To hear some people talk about what may happen on Wednesday, you could get the impression that something horrible is on the way.
Y2K. The May 21 Rapture. IPv6 Day.
Lucky for us all, IPv6 Day will probably have about as much of a cataclysmic effect as the other two. Here’s what you need to know about IPv6 Day, how you’ll be affected and why you shouldn’t panic.
What is IPv6? IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol version 6, a new way of issuing the identifying numbers given computers and other devices online.
Right now, we use IPv4, which can issue up to 4.2 billion devices on the Internet.
IPv6 allows for a different system of assigning addresses and creates more options for unique addresses. Way more — 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,770,000,000, or 340 undecillion.
340 undecillion? Sounds like the new national debt. Maybe we need a count to a undecillion thread. Firefox spell checker doesn't even recognize the word.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... A_facebook Computer Crash Test: Will Your Internet Access Come to a Screeching Halt on June 8?
A 24-hour evaluation will determine whether millions of people worldwide can connect to the new 128-digit Internet protocol address system
By Mark Fischetti and Larry Greenemeier | June 8, 2011
Every computer, modem, server and smart phone that connects to the Internet has a unique Internet protocol (IP) address, so users can find it. The address format, known as IPv4, was standardized in 1977 as a 32-digit binary number, making a then-seemingly unlimited 4.3 billion addresses (2^32) available.
They're all used up.
Since 1999 the authority has offered blocks of newer IPv6 addresses that are 128 digits long, resulting in an unimaginable 340 undecillion possible addresses (that's 340 followed by 36 zeroes). But until 2008 or so, few organizations bothered to ask their registries for them. Now Internet carriers, Web companies and Internet service providers (ISP) large and small are sucking up IPv6 addresses for their old and new machines, but in most cases without making the IPv6 addresses live. So a moment of truth has arrived—Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Comcast and others are turning IPv6 on for 24 hours to see what happens.
The best evidence for determining just how many people's systems are not IPv6-compatible will come from calls to ISPs complaining of poor service, or none at all. "If Google or Facebook did this testing on their own, you'd have all of these Internet users calling their ISPs, but the ISPs wouldn't know the IPv6 test might be behind their customers' problems," he adds. "[June 8] is a nice day for us to try out v6 and then we can shut it down and fix all of the problems that may arise."
The parties undertaking the test have scattered diagnostics across the Internet, and will be able to see if 10 or 1 or 0.1 percent of users, for example, experience problems. They will also be able to tell if the problem is your machine, their machines, your service provider or some other node in the Internet.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
"We are a tad off course. In space terms, a tad is about a hundred million miles. Oh, and we're out of coffee!"
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
