
    Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
    1. Re:"how-many-fingers-is-that dept. " by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's 33 fingers.

      You do count in binary, don't you?

    2. Re:"how-many-fingers-is-that dept. " by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      four

  10. vm's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do virtual machines also count?

  11. Sounds wrong to me by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sounds wrong to me. My IP address is only 127001 and I've not had this computer for very long.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Funny

      How long have you had it? I mean I got mine not too long ago and I'm all the way up to 1921681100! Clearly its growing exponentially.

    2. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, how did my root password get into your IP address?

    3. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Linker3000 · · Score: 1

      Hey I can PING your computer from mine! Isn't the Internet great!

      --
      AT&ROFLMAO
    4. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HAHAHA now I has Ur iP address ahm h4x0r1ng ur box!! /NO CARRIER

    5. Re:Sounds wrong to me by mutube · · Score: 4, Funny

      Haha I just logged into your IP address and found a load of donkey porn! Pervert!

      Wait? What?

      --
      Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
    6. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think it depends on which country you are in.

      Mine is fe8064bdcf91f17e. I am in Europe so this must be the metric system.

    7. Re:Sounds wrong to me by RaymondKurzweil · · Score: 1

      Put that in your pipe and smoke it you singularity naysaying bitches.

      Bitches.

    8. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Chowderbags · · Score: 1

      Hah, you should've gotten IPv6. I adopted it early on and got 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 !

    9. Re:Sounds wrong to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I h4x0r3d your mom's box all night last night.

  12. Paging Dr. IPv6 by schmidt349 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    5 billion devices is, let's face it, outside the capacity of an addressing scheme (IPv4) that originally only anticipated a shade over 4 billion possible devices. Why are we not moving over to IPv6 faster? I don't know much about networking and related issues; what are the big challenges for IPv6 going forward?

    1. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Ephemeriis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      5 billion devices is, let's face it, outside the capacity of an addressing scheme (IPv4) that originally only anticipated a shade over 4 billion possible devices. Why are we not moving over to IPv6 faster? I don't know much about networking and related issues; what are the big challenges for IPv6 going forward?

      First, you've got the whole chicken-and-egg thing going on. There isn't a compelling reason for businesses to roll out IPv6 because most of the world is still on IPv4. Nobody will be visiting you v6 website. There isn't a compelling reason for ISPs to roll out IPv6 because most of the businesses are still on v4. There are no v6 websites to visit. Nobody wants to go first.

      Then you've got some very real technical hurdles... New software and hardware requirements. Patches, upgrades. All that good stuff. And right now that looks like an awful lot of work for relatively little benefit. Legacy hardware that might not be upgrade-able.

      Plus, right now, NAT pretty much works. Yes, I know, it's an ugly hack... But it works. It's hard to tell somebody that you really need to spend tons of time/effort/money switching things over to IPv6 when they're currently able to do everything they need to.

      You've also got some weird psychological resistance to IPv6 addressing. Folks (even IT people) freak out when they see all those hex digits.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Pentium100 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Incompatibility with v4.

      IPv4 devices will not be able to access IPv6 devices, which means that if you have devices with old OS in your network, you will have to use both v4 and v6.

      Also, there is that chicken-and-egg problem. There is only a small amount of servers that support v6 and even smaller number of them support only v6.

      1.There is no reason for a user to upgrade to IPv6 (they may need to change their router, the new IP address is almost impossible to remember etc) because little would be gained from it (very few servers support only IPv6). A IPv6-only connection wold be almost useless.
      2.There is no reason for a company to upgrade to IPv6 because all of their clients can use IPv4. Goto 1.

    3. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by mlts · · Score: 1

      I wonder if IP addresses will end up just going up in price, forcing smaller sites out or onto virtual domains instead of people switching over to IPv6, even if IPv6 is just used as an edge protocol, where businesses still use v4 as their core layer 3 protocol.

      I hope we go to IPv6 sometime. I just dread having to go find an auction to pay hyperinflated prices for a 5 IP subnet if I want some v4 statics.

    4. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IPv6 is not used because Windows doesn't make it the default setting. Without making 80% of the internet's users make the switch, everyone else considers this a pointless exercise.

    5. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also, no one is really sure that there are not some gaping and fundamental flaws in the protocol that are just waiting to be found and exploited by some enterprising black hat. CIOs not wanting to have to deal with a serious network compromise because they were on the bleeding edge of adoption probably has a lot to do with things. It's been a long time since large organizations have had every device on their network on an Internet routable IP, and there's a nice sense of false security to be had in thinking NAT at gateway firewalls and routers provides you with some valuable additional protection.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    6. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by loufoque · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First, you've got the whole chicken-and-egg thing going on. There isn't a compelling reason for businesses to roll out IPv6 because most of the world is still on IPv4. Nobody will be visiting you v6 website. There isn't a compelling reason for ISPs to roll out IPv6 because most of the businesses are still on v4. There are no v6 websites to visit. Nobody wants to go first.

