Internet Addresses Have Officially Run Out

Top Level Exhaustion ….. IPv4 Addresses Allocated for Special Use

When the internet was first developed, it was presumed that around 4 billion unique number combination would be adequate. However, it did not turn out the way it was predicted when tech pioneer Ken Olsen had stated in 1977 that `there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home’.

With the internet it gave rise to more usage with users getting tech savvy and getting connected to the internet world. Each node of Internet Protocol – IP network like computer, router or a network printer has been assigned an IP address which is used in locating and identifying the node in communication with several other nodes on the internet. An IP address space is handled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority – IANA, globally, as well as by the five regional Internet registries – RIR, that are responsible in their respective territories for tasks to end users and local internet registries like internet service providers.

 Top level exhaustion took place on 31, January’2011. From the five RIRs, three have exhausted allocation of the blocks and have not reserved for IPv6 transition which took place on 15th April 2011 for Asia Pacific, while on 14th September 2012 for Europe and for Latin America and the Caribbean on 10th June 2014.Internet Protocol version 4 offers 4,294,967,296, addresses though large blocks of IPv4 addresses have been allocated for special uses and are not provided for public allocation.

ARIN unable to Fulfil Allocation of Large IPv4 Address Block

As per Gartner researchers, he states that there would be around 25 billion internet connected devices by 2020 which is more than six times to what the developers had planned when the net went live in 1983. Vint Cerf, the internet founding father clarifies that they were aware of this coming up and had been reading about the drying blocks of IPv4 addresses and for the first time North America has been out of the new IPv4 addresses.

Presently, Caribbean Islands, Canada, North Atlantic and US will be receiving the waiting list from the American Registry for Internet Numbers and has been cautioned that it will be unable to fulfill the allocation of a large IPv4 address block since the address pool has been drying and because of this the ARIN for the first time will be changing its policies on allocation. Though the infrastructure running the internet was made with space for 4 billion addresses, which had seemed a lot at that point of time, however with provision of too many devices coming up, the IPv4 protocol seems to be running out of space.

Initiated IPv4 Unmet Request Policy

American Registry for Internet Numbers, - ARIN, has now initiated its IPv4 Unmet Request Policy and till now, organizations in the ARIN area were in a position of getting IPv4 addressed whenever needed. However, recently, ARIN is now not in a position of fulfilling the requests resulting in ISP which come to ARIN for IPv4 address space are faced with three choices namely-

• They could take a smaller block, presently ARIN does have a limited supply of blocks of 512 and 256 addresses
• They could go on the wait list with the hope that a block of desired size would be available sometime in the near future.
• They could buy addresses from an organization which may tend to have more than their requirement.

Experts have advised those running websites to use the spacious IPv6 specification, though moving could be expensive as well as time consuming. However, most of the large websites had already gone ahead and done so while several smaller ones could be left without much space to continue working. The IP address version which are now running out are utilised by computers in identifying themselves to each other in order to get connected. The old IP addresses comprised of four numbers with dots between them.

IPv6 Picking up Pace

Although being limited to four numbers meant that only 4 billion addresses were available and there are many more devices intending to get connected to the internet. IPv6 is picking up the pace and ARIN has been encouraging organizations in considering using IPv4 addresses.

Supply of IPv6 addresses is enough and is not likely to run out in future. By adopting a much more complex address, IPv6 would be increasing the minimum amount and it has space for 340 undecillion addresses or 340 followed by 36 zeroes, which is adequate for each atom on Earth to be accommodated with one. Those businesses who have not switched so far could move towards the new specification - IPv6.

Being expensive, companies could move towards hardware which would be compatible with IPv6. Should they decide to move over they could end up buying the limited and probably expensive IPv4 addresses that may be left. If users do not move over to the new system, they would not be able to get on the net since they will not have addresses to use and the internet would stop growing at that point. Experts had warned earlier that there were only 3.4 million addresses left in North America and that they would be running out in summer.

How to Set a Static IP address in Windows 8

Setting of a static IP address on a computer is very essential as it allows your PC to have the same IP address every time you restart the computer. This is basically required if you are about to use port forwarding. This set up allows your router to forward ports to your specified IP address. If you do not do so then the router will not forward the port to your PC to the same IP address every time whenever you start the PC. So for it to work, make sure that you set up a static IP address or else the ports won’t be forwarded to the IP address and eventually this port forwarding set up fails.

This IP address must match with the values of router’s local IP address or the Default gateway. So now let’s see how you can perform this task in Windows 8 operating system.

Setting a static IP address: 

In order to set a static IP address on a Windows 8, you need to simply follow the steps given below:

• Press the Windows key and open the Windows 8 start screen.
• Now right click on the network icon that you can find on the extreme right corner of your desktop screen and then click on “open network and sharing centre”.
• You can even click on the start button on the tool bar and go to the control panel and select “open network and sharing centre”.
• Select the change adaptor settings from the window displayed.
• A window is show cased displaying the Ethernet Properties.
• Here you need to go for Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and then go to properties.
• A window showing IP addresses is displayed. Here you get the option to create your own IP address for which you need to check mark the option “use the following IP address”.
• The moment you check mark on this field, three more fields appear asking for IP address, Subnet mask, and Default gate. Fill up this provided fields.
• Assure that the IP address that you are going to enter in this field is similar to the router’s IP address with the last number being different.
• Below this you can observe “use the following DNS server address” field; here you need to enter the Preferred DNS Server address field.
• After entering the numbers in all the desired fields, click on OK button and close the window.
• Your static IP is created.

What can you conclude from this? 

Of all the points mentioned above, we come to the final conclusion that we need to set up a static IP address to PC in order that the router can forward ports to the same specified IP address that we have set each time when we start the PC. And it is the same four sets of numbers that allows computer to identify each other when connected to a network.

The Ministry of Culture, has downloaded illegally

Miss tracker! YouHaveDownloaded IP address was used on the website of the Ministry of Culture to see if the premises were a source of illegal downloads. Against all odds, the result is positive.

If the scanner 65 025 IP addresses of the Ministry was tedious, the record was worth it. Not less than 250 of them were used to circulate content pirates in the last two months. Among the downloaded files, there are movies, series, music, software, video games and even some naughty videos. These files appear several times in the list of download and different addresses, which suggests that computer makers have a rotating IP, which is automatically changed every connection or every time you restart the computer.