IPv6 and you
192.168.1.1. Do you know what that is? I bet you do. It’s probably the IP address for your router. But if you want to write it properly, “it’s probably the IPv4 address for your router.” Basically there’s two versions of the IP protocal (that we care about): IPv4, which we all know and use, and IPv6. Nobody currently uses IPv6, which is a bit of a problem, because we just ran out of addresses for IPv4. Don’t panic though, for now you can still find the cute pictures of kitties on the internet, that’s not going anywhere, yet.
Now, I know the reason people don’t use IPv6 yet: the addresses look like something that came out of an elephant’s asshole. Look at this: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334. What is that. It hurts my fucking eyes. But that is the future; it has to be, and apparantely you can’t ignore it.
So what does this mean for you, as someone who probably doesn’t give a shit how the kittens get to your screen? It means that you might just have to buy a new router, in the coming years, to accommodate this change. Most routers sold on the market right now don’t even support IPv6, which is pretty surprising, considering we need them. Right now. It also means, if you like to do things like tracert, ping, finger, etc. that your logs are about to get really ugly.
Fortunately, almost all modern OSes already support IPv6, and have for quite awhile, as they saw this coming and are smarter than the router companies. That said, let us hope the backbone of the internet updates to IPv6 soon instead of waiting until the last moment, or we are going to have a serious shit-storm problem on our hands. All of us.
How I miss the old days, when it was only me and 5 other people on the internet.
A fine post. You educate, and you hint at an undercurrent of longing in your heart. Longing for a time when I wouldn’t exist in your universe to comment on this blog post on this site WE MADE TOGETHER.
prick.
you come here, in my house, and then you do nothing to help when my roof starts leaking. that’s what’s happening. you don’t even care or know, you just bitch that it’s wet. get out of it, get out of my house.
I’d have to say you’re wrong about the router manufacturers here… Do you honestly think they didn’t see the need for IPv6? I’m guessing they were smart enough to know that if they didn’t support it, you would be forced to buy a new router from them again when IPv6 became necessary.
Those bastards.
hm. that is a clever ploy indeed. but they still aren’t even really selling them now. maybe they’re biding their time, so there’s a big rush and they can jack the prices up when everyone panics.