      As an employee working on upgrading some network products to support IPv6, let me add on that.
      There is simply no real demand whatsoever for IPv6 on the market. The only reason we're doing this is because this is necessary for sell our products to the US government, but even them do not use it.

      IPv6 is not implemented because no one asks for it, and those that do only do so for "political" reasons and don't even use it, so it doesn't matter if the support is any good or not.

    7. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by vlm · · Score: 1

      I hope we go to IPv6 sometime. I just dread having to go find an auction to pay hyperinflated prices for a 5 IP subnet if I want some v4 statics.

      Most BGP operators filter their incoming routes at /24 or sometimes larger. So if you'll dread the cost of five addresses, the actual cost of, say, a /20 will really annoy you.

      I could see poorer ISPs with large swaths of unused IP space being purchased by richer ISPs solely for their IP space...

      Also expect to see a full court marketing B.S. press pushing "NAT access" as somehow being better or more private than getting public ip space, and if it happens to kill P2P all the better.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    8. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by mlts · · Score: 1

      Nail, head hit. One reason IPv6 isn't being pushed is because of artificial scarcity. If top tier ISPs can force people to pay for V4 addresses, so much the better. It isn't like there is a lawmaking body that can tell them to flip the switch like how ARPANet went from NCP to TCP/IP in the past.

      Plus, the more people behind NATs, the harder it is to P2P, and the less bandwidth used by people. All wins for ISPs (especially cable companies who want people watching their TV and not streaming video), all losses for everyone else.

    9. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by vlm · · Score: 1

      IPv4 devices will not be able to access IPv6 devices, which means that if you have devices with old OS in your network, you will have to use both v4 and v6.

      Only if you use stuff much older than, say, Y2K. My MFC cannon laserprinter/scanner works ipv6 out of the box and its a couple years old. My wifes ancient 1st gen mac mini supports ipv6. My windoze-xp gaming partition works. Any roughly late 90s+ era linux kernel support v6.

      If you want, you can set up a machine that specifically excludes v4 or v6, to allow complaining about it, but its more work than just letting it dual stack outta the box.

      There is only a small amount of servers that support v6 and even smaller number of them support only v6.

      Uhhhhh, apache 1.3 worked with patches, so post '98, a mere dozen years ago, is OK with minimal effort. Very early in the 2.0 series, Y2K, it got mainline ipv6 support.

      You can, if you want, intentionally set up a server such that ipv6 won't work. But it actually takes some effort, at least in the last decade or so.

      There are quite a few tunnel brokers for v6 to get you access over the past decade or so. he.net, sixxs.net, others, etc.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    10. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IPv6 is not implemented because no one asks for it, and those that do only do so for "political" reasons and don't even use it, so it doesn't matter if the support is any good or not.

      You mean there's no demand for IPv6 specifically because people making the decisions tend to be rather ignorant, and the network admins don't really want to learn ipv6 addressing. Perhaps the EU could be petitioned to force all ISPs to provide IPv6, since it is a huge market. It'd certainly provide increased political pressure.

    11. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by AndrewNeo · · Score: 1

      That's cute! You think the internet runs on Windows.

    12. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by AhabTheArab · · Score: 1

      No compelling reason to switch to IPv6?? You're crazy. A dancing turtle isn't enough for you? What's it going to take to please you?

    13. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by grahamsz · · Score: 1

      I suspect the main driver will be smartphones. Hardly anyone would notice if their smartphone was on IPv6 and it'll be a cheap way for big operators in china and such to get millions of devices online in short order.

    14. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by kasperd · · Score: 1

      There isn't a compelling reason for businesses to roll out IPv6 because most of the world is still on IPv4. Nobody will be visiting you v6 website.

      However popular this explanation is, it may actually be slightly distorted. It's not that hard to deploy IPv6 that it would stop all websites from doing so. A lot of websites would deploy IPv6 even if it only meant that a very small number of additional users could access it. Maybe those users count for something, and getting started now means you will be prepared when in a few years time there will be an increasing number of clients that can only access your website over IPv6. However, there is a slightly different reason for websites to be hesitating with IPv6 support.

      The problem is that even though you may expect a website with both IPv4 and IPv6 support to be accessible to more users that one with only IPv4 support, it isn't actually so. By supporting only IPv4 your website is accessible to more users than if you support both. The reason for this is that once you enable IPv6 for your domain, many clients will start using that by default, even some clients that do not have IPv6 connectivity. If your computer thinks it has both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity, there is a chance it will use IPv6 by default for any website supporting it. If it turns out you only have IPv4 connectivity, and the IPv6 connection your computer thought it had, isn't working, then you can access IPv4 only websites but not websites supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.

