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> "It isn't running out. It is out."

I think that's an unfair assessment.

When every ipv4 address is actually used, it'll have run out. We're a long long way away from that scenario though.

Vast ranges are "allocated" but "unused".




That's actually something I've been having a hard time finding: What percentage of IPv4 addresses are currently in use.


Probably wouldn't take too long to check what % are pingable, which would give you a lower bound.


I'm willing to bet it would ;)


By my calculations, you'd only need to spin up 50 or so amazon instances, and they could cover the entire IP space in a day doing 1k pings/second each.

That's pretty doable.


These guys have been mapping the IPv4 space via ping over time (since 2003) and have an interactive browsable map that also shows blocks marked for localhost/private networks/multicast, etc and which registrars control which regions. It is pretty neat. Most recent data is Nov 2010. Since then the 11 /8 blocks that show as free have been allocated.

http://www.isi.edu/ant/address/


Thats still not an insignificant amount of time/effort. I'd love to see someone do this though!


I meant that its time is out, not the addresses themselves.




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