going-flying.com gemini git repository
c3b942a3a98d89d6743ef31a9539c3556ff0fbbf - Matthew Ernisse - 1602088120
new post
diff --git a/users/mernisse/articles/16.gmi b/users/mernisse/articles/16.gmi new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93bc22a --- /dev/null +++ b/users/mernisse/articles/16.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +Title: Re: What IPv4 shortage? +Date: 10/07/2020 12:12 +In-Reply-To: gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~adiabatic/scrawlspace + +I ran across adiabatic's reply[1] to some random musings[2] of mine +on a potential alternate present where IPv6 was adopted before the +widespread popularization of the Internet. + +=> gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~adiabatic/scrawlspace [1] +=> /~mernisse/10.gmi [2] + +## What IPv4 shortage? +I admit that perhaps from a user standpoint this might not be particularly +visible and maybe I should have added more context in the original post. +IANA (the organization responsible for assigning all kinds of numbers +on the Internet) ran out of IPv4 address blocks to allocate to the 5 +Internet regions (RIRs) a while ago. ARIN (the RIR for North America) +ran out of their IPv4 free space in 2015. From a provider standpoint things +have been bad for IPv4 for most of the last decade. + +## Personal servers are a nightmare +I 100% agree on this in our current time line. The reality though is that +everyone already has at least one. Your 'modem' (really your CPE) is likely +running at least one unpatched Linux distribution inside of it that you have +little to no control over. If you have integrated WiFi you likely have two, +provided by two different manufacturers. + +## Homebrew solutions +I agree here as well, except for the part where the problem is solved. I think +the very fact that we're giving up a tremendous amount of privacy and security +to huge corporations is that the problem isn't solved. The problem has simply +been effectively monetized. + +But that wasn't really the point I was trying to drive at. I was trying to +imagine if those very corporate hegemonies would have been able to exist. If +the Internet remained capable of true peer-to-peer communication without a +central mediator service, would we have these giant central mediator services? + +I still think it's useful to dare to dream of such things.