The IPocalypse

I awoke a couple of days ago to the morning news anchor spouting off the day’s top stories. Usually the morning news is full of fluff that goes in one ear and out the other, but the last report I heard before leaving my house caught my attention.

The Internet is running out of addresses. [Gasp!]

Yes, it was always inevitable, I suppose, but in the story the anchor declared a time limit—one year. By the end of 2011 there will be no Internet addresses left. I laughed at first, but during my commute I couldn’t stop thinking about this foresight. Could it really be possible? Do we really only have a year before we all start scrambling for any address we can get our hands on? There have even been reports that an IP address black market will arise.

It turns out that with all the mobile devices and the growing number of Internet users in general is the primary cause for our imminent IPv4 (Internet Protocol version four) failure. First introduced in the 1980, IPv4 is what today’s Internet was built upon with its 32-bit addresses allow for approximately 4 billion IP addresses. Unfortunately, experts say we will use all these up by next September. So what’s the world to do? In the meantime, check out this countdown on Twitter to either induce an emotional collapse or perhaps just a laugh.

Good news is there is a solution: IPv6 (gold star to anyone who can explain the leap over IPv5). Without this 128-bit address protocol (that’s 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses) Internet growth is slated to go downhill. The problem, like with most other global issues, is all about the benjamins—millions of devices need to be updated to be compatible with IPv6. Without the upgrade businesses could lose out on traffic from users connecting to the web on new IPv6 addresses.

So, will this make people go pre-Y2K crazy, or will it be more like the actual Y2K? Will we break the Internet? No, but either way I’m sure hilarious T-shirts and hysteric Facebook statuses are just around the corner.