Is the Internet broken? Nope, it's just World IPv6 Day

To hear some doomsayers tell it, if we don't all convert to IPv6 (and in the process buy all new computers, software, and networking gear) the Internet will crash and burn later this year. Why? Because IPv4 has run out of addresses.

Yeah, it's time for another Wy Tech Talk. Sorry, but it's my birthday and someone decided to rain on my parade by declaring it World IPv6 Day so I'm grumpy. IPv6, for those of you who don't know, is The Future according to various and sundry international standards bodies who meet in exotic locales to argue in French over whether or not the UN should have a backdoor into every American's web browser.

IP (which stands for "Internet Protocol") is the magic which runs the internet. We currently use IPv4 and it seems to work just fine. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.

But the folks who assign IPv4 addresses say they have no more left to give out. Every PC (and server and internet-connected device) needs an IP address, and now that there are no more left some people won't be able to surf the web.

It's sort of like when the phone company runs out of numbers so they move your town into a new area code that nobody recognizes as a local call. Except IANA (The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) says now they're out of area codes too.

So in the great tradition of international consensus, legions of UN bureaucrats along with a plethora of "stakeholders", got together a dozen or so years ago to come up with A Plan. And they devised a plan that only a masochist could love: Scrap IPv4 completely and make every internet user in the universe change to IPv6.

Everyone gets a new IP address! And has to purchase new equipment too. Going back to that phone company analogy, imagine having to buy all new phones when you're assigned to a new area code. Yeah, that would suck.

IPv6 sucks more.

But the Big Lie is that we have to convert, that there is no alternative because we are totally out of IPv4 internet addresses.

Except, we're not totally out. There are millions of IPv4 addresses sitting unused, locked away in corporate and governmental networks. And fully one eighth of the potential IPv4 addresses aren't even currently usable due to how some equipment manufacturers interpreted an example diagrammed in an early textbook on IP networking. Supposedly the technical problems associated with fixing that mistake are harder than forcing everyone to switch to IPv6.

One thing we could do is let the free market decide. As IPv4 addresses become scarce they become more valuable. Companies who are sitting on thousands of addresses could potentially reap a nice profit by selling them, and the folks who need to connect new PCs should be willing to pay for the privilege, right?

Wrong! The rules established by the international internet cabal expressly forbid the selling of IPv4 addresses. In fact, if they find out you did sell your addresses they "delist" them from the core internet routers. That's the equivalent of disconnecting your phone number because you switched long distance companies. People who try to reach you are turned away, and you can't connect to anywhere else.

Ah but at it's heart the internet is run by a bunch of socialists. And they hate the idea that someone might be willing to pay more for better service. To them it means the people who don't pay are somehow "disenfranchised" even though they are still getting the same service they've gotten all along. Hence the mantra of "Net Neutrality."

That isn't to say the socialists don't like the idea of us paying for our IP addresses. Oh no sirree. They just want us to pay them. With IPv6 everyone rents their address for an annual fee, payable to one of those UN standards bodies. Yes, it's the dreaded Internet Tax and it's totally outside the jurisdiction of any of our elected representatives.

Naturally, in keeping with the egalitarian notion of wealth redistribution, the rental fees are higher in developed nations (especially the U.S.) than they are in the third world. Because that's fair.

So, does the Obama Administration care about any of this? Nah, they're too busy hiring RIAA lawyers to rewrite copyright regulations in order to make it illegal for us to embed YouTube videos in our blogs. Not that the Republicans are any better informed; quite the contrary as the GOP is equally gung-go to cede control of the internet to Hollywood.

So it's Hollywood or the UN, and either way we're screwed. Happy World IPv6 Day!

Posted at 12:41 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: IPv6 IPv4 ARIN IANA   |   Tweet