With the massive growth in internet devices, shouldn’t we have used up all possible ipv4 numbers?
In: Technology
So there are two versions – at least two that are most common – of the Internet Protocol: IP version 4 (or IPv4), and IP version 6 (or IPv6).
IPv4 allows for 2^32 of unique addresses, or about 4 Billion-ish. This is the most common form of IP space in use today, and technically we have already run out. We’ve tried to expand the number of useful IPs by using something called NAT – or Network Address Translation. This uses what are call “private IP ranges” which create IP addresses that the internet as a whole can’t use, but people in an organization- like a business or school – can. If you’ve ever logged into your wifi router at home and notice the IP address starts with “10” or “192.168” then these are examples of private IP addresses. What NAT does is change that IP address to something the internet CAN use. For example, at home you might have a tv, laptop, and phone that have a different private IP, but when you browse the internet your ISP “translates” those private IPs into a single public IP. If you go to a website like whatsmyip on different devices, you’ll see the same address come up, and it won’t match the IP on your device. This is how, while we have “run out” of IPs, we can still all connect to the internet.
IPv6 was designed to combat this problem. IPv6 allows for 2^128 unique IPs, which is a number I honestly cannot even fathom. It’s not as common (yet) as IPv4, but I would expect that to change within the next decade. With IPv6, we can give every device – even smart or IoT devices – unique and public IP addresses. There are some security concerns with that, but those are being handled as the IPv6 rollout progresses.
Sorry for the long post…I took “explain like I’m 5” literally lol
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