Chris Pirillo » IP

Have We Run Out of Space on the Internet?

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:36:58 +0000

This is a guest post written by Craighton Miller.

There is no more space on the Internet – sort of.

It is predicted that on February 2 around 4am the Internet is going to go through an Armageddon of sorts. All allocatable IPv4 address will be used, and the Internet community will be forced to adopt the IPv6 standard.

The current system of IPv4 addresses allow for only 4 billion combinations to be allocated. Every device that is connected to the Internet is given a unique code, called an IP address, which allows the device to be recognized on the Internet.

At the current rate these IPv4 addresses are being assigned, they will depleted in no time. One Internet Service Provider (ISP) calculates that one million addresses are assigned every four hours. The countdown to “IPcalypse” has begun.

As noted, most of these IP addresses are reusable. Unfortunately, many of them are being utilized as “one-time use” addresses.

The company Hurricane Electric is taking a step to encourage other ISPs to transfer to the new IPv6 system, which allows for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 combinations. Their Twitter account is counting down the days and IP addresses left before we completely run out.

Currently, hardware and software developers have noticed that this change is needed and have built in compatibility to many devices and software applications to be ready for the change in our future.

Home Network Software Help

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:03:55 +0000

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The more computers you have connected to your home network, the bigger your need for good tools to manage that network. Recently, I had a need to discover the IP address for Ponzi’s machine, and asked the community if they knew of software I could use.

Wirelesspacket told me immediately about a program he uses from Softpedia called Network Scanner. This is a free tool, which is an excellent ‘selling’ point for me.

I needed to find out the IP address of Ponzi’s machine so I could connect to it via VNC. This tool got all the information for me quickly and easily. I just had to open it, input a range of IP addresses, and click the “start scanning” button. Shortly, an excellent list of all the machines on my network was displayed before me. Not only did I get the IP address I needed, this tool also can show me much more:

Detects hardware (MAC) addresses
Detects hidden shared folders (normally invisible on the network) and write accessible shares
Detects your internal and external IP addresses
Scans for listening TCP ports and SNMP services

The only drawback to this tool is that it is only Windows compatible. If there is an equivalent that you know of which works on OS X, I’d love to know about it.

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Static vs Dynamic IP

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:10:53 +0000

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Just like all working phones have a phone number assigned to them, all working devices connected to the Internet have an IP address assigned to them. There are two types of IP address: static, and dynamic.

A static IP is usually used for a business and/or corporate setting. These are assigned addresses that never change. A dynamic IP is one that always changes. For instance, if you *shudder* are using dial up, you know that every time you want to get online you have to connect through your modem. Every time you connect, you receive a different IP address. Dial up accounts use dynamic IP addresses within a range assigned to each provider and location. If you’re on DSL or cable, your IP address rarely changes. I am using a cable connection, and in over a year my IP address hasn’t changed. To me, that’s close enough to be called a static IP.

So which one is the better to have? If you want to be able to connect to a computer on your home network using a program from say a laptop in another country when traveling, you’ll need to know your IP address. This is basically impossible with a dynamic IP, since it changes virtually every day, or even every hour. What if you want to use a program I’ve raved about many times called SlingBox? Again, you’ll need to know your IP address.

If at all possible, I recommend having and using an assigned, static IP address. Know what it is, and use it wisely.

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