      As long as the number of users with this kind of broken connectivity is larger than the number of users who have only IPv6 and no IPv4, there is very little incentive for websites to deploy IPv6. Would you want to make your site inaccessible to a small percentage of your current users in order to make it accessible for a much smaller group of users?

      Currently this looks like the biggest hurdle for deploying IPv6. A large part of this problem could be solved by making webbrowsers better at dealing with flaky connectivity. One option is to open two TCP connections simultaneously (one over IPv4 and one over IPv6) and use the first one to complete a TCP handshake. Unfortunately it will cause some extra load on the webservers, but at the current time that extra load would be minor since it would only happen for those users that actually do have working IPv6 connectivity.

      A different approach could be to first open one connection, and if the handshake has not completed in 200ms open the next, then use the first one to complete the handshake. And for each website remember which of the two you used the last time and make that the first you attempt for the next connection.

      A little bit more intelligence would be required for cases with misconfigured routers causing PMTU discovery to break. In those cases the handshake would work, but the connection would stall the first time one party tries to send a large packet. For this to work you would have to detect this kind of scenario and switch protocol after some data has been sent. That would mean resending requests, which isn't allowed for all kinds of requests as POST requests are not guaranteed to be idempotent. Browsers could also just set a low mss for all connections they open over IPv6.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    15. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Gerald · · Score: 1

      Because the 2.6 kernel doesn't support the Broadcom 802.11 adapter in my home router. I have to run 2.4, which has crappy IPv6 support.

      If I don't get IPv6 then no one does. That's what's holding everything up.

    16. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0, Troll

      That's cute! You have shittier reading comprehension skills than a kid in kindergarten.

      Did you even bother to read the whole post or did you just stop at where it said "Windows"?

    17. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Chang · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're completely right about the psychological resistance. I don't know why but even hard core tech people take time to get over the addresses and I think this has been a major factor in the lack of widespread adoption.

      You're completely wrong about the number of IPv6 websites. There are thousands available and the growth has been noticeably accelerating since the 2008 Google IPv6 implementors conference. Every year around conference time more major sites announce availability. This year Facebook was the big one (but not the only one!) to announce a beta site.

      Also - try running a torrent on a dual stack connection and you'll clearly see that IPv6 is very popular among torrent users.

      There are a couple of major things coming up that are really going to impact this whole IPv6 discussion in the next couple of years.

      There has been ongoing work to make IPv6 -> IPv4 NAT work well. This will be needed for sites that can get an IPv6 block for free while an IPv4 block is expensive or unavailable. See here - http://ecdysis.viagenie.ca/

      This NAT64/DNS64 technique is available today and makes an IPv6 only connection 95% usable for IPv4 sites and 100% usable for IPv6 content. The IPv4 breakage is sites that hard code IPv4 addresses directly into HTML or XML, or whatnot which is easily fixable if there is incentive. Now for some incentive.

      T-Mobile has decided that NAT64 is the way to go so they intend to start rolling out IPv6 only phones using NAT64/DNS64 to get to IPv4 sites. This means that in the next couple of years there will be a couple million handsets that are IPv6 only accessing the IPv4 through a large scale NAT64. Verizon is joining the party using dual stack IPv4 NAT/IPv6 native phones. Think about the _global_ demand for cell phones and you can see what will be driving IPv6 adoption pretty clearly. It dwarfs the PC market so the old way of thinking about your aunt's Linksys don't really apply. Mobile web is rapidly increasing in importance and you won't have to do anything more than get a new phone in a couple of years to join the IPv6 party.

      Comcast, AT&T, and others have announced IPv6 trials in 2010 and 2011 respectively. These could be production systems a year or two down the road. When that happens, anybody who is running Mac OS X, Vista or Win7, or Linux is likely to automagically get a working native IPv6 connection very quickly after that when they or their ISP replaces their home router if it wasn't already v6 (Apple, Buffalo, or recent D-link). This is going to largely coincide with the IPv4 free pool exhausting itself which will give another kick in the pants to adoption.

      You don't have to spend a ton of money - all the pieces have been in place for some time in most networks.

      It's true that businesses would have to spend money if they wanted to completely eliminate IPv4 but there isn't actually a need to do that. At many companies - most or all of their web facing presence equipment has likely been IPv6 capable for a couple of years now. What's needed is to get a connection (tunneled at first and then native when the traffic demands it) and turn it on. You don't have to eliminate IPv4 internally and you don't have to switchover everything. It's a transition and we don't need to make a false choice when neither the situation nor the economics demands it.

