Found: Who is responsible for no more IP addresses

Fri Jan 28 05:27:52 UTC 2011

On 1/27/2011 6:24 AM, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> On 27/01/2011 11:21, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>> "I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion IPv4
>> addresses would be enough to do an experiment," Cerf was quoted as
>> saying,
>> adding it is his "fault" that "we were running out of the addresses.""
>
> Fortunately, web developers have fixed the problem according to Fox news:
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/26/internet-run-ip-addresses-happens-anyones-guess/
>
>
> "Web developers have tried to compensate for this problem by creating
> IPv6 -- a system that recognizes six-digit IP addresses rather than
> four-digit ones."
>
> It will be difficult initially, though:
>
> "But IPv6 isn't backwards-compatible with IPv4, meaning that it's not
> able to read most content that operates on an IPv4 system. At best, the
> user experience will be clunky and slow. At worst, instead of a webpage,
> all users will be able to view is a blank page."
>
> I'm glad Fox has cleared all this up for us.

  Actually, Fox News got the article -- glaring technical inaccuracies 
and all -- from www.news.com.au:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/the-internet-has-run-out-of-ip-addresses-and-what-happens-after-that-is-anyones-guess/story-e6frfro0-1225995086627

  Of course, you won't find (most of) the inaccuracies there now; they 
edited the article after the fact (and after Fox copied them).  The only 
proof I had for myself reading it later were my logged peanut-gallery 
comments in #ipv6:

14:03 < jima> "Web developers have tried to compensate for this problem 
by creating IPv6 - a system which recognises six-digit IP addresses."
14:04 < jima> web developers? *wince* six-digit IP addresses? *cringe*
14:05 < jima> i'm gonna give mr. hutson a piece of my mind! ...if i 
could figure out who he is. :-\

  After the edit, I did snark via Twitter, "Media Trolling 101: 1. Write 
#IPv6 story w/ glaring tech. inaccuracies. 2. Get story picked up by 
FoxNews. 3. Fix inaccuracies. 4. Laugh." ( 
http://twitter.com/neojima/status/30644080144818176 )

  So, yes, while this was an example of news coverage gone terribly 
wrong, we can't blame Fox alone.  (There is, however, such a thing as 
"fact-checking," but that's a secondary point.)

      Jima