ipv4

U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies are warning that a historic switch to the next-generation Internet protocol called IPv6 may imperil investigations by making it more difficult to trace who's using which electronic address.

FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials have told industry representatives that IPv6 traceability is necessary to identify people suspected of crimes. The FBI has even suggested that a new law may be necessary if the private sector doesn't do enough voluntarily.

Investigations stemming from kidnappings, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the Mytob worm have involved tracing previous-generation IPv4 … Read more

As IPv6 Day heralds the enormous success of the Internet in commercial and social settings, the Internet community faces a need to meet unanticipated demand for IPv4 addresses.

During the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, a considerable number of agreements will be executed to ensure that the available supply of addresses is effectively matched with corresponding demand. However uncertainty may arise surrounding the time, cost, and potential disruption of Internet commerce. IPv4 purchase agreements must incorporate terms and conditions that address this risk. In this article, … Read more

What began as a 24-hour test a year ago will become business as usual on Wednesday as a range of big-name Internet companies permanently switch on the next-generation IPv6 networking technology.

And now there's no turning back.

"IPv6 is being enabled and kept on by more than 1,500 Web sites and ISPs in 22 countries," said Arbor Networks, a company that monitors global Internet traffic closely.

Internet Protocol version 6 has one big improvement over the prevailing IPv4 standard it's designed to supplant: room to grow. However, moving to IPv6 isn't simple, which is … Read more

The FBI is worried that an explosion of new Internet numeric addresses scheduled to begin next week may hinder its ability to conduct electronic investigations.

A historic switchover that will give the Internet a nearly inexhaustible supply of network addresses -- up from the current nearly exhausted total of 4.3 billion -- is planned for next Wednesday. AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Cisco, and Microsoft are among the companies participating.

Side effects from the transition to Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6, "could have a profound effect on law enforcement," an FBI spokesman told CNET. "… Read more

Reassured by a relatively smooth test of IPv6 last week, some Web sites are choosing to keep servers available over the next-generation Internet technology.

And that's good news for an Internet that's bursting at the seams. The results of the test, called World IPv6 Day, may help encourage others to make the IPv6 upgrades.

In the test, a number of organizations broadcast that their servers were available on IPv6. That meant anybody who had an IPv6 Internet connection would get that version of the server rather than the usual IPv4 one.

"There is a great sense of … Read more

The computing industry has begun a major 24-hour test today to work the kinks out of IPv6, a disruptive but necessary overhaul of the Internet's inner workings.

Starting at midnight, Universal Coordinated Time on June 8--or 5 p.m. PT today--dozens of companies lit up servers, Web sites, and network infrastructure that communicate using Internet Protocol version 6. The test, called World IPv6 Day, provides a bit of deadline, albeit one that's more artificial and less pressing than the Y2K bug's January 1, 2000, zero hour.

Unfortunately, the IPv6 test could disrupt the Net for some … Read more

As the Internet developed there was debate over the network communications protocol to use, but ultimately the fourth revision of IP (IPv4) was implemented for communication between computers and networks. When the Internet was small the 32-bit addressing of IPv4 that limits it to just over 4 billion addresses was perfectly adequate, but recently the last sets of IPv4 addresses have been issued, meaning the size of the IPv4 Internet has reached its maximum.

To overcome this limitation, the Internet Engineering Task Force has been developing a 128-bit addressing system called IPv6 that allows for trillions upon trillions of additional … Read more

As World IPv6 Day gets closer, D-Link today unveiled its IPv6 Readiness, a new Web site dedicated to helping educate people on getting ready for the new Internet Protocol.

World IPv6 Day, on June 8, is when a few Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Akamai, and Limelight Networks, will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour test run.

When the Internet was first designed in the early '80s, the 4.3 billion addresses provided by the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), seemed more than enough. Nowadays, with the rapid penetration of the Internet to so many devices, … Read more

Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two major Internet service providers, will participate in the World IPv6 Day testing June 8 to help test readiness for the next-generation Internet Protocol.

Because the two companies are crucial gateways to the Internet for millions of people, their test will be an important--both for trying their own technology and for supplying some IPv6 users who can help other's setup. The companies announced the test today.

Internet Protocol version 6 supplies a vastly larger address space for attaching computers to the Internet than IPv4, which was established with a paltry 4.3 billion addresses … Read more