      Sorry - got off on a rant there.... :-)

    18. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      I just wish some basic software supported IPv6. I'd be very happy if I could finally migrate my home network off IPv4 completely (right now it's running dual-stack, with connectivity provided by Hurricane Electric). But software like mysql *still* doesn't support v6. Fortunately, that list is getting smaller and smaller, but glaring omissions like this one make migration challenging, to say the least.

      And then there's the broken routers. I went and picked up an 802.11n-capable D-Link router (don't recall the model off the top of my head). The network is set up so that the wireless connection is basically a bridge to my internal network (yes, I'm running WPA-2, and yes, the password is very strong). So what does this POS do? It starts broadcasting router advertisement messages... with it's fucking *loopback* as the gateway. And this is with IPv6 ostensibly disabled on the device, and *the WAN port disconnected*. Result: suddenly Google times out over v6 because my laptop decided to route v6 traffic through the broken WAP instead of my firewall.To fix this I was forced to install ddwrt. Pathetic. And this is on a "modern" device. And we wonder why Google is being very selective about who they're willing to broadcast AAAA records to...

    19. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I can tell you my problem: my router. My computers and ISP should all work well with IPv6, but I haven't found anything about v6 on my router controls or documentation. This was the router I was told to use for my DSL connection, and I didn't check for IPv6 connectivity when I bought it.

      So, I'll enable it when it becomes worthwhile for me to replace my wireless router and go through the minor hassle of making it work right. Not before.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    20. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by AhabTheArab · · Score: 1

      Right. I would like to implement IPv6 for my business, but it won't happen anytime soon. If I make up a plan to do so, and pitch it to my CFO, the first thing he's going to ask me is "How does the company benefit?" And that's a good question - because the company doesn't benefit. It's not like IPv4 is getting shut off anytime soon. There's not really anything "better" about IPv6. So why would any (non-IT centric) business spend money and resources in implementing it if there is zero return on investment? Collectively, it is in our best interest to move to IPv6, but individually, it doesn't make any sense

      I think it's going to take some major, established website or web service to just say FUCK IT and go IPv6 only. If something like (though not necessarily) Facebook or Twitter were to become inaccessible via IPv4, I'd bet a lot of ISPs would be forced to upgrade to IPv6, and a lot of businesses probably would as well.

    21. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 1

      Comcast, for all its evil, is starting to test IPv6 in certain areas, and they are running their own 6to4 relays now. Which is good, because before I had to use a university relay out in the midwest somewhere, despite being in VA. Their core network already supports IPv6.

      --
      SSC
    22. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      I can't tell whether it runs Windows or not, but The Internet is going to be sold.....

      http://www.theinternet.com/

    23. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5 billion devices is, let's face it, outside the capacity of an addressing scheme (IPv4) that originally only anticipated a shade over 4 billion possible devices. Why are we not moving over to IPv6 faster? I don't know much about networking and related issues; what are the big challenges for IPv6 going forward?

      Look, you can get this thing called a router, which will "route" the requests your devices make and send that communication onto the internet. And when some of someone else's device wants to answer. they'll answer your router, which in turn will know where the message is going and "rout" it to your device in question. This way, only the router of all of your devices needs to be connected directly to the internet and thence there can be more devices than there are addresses for.

    24. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Rising+Ape · · Score: 1

      Vista and 7 use IPV6 connectivity first, if it's available - that is, they'll autoconfigure IPV6 connectivity out of the box. The problem is that very few ISPs and home routers support it.

      There are nudges in the right direction though, with a few ISPs seriously looking into it (e.g. Comcast). Hopefully most of the ISP provided routers will be able to be remotely patched to support V6. I don't want to end up an internet with no peer-to-peer connectivity.

    25. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Rising+Ape · · Score: 1

      Does NAT64 only work with the DNS mangling? That seems a bit of a problem with the concept - plenty of applications use IPv4 addresses directly. Is there no way for a client to discover the prefix of the NAT gateway, so it can send deal with this?

    26. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I wonder if IP addresses will end up just going up in price, forcing smaller sites out or onto virtual domains instead of people switching over to IPv6, even if IPv6 is just used as an edge protocol, where businesses still use v4 as their core layer 3 protocol.

      BINGO! You can use the same explanation for peak oil, too. As oil and IP addresses get more scarce, the price goes up. People move to cheaper technologies (NAT, hybrids). Lather, rinse, repeat. Thus, the sudden "no more oil!" crisis just like the "no more IPs!" crisis won't really happen. It'll just be a slow runup. Now, eventually the price will be high enough that everyone moves to alternate technologies (IPv6, electric vehicles), but that's a market thing moreso than "we've run out".

      Plus, the more people behind NATs, the harder it is to P2P, and the less bandwidth used by people. All wins for ISPs (especially cable companies who want people watching their TV and not streaming video), all losses for everyone else.

