4 ms·

> I never understood why they couldnt just double it from a.b.c.d to a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h. What do you mean "just"? There's no "just" anything in this regard. IP i

> I never understood why they couldnt just double it from a.b.c.d to a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h. What do you mean "just"? There's no "just" anything in this regard. IP is a binary protocol. Its meaning is deeply burned into millions of pieces of networking hardware. The source address in IPv4 is 4 octets starting at octet 12. The destination ddress is 4 octets starting at octet 16. You can't extend anything without forcing an adjustment in everything that follows, and literally redesigning hardware because there's physical parts of chips that are 32 bits wide. So "just doubling" doesn't really help anything, you still need to readjust everything in existence. > Or even make it 256^16. Then set the system that it changes to 256^32 in year 2100. I don't understand what does that mean

rvba 3y ago
Telephone numbers used to be short. Say 4 numbers - from 0000 to 9999. Then it was extended to 6 numbers so 000 000 to 999 999. Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4? Obviously the old stuff wouldnt work but translation (when needed - similar to NAT) would be relatively easy. Sinct you dont seem to grasp it: Old adress 1.2.3.4 New: 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16 IP6 is unreadable for humans. Having 8 or 16 or whatever amount of octets would be easier to read or explain on the phone. Hardware had to be changed for IP6 as well so why do you even talk about hardware? And one could do some magic by trunctuating new address to old to make old software work.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  > Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4? That's exactly what they did. IPv6 is precisely 16 octets. I think you're getting hung up on the hex representation, but that's all it is, a representation. Nothing stops you from writing an IPv6 address as 16 sets of numbers from 0 to 255. In fact, IPv6 has the :: shortcut, which stands for "fill in all zeroes here". So, one of Google's addresses is 2607:f8b0:4004:c08::71. This is short for 2607:f8b0:4004:0c08:0000:0000:0000:0071. Which you could also write as: 38.7.248.176.64.4.12.8.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.113

rvba 3y ago

Telephone numbers used to be short. Say 4 numbers - from 0000 to 9999. Then it was extended to 6 numbers so 000 000 to 999 999. Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4? Obviously the old stuff wouldnt work but translation (when needed - similar to NAT) would be relatively easy. Sinct you dont seem to grasp it: Old adress 1.2.3.4 New: 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16 IP6 is unreadable for humans. Having 8 or 16 or whatever amount of octets would be easier to read or explain on the phone. Hardware had to be changed for IP6 as well so why do you even talk about hardware? And one could do some magic by trunctuating new address to old to make old software work.

dale_glass 3y ago
> Why couldnt do the old IP address space just be extended to have more octets? 16 octets instead of 4? That's exactly what they did. IPv6 is precisely 16 octets. I think you're getting hung up on the hex representation, but that's all it is, a representation. Nothing stops you from writing an IPv6 address as 16 sets of numbers from 0 to 255. In fact, IPv6 has the :: shortcut, which stands for "fill in all zeroes here". So, one of Google's addresses is 2607:f8b0:4004:c08::71. This is short for 2607:f8b0:4004:0c08:0000:0000:0000:0071. Which you could also write as: 38.7.248.176.64.4.12.8.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.113