3 ms·

I wonder if we could have just done something simple like add a block to ipv4? Like 255.255.255.255.255

• blueflow 2y ago
  IP packets are like a C struct that only have 4 bytes allocated per address. If you want to have more space, you need to change that struct, and that's what IPv6 does. Together with a new Ethertype so the different structs can be reliably differentiated.
• mkl 2y ago
  No, too much software and hardware relies on fitting the IP address into 32 bits. That means the only way to increase the number of addresses is in a way a clean break, so we might as well increase the number to a ludicrous size, far beyond what we can imagine practically exceeding, like IPv6's 128 bits.