      Cable companies like it when people download. Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, etc. Stream away! There's tons of downstream capacity. What cable companies hate most, though is upstream bandwidth. People uploading at full speed slow everyone down because all those ACKs don't go back fast enough. That's the primary problem with cable providers - not enough upstream bandwidth. If all P2P people did was download, they wouldn't care. But when just a few of them decide to upload, it can bring the whole system to a crawl despite there easily being 10+Mbps per person downstream capacity.

    27. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

      Only if you use stuff much older than, say, Y2K.

      Does Windows 2000 support IPv6?
      In any case, my printer does not support IPv6 it does support IPv4 and IPX.

      Uhhhhh, apache 1.3 worked with patches, so post '98, a mere dozen years ago, is OK with minimal effort.

      I meant servers as in sites, email servers etc. I don't think there are a lot of sites that you can only reach by IPv6. And there is a good reason - no company would be stupid enough to prevent almost all people from connecting to its (public) servers.

    28. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Fenris+Ulf · · Score: 1

      Sure it has, since Vista.

      Or on XP you can type "ipv6 install" on the command line to enable it.

    29. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by CAIMLAS · · Score: 1

      Quite possibly because IPv6 is ugly. Very ugly. It's almost impossible to read, even if you can read it.

      There are still plenty of scenarios where visually noticing an IP address is "wrong" for the situation still exist. IPv6 will make all but the most "professional" IT type have to start over in many ways, because most of them aren't network engineers.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    30. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What started as an ulgy hack is now used in load balancers to access a pool of servers (round-robin) in many "enterprise" setups. You know, that whole 'tracking connections and rewrite ip' thingy is actually quite useful in those setups, so I don't see IPV4 (or NAT) going anywhere anytime soon...

    31. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Fenris+Ulf · · Score: 1

      Windows 2000 had an experimental v6 stack. Windows XP has IPv6, but you need to type "ipv6 install" at the command line to enable it.

    32. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      To clarify, the problem is at the DNS layer. When you type slashdot.org into your browser's address bar, it looks up the A record in DNS to find the IPv4 address. If your computer has IPv6 support, it will also look up the IPv6 address in an AAAA record. If you get an AAAA record back, it will try to connect with IPv6 in preference to IPv4. Unfortunately, just because you and the remote site have IPv6 support does not mean that the network between the two does. All of the machines on my local network have autoconfigured themselves to work with IPv6, and so I end up using v6 for all local traffic, but my ISP doesn't support IPv6 and I haven't configured my router for 6to4 or an explicit tunnel broker, so I can't access remote sites via IPv6. My computers can't easily tell that a remote site that has v6 support is not actually accessible via v6.

      Google hacks around this by requiring ISPs to opt in to receive AAAA records from their DNS servers. This doesn't really scale well though. Some other DNS servers only respond to AAAA requests over IPv6, but that breaks things if your ISP's DNS cache is on IPv4 but you are on IPv6 (or vice versa). ISPs can work around this by advertising different DNS caches to v6 and v4 users.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    33. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what are the big challenges for IPv6 going forward?

      Getting ISPs to do anything with it. I can have IPv6 up and running in 3 minutes here, but the traffic stops at the border router until the ISP does something with it.

    34. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Chang · · Score: 1

      Yes - in a network where the client has only IPv6 connectivity, it requires DNS64 mangling.

      This is a minor problem with the concept but it doesn't invalidate the concept. Give it a try - you can get a live CD and use it with a free tunnel provider and you might be surprised by how usable it is even at this early stage. Remember - this technique is much more valuable for telcos than it is for a typical home user in the developed world. In those places the user will likely have dual-stack available and running for several years during the transition.

      This NAT64/DNS64 concept is primarily meant to serve networks where adding new IPv4 addressing isn't possible or isn't desirable. T-mobile is in this situation because they are currently using BOGON addresses behind their IPv4 NAT - this means they are using IP addresses that have been or will be soon be assigned to other people. So they already have an issue with hardcoded IPv4 literals embedded in the content. If one of those embedded IPv4 literal addresses conflicts with something behind their NAT it would fail to work today with no IPv6 in the picture. They were forced to do this when they ran out of RFC1918 space and decided that they couldn't partition the IP space behind their NAT - probably because phones may need to talk to other phones at some point.

      It's certainly possible for any other site to run NAT64/DNS64 full time so that they can eliminate IPv4 in their network and run single stack IPv6. Should that become a widespread option it's a safe bet that somebody would work on a set of ipf or ipfilter content modules that spotted IPv4 literals used in HTML HREFs and mangled them into IPv6 NAT64 addresses instead. This is exactly how FTP and some other protocols work behind an IPv4 NAT today. There is code to write but this is entirely doable if the need is there. Again - NAT64/DNS64 is early stage and has a year or two to grow into something that is fully production ready for people who elect to run single stack IPv6 which is rare today.

