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America Runs Out of IPv4 Internet Addresses

Posted by samzenpus on from the empty-bucket dept.

FireFury03 writes: The BBC is reporting that the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) ran out of spare IP addresses yesterday. "Companies in North America should now accelerate their move to the latest version of the net's addressing system. Now Africa is the only region with any significant blocks of the older version 4 internet addresses available." A British networking company that supplies schools has done an analysis on how concerned IT managers should be. This comes almost exactly 3 years after Europe ran out.

7 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. TLS SNI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At this point, ISPs need to mandate that customers use SNI where possible; too many IP addresses are allocated just for an SSL certificate. I think we'll start seeing more Let's Encrypt-type Subject Alternate Name management tools, too.

    1. Re:TLS SNI by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed. If you aren't capable of using SNI, then chances are your server software, client, etc. are not fit to be on the Internet anyway.

      IE6, Firefox *1* (!), Chrome 4. If you're still using those, get something else immediately because your security of the certificate is then the LEAST of your worries.

      I'm waiting for the "Let's Encrypt" to start issuing certificates. When that happens, interesting things will happen in the SSL/TLS certificate market.

  2. Move to the latest version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    No thanks. IPv6 addresses are a mouthful, typically 3x as long when printed. We should move to a version that makes them 1 byte longer.

  3. Boy cries wolf by jones_supa · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Yeah, whatever, man. Slashdot runs this same story every few months, and has been doing so for years. Previous one is from July: North America Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses. The story never mentions that there are actually other pools that still contain a goldmine of addresses. I also suspect that companies own big blocks that can be freed when the going gets tough. So probably we're still good for a long time.

    1. Re:Boy cries wolf by Alioth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The real WTF is that Slashdot has been running IPv6 articles for years...and *still* doesn't support IPv6.

      Facebook on the other hand - not a tech site, but a site for angsty teenagers, baby pics, cat memes and partisan squabbling - has supported IPv6 fully for years.

      It's embarrassing that a tech site can't do what a non-tech site has been doing for years.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  4. Take back some of those Class A assignments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Lots of private companies have Class A's and I just don't think Ford needs a Class A. Just like I don't think Apple needs one, nor HP needs two class A's.

  5. Re:Easily solvable by quetwo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with this is that some of the original recipients of those really big blocks like GM and HP were given those addresses, not leased them. They, for all practical purposes, own that address space.

    I know the organization I work for is a part of the problem. Before ARIN existed, a group of three schools (I work for one of them) were granted a /8 as a part of our research status. We have no relation with ARIN, and there isn't even a way to really give back 100 of the /16's we don't use.