I really need to stop reading SlashDot, since all it does lately is piss me off.
Today's dose of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is a story that ran in the New York Times (I expect FUD from them!) about the "impending IP crisis". For those who are not familiar with the concept, there are those who believe that we are going to run out of IP(v4) Addresses on the Internet in 2005, and that we need to adopt the successor (IPv6) asap to avoid the certain doom that will come about when some guy in Hoboken plugs his e-kegerator (I'm still looking for a kegerator, by the way) into the Internet and uses up the last IP Address. They have been spreading this bunk for years (except originally it was 2001 that it was supposed to happen, someone didn't get the memo I guess). People also continue to believe that IP Addresses are doled out based on what COUNTRY you live in, and poorer countries were only granted a very small number of IP Addresses (I almost got into a fistfight once, arguing this point with someone, and I haven't been in a fistfight since the 3rd grade). What's worse is that these lies are often spread by supposed experts on the subject (these same companies are also hawking IPv6 gear or services, but I'm sure that's entirely coincidental. I mean, they wouldn't be trying to make up for dismal IT sales by taking advantage of a little misinformation in order to sell new IPv6 hardware, would they??).
I'm here to tell you that this is complete BS. Yes, you're welcome! My faithful readers will stop now, confident that I have sufficiently researched this subject beyond any doubt. But some of you are new and skeptical, and to those people I say "Read on then!"
APNIC, the organization responsible for assigning IP Addresses in the Asia-Pacific region, has been working hard to dispell this IPv4 shortage FUD. At the current rate of consumption (5 top-level or "/8" ranges per year), the available pool of IP addresses should last at least a decade, and could go for nearly 20 years if they are aggressive about reclaiming unused space.
Also note the following quote from APNIC's Director General: "The blocks are allocated as they are required. So we don't have a set of addresses earmarked for the Asia-Pacific. There is no pre-allocation for the region which can run out. When addresses are not available, there will be no more addresses left for the whole world."
So I say to you IPv6 vendors out there: "Knock off all that evil!"