      I'm not sure I understand you last sentence. If the client had an IPv4 address (NAT or globally routable) - the IPv4 literal address would be reachable and so no content breakage would occur. In fact, that is what makes this technique less desirable for home networks. In a home network you will probably be able to get a single IPv4 address and a block of IPv6 easily so you will simply run dual-stack and you don't need to mess with NAT64/DNS64.

    35. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Rising+Ape · · Score: 1

      That was a lengthy answer, thanks. If I understand DNS64 correctly, it forms an AAAA record based on the address of a gateway and the IPv4 address - e.g. an A record showing 1.2.3.4 goes to something like 2001:a:b::1.2.3.4, and the V6 host then sends the packets to that address instead. It would seem to make sense to supply the gateway address to the end hosts, so the hosts could do the conversion, but I guess that wouldn't be backwards compatible.

    36. Re:Paging Dr. IPv6 by Chang · · Score: 1

      I think you get the concept but what are the end hosts? I don't understand that term? Is that the clients behind the NAT. The gateway address is supplied to them by IPv6 RA (router advertisments). The NAT64 is essentially advertising a /96 or greater subnet which is large enough to hold the entire IPv4 internet.

      Here's the flow

      web client -> DNS lookup for www.yahoo.com

      DNS64 intercepts and instead of responding with A record 67.195.160.76 it responds with 2620:69::67.195.160.76 back to the client on the DNS port.

      web client -> tries to connect to 2620:69::67.195.160.76, which is part of the block of space advertised by the NAT64 router.

      NAT64 router receives the traffic and -> NAT64 translates 2620:69::67.195.160.76 back into 67.195.160.76 picking a random IPv4 port number on the way out. It records the session into a state table so it can handle returning packets.

      NAT64 router -> sends the traffic to www.yahoo.com 67.195.160.76

      yahoo -> responds on IPv4 and the NAT64 looks up the session and returns it to the client that requested it.

      When you get right down to it, this is just a slightly different kind of regular old NAT, same as any with the same issues as IPv4 NAT has. And just like IPv4 NATs run into trouble when addresses are embedded in the traffic itself, NAT64/DNS64 will have to account for fixing that breakage and this is done by content inspection. And just like IPv4 NAT has to make special effort to connect 2 NAT'ed clients, this solution would have to use the same hole punching techniques to allow connections.

      Assuming the content inspection work is done, it should be possible to run an IPv6 only network with connectivity to IPv4 via NAT. Whether or not this is desirable is questionable but I have no doubt some geeks will do this at home just because it can be done.

  13. I bet it's more like 10 billion... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if you count all the wireless devices too!

  14. I'm counting by swsuehr · · Score: 1

    It's my job to count these. There are over 16,000,000 hosts that respond to ping on my network alone. If everyone does this I can see how the number would grow exponentially.

    nmap -sP 127.0.0.0/8

    1. Re:I'm counting by vlm · · Score: 1

      It's my job to count these. There are over 16,000,000 hosts that respond to ping on my network alone. If everyone does this I can see how the number would grow exponentially.

      nmap -sP 127.0.0.0/8

      Maybe its time for a "SETI at home" or "folding at home" type of distributed project.

      How abouts you scan 127.0.0.0/9 and I'll take 127.128.0.0/9. We can split the workload several times over.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  15. Woah by zoomshorts · · Score: 0

    RFID devices waste IP addresses. They should be prohibited from
    using any public IP address. But no ... (here goes my karma) NIGGERS !!!

  16. Only 4 times and all of 10 years? by pilgrim23 · · Score: 1

    The human inverse squared Moore's Law takes hold. I would expect that after 10 years the 10 trillionth device would be plugged into the 4th dimensional matrix that traces its origin to today's interwebs. I would also suspect this device would be a just born human and all the concerns we have today of security, privacy, and data will look somewhat...quaint.

    --
    - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
  17. Another two billion or so... by Kyn · · Score: 0

    ... and it will beat the number of devices that have been plugged into your mom!

  18. Don't plug it in - it's a SCAM by ZERO1ZERO · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a scam to me - Congratulations you are the 5,000,000th person to connect to the internet. Click here to have you computer infested with malware and your email in box filled with shite.

    1. Re:Don't plug it in - it's a SCAM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like a scam to me - Congratulations you are the 5,000,000th person to connect to the internet. Click here to have you computer infested with malware and your email in box filled with shite.

      Definitely a scam. I mean, if the prize was for being the 5 billionth person to connect, why would I click on a banner that says I'm the 5 millionth person?

  19. Two Words: +1, Informative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Botnets bitchez !

    Yours In Astrakhan,
    K. Trout

  20. Just got a popup .... by PPH · · Score: 1

    "The Internet is full. Please try again later."

