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Ultimately math.
The maximum IP address is 255.255.255.255 so thats 256^4 = 4,294,967,296 total addresses.
IPv6 massively changes that but for various reasons uptake has been slow.
IPv6 massively changes that but for various reasons uptake has been slow.
I'm one of the reasons. Instead of learning more about it and its security implications (no NAT with IPv6, afaik), I just disabled it, lol.
We have the luxury problem that IPv4 (or "dual-stack lite") works well enough, so there's little incentive to switch (everything) to IPv6.
I'm one of the reasons as well!
IPv6 was designed by very very smart people and in terms of a stand-alone protocol its great. However in the sense of a protocol meant to migrated to from IPv4 its very cumbersome. You basically need 2 distinct network stacks each with their own issues.
I'm not a network engineer but over the years I've heard people propose that we should've just added another one or two octets. So instead of A.B.C.D we could've had A.B.C.D.E.F
In fact it seems the smart way would've been to expand A.B.C.D into E.F.A.B.C.D, that is prepend the new octets to beginning then infer that 12.1.1.1 is really 0.0.12.1.1. to help with backwards compatibility.
That "extension" proposal was rejected because it was seen as a hack and they wanted to expand the space so much that literally nearly every grain of sand could get its own IP address, but its created lots of migration issues.
IPv6 was designed by very very smart people and in terms of a stand-alone protocol its great.
I doubt it, ipv6 is overly complicated.
In fact it seems the smart way would've been to expand A.B.C.D into E.F.A.B.C.D, that is prepend the new octets to beginning then infer that 12.1.1.1 is really 0.0.12.1.1. to help with backwards compatibility.
Sounds smart.
That "extension" proposal was rejected because it was seen as a hack and they wanted to expand the space so much that literally nearly every grain of sand could get its own IP address, but its created lots of migration issues.
Sounds dumb, maybe even done on purpose to facilitate user surveillance.
Interesting bit of history considering IP4 gateways have made IP6 a defacto extension much like they tried to avoid
Got it. How are addresses homesteaded?
Is it first come first serve or getting some level of recognition on the network?
In the 1980s was IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which was run by ICANN organization the divi-ed up the space.
Large players at that point got huge blocks.
So ATT controls 12.0.0.0 - 12.255.255.255, and even companies like Ford, HP, Apple held huge blocks.
Military and .edu also held big blocks.
Lots of those companies subsequently sold off portions of their original allocation. You can actually bid / buy blocks of IPv4 that comes available occasionally. Last time I looked, a Class C address (for instance 190.1.1.0 to 190.1.1.255 so a block of 254 addresses) sold for about $12K USD.
To help me grok this on a conceptual level, what would a competitor to ICANN look like?
What would happen if ICANN disappeared?
Its hard to say really. All of the IP space is "owned", ICANN is more akin to your local registrar's office, they are recording who owns what, not "deciding" who owns what.
So image a state like Texas, in the early days they were giving out land to encourage settlers, but now local gov offices merely record who owns what since there is no more "free land" to give out.
Ok, that’s basically what I was thinking.
Thanks for explaining all that!
That's ARIN
https://www.arin.net/resources/guide/request/
what would a competitor to ICANN look like
A hard fork of the internet amounting to a private network
Can you unpack that for your dumb friend?
What’s the source of scarcity in IP4 space?