The “Big Internet Crunch” or “out of IP addresses, again”

So, like, what’s the big deal?

Not having IP addresses means no Internet access for new Internet devices and random outages for others.  Try getting your Facebook Fix, getting your YouTube on, just try to tweet or get LinkedIn when you can’t connect to the Internet!  Say bye-bye to your online life when you buy a new iPhone, Android/Droid, BlackBerry or other Internet-capable device when the IP addresses have vanished and Internet providers are scrambling to connect everybody.

That’s the current threat.

OMG!  No Facebook/YouTube/Twitter (…)?!?  I’d just DIE!

Yes, those in the hyper-connected and socially inept set might must might die of lack of input–then again, maybe they would adapt, gain an attention span longer than 20 seconds and actually join human society.  It might not be all bad.

Who did this?

We all did.  We keep doing Internet the same old way and that leads to using up the IP addresses, kind of like the oil supply crisis.

Finite critical resources + wasteful usage = a crisis

WARNING! GEEKY STUFF AHEAD!!

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and more specifically the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) are the folks that manage all IP addresses on the planet. These people, like environmentalists, have been telling us for over a decade that the IP address space is limited relative to the number of computers and Internet-capable devices out there and that we are running out of Internet IP addresses. If the IP addresses run out, they tell us, new devices that try to connect to the Internet may not be able to connect–the new devices can’t be ‘found’.

Why is that?   An IP address is something like a telephone number. Unless someone knows the correct IP address, they can’t ‘call you up’ across the Internet–if you don’t have an Internet Protocol address, you’re not on the Internet.

So how did we get into this in the first place?

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