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  21. indeed by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    i'm waiting until they roll out ip 7, ip vista has proven to be a turkey and no one's upgrading to it

    the question is do i get ip 7 enterprise or ip 7 home basic?

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  22. 5 billion seems low by kellyb9 · · Score: 1

    I don't doubt the report, but you'd think just in the consumer market most people have at least 2 or 3 internet connected devices (laptops, phones, pda's, ebook readers, video games consoles, etc.). Not to mention the number of web server, printers, etc. that are floating around out there. I haven't crunched the numbers, and I understand there is a good deal of the world that lives in poverty. But still, 5 billion seems suprisingly low.

    1. Re:5 billion seems low by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but you'd think just in the consumer market most people have at least 2 or 3 internet connected devices (laptops, phones, pda's, ebook readers, video games consoles, etc.)

      A large segment of the world's population doesn't have lunch.

    2. Re:5 billion seems low by kellyb9 · · Score: 1

      A large segment of the world's population doesn't have lunch.

      True, but the rest of the world's population is overweight. What's your point? If you had actually read my comment, I pointed out that "the haves" likely have 3 or 4 internet connected devices.

    3. Re:5 billion seems low by kellyb9 · · Score: 1

      And agree with everyone of those points. But I must also point out that routers, library computers, lab computers, web servers, ftp servers, work computers, cell phones, etc. are all (for the most part) internet connected devices. This is not limited to the consumer market.

    4. Re:5 billion seems low by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

      For adults in the West, maybe. I just counted/estimated for my semi-immediate family (kids/boyfriends/grandchildren/etc). We are not even at 2:1. And this is a VERY tech-centric family. My kids have never known a house without a PC. My grandkids were on the keyboard before they could talk.

      All the preteen grandkids skew the stats. And my local network of 11 individual devices tries to skew it the other way, but doesn't make up for all the little anklebiters.

    5. Re:5 billion seems low by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 1

      It seems low to me as well. People constantly talk about how we're almost out of IPv4 addresses (4 billion). I'm single, and in my apartment I have 1 IP address for 6 internet-connected devices. Are there really that many devices that are either not NAT'd or the only thing behind a router/gateway? Granted, I'm also a nerd who likes gadgets, but my family isn't, and they have 1 IP address with 8 internet-connected devices (all the kids are moved out, but I'm sure some of those wouldn't be there if not for our own entertainment when we visit). I can't believe the ratio of devices to IP addresses is as low as it is.

    6. Re:5 billion seems low by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 1

      I try not to look at this as comparing it to the world's population, but comparing it to the number of claimed "used up" IP addresses. With all of the doomsday talk going on I'd swear we're using at least 3 billion IPs by now. Is the ratio of devices to IPs really only (roughly) 2:1?

    7. Re:5 billion seems low by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 1

      Sorry to reply to myself, but I am in effect going to now argue against what I just said (though it's more of a rant without any direction... feel free not to read it :) ).
       
      I only stated what I have at my apartment because I feel that it represents the general population better than if I were to also state that I have 2 colocated servers using a total of 32 IP addresses. Do these stats count virtual servers as devices? My 2 physical servers have a good 10 or 12 VMs running, a couple of which are actually NAT'd (the rest have at least 1 external IP address).
       
      Another thing that would point to a lower device:IP ratio is my University... most standard lab computers are NAT'd behind only a few IP addresses, but each CS lab computer (and I imagine many of the engineering ones as well) has an external IP, and many departments on campus are given their own blocks.
       
      It'd also be smart to factor in how IP blocks are allocated... I used to just have a /30, which gave me *one* usable IP address out of 4 after the network, broadcast, and gateway. That's quite a bad ratio, but a similar thing could be said for my 2 /28s. 6 of those IPs are unusable for my servers themselves.
       
      So my guess is that if the study's numbers are correct, it's probably due to businesses and Universities (doesn't, or didn't IBM have even their phones all on external IPs?).

    8. Re:5 billion seems low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree, but note that the people who doesn't have lunch also don't qualify as the 'consumer market' of these kind of devices.

      -AndreBoll

    9. Re:5 billion seems low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't doubt the report

      That's your first mistake.

  23. Nearly there... by johnw · · Score: 1

    I'm just about to plug it in, but the cable I have isn't quite long enough.

    Can anyone lend me a 5m patch cable?

  24. IPv6 loves you and wants to have your children. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    5 billion is a lot of devices but theres one small problem -- IPv4s 2^32 addresses minus 37% for overhead does not quite add up to 5 billion or the worlds 6.7 billion people.

    When slashdot of all sites does not have a presence in IPv6 land it brings tears to my eyes and crushes all my hopes in the future of the network.

    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
    ;ipv6.slashdot.org.             IN      AAAA

    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    ipv6.slashdot.org.  1337   IN AAAAAAAAAAAAAA "Sad Panda"

  25. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  26. And 10 billion chargers. by ciderbrew · · Score: 1

    Most of them in a draw some where and the rest are in a box in my loft..

    No idea what half of them are for; but I keep them around, you never know.

  27. Never happened back in the day. Why now? by johneee · · Score: 1

    On a serious note though, why not reinstate internet spring cleanup days? I remember them being done regularly every year back in the '90s, and dutifully unplugging my computer every time it rolled around. It was annoying, but this kind of problem never happened back then, so obviously it did what it was supposed to. I don't know why they got stopped - probably because they put a government tax on accessing the internet and so it was in the government's best interest to have more people on... That's probably it.

    --
    - ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
  28. OK, There... by graffix01 · · Score: 1

    That ought to do it. I just plugged my toaster into the network, now just let me turn it o.........

    --
    Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think, in a deeper voice.
  29. 5 Billionth Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey milestones are important too...

  30. Skeptic by kkohlbacher · · Score: 1

    5 BILLION!?

    Hmm... considering the reliability of statistics I question what margin of error is used for this number. I further speculate with an argument for 'Picture or it didn't happen'.

    Or.... how bout a cool web counter!? Android Widget for +5 awesome! We could use radio contest winning concepts to be that 5 billionth person!

    0.o how exciting!!

  31. Ooops by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 1

    Posting to undo a fat-fingered bad moderation. Move along, nothing to see here. Burn, karma, burn...

    --
    2*3*3*3*3*11*251
  32. Why by SnarfQuest · · Score: 0

    With there being almost 5 billion devices out there, why are they all sending me spam?

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  33. Re:The Mayan's knew by DickBreath · · Score: 1

    The Mayans knew we would run out of IPv4 addresses near the end of 2011.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  34. Re: IPv6, just (ab)use it, who cares if others do? by xiando · · Score: 1

    Nobody will be visiting you v6 website

    This may be correct if you put up some IPv6 only website. If your DNS has both a A and AAAA record then a few percent will be visiting your (v4+)v6 website. Those visiting using IPv6 probably won't know, notice or care, and this is a good thing.

    New software and hardware requirements. Patches, upgrades. All that good stuff. And right now that looks like an awful lot of work for relatively little benefit. Legacy hardware that might not be upgrade-able

    Most (GNU/Linux) software has had full IPv6 support for many years now. Hardware isn't much of an issue unless you mean firmware which can not be updated on some hardware since hardware does ethernet frames and don't talk IPv4 or IPv6 anyway.

    Plus, right now, NAT pretty much works. Yes, I know, it's an ugly hack...

    I have used IPv6 for ages (since 2002 or something like that) and I use IPv6 mainly because it makes it easy to scp things around between boxes on my LAN and boxes on other LANs under my control. Sure, you can setup port forwarding and whatever but that quickly becomes a hassle if you have many boxen here and there. My websites are all IPv6 ready because I have the IPv6 setup anyway, as said, I mainly (ab)use it because I do find that my personal day to day life is simpler when all boxen I touch regularly have their own real (IPv6) IP.

    --
    9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
  35. Please fix linux ipv6 ping bug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For the love of everything holy I should be able to 'ping' an IPv6 site and it should work just like it does with IPv4.

    On linux if you try and ping an ipv6 site it does shit. Obviously you have to use 'ping6' for that and this is totally insane. How am I supposed to know ahead of time if a DNS name resolves to IPv4 or IPv6? I understand ping6 was written at a time where IPv6 was likely just a draft but it is now 2010, 5 billion devices are about to be attached to the network and all major tier-1 carriers are deploying IPv6 in their core networks.

    Even traceroute works properly.. heck even ping in windows works right!!

  36. VMs? by dandart · · Score: 1

    What are we counting here? A lot of people are behind routers, are we counting individual computers allowed to access the Internet, or just the routers? Are we counting VMs?

  37. IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier by tepples · · Score: 1

    homebrew equipment (items with net connection capabilities added after manufacture, or entirely cottage-manufactured)

    These still need a networking interface, which means a MAC address, which means an IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier. An OUI costs $550.00 for a block of 4000 or $1,650.00 for a block of 16.7 million, and the paper trail for OUIs helps to establish the number of such devices that have been manufactured.

    1. Re:IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Behind a NAT, a person's MAC address is hidden from the outside world as well.

      Even tracking the sale of devices with MAC addresses wouldn't work, because an unknown number of new purchases may be replacing old equipment that is being either recycled, trashed, or simply hoarded.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier by tepples · · Score: 1

      an unknown number of new purchases may be replacing old equipment that is being either recycled

      In that case, it's the five billionth device to connect, not the five billionth device among only those still in service. The article implies that only one billion of these are still in service.