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by lowercased 1760 days ago
IPv6 format is just too damn confusing and mental overhead.

Prefixing all IPv4 with 0.0, opens up another 64k copies of the 4 billion address space of a.b.c.d. This would have been far easier for everyone (not just a few admins, but everyone that ever has to deal with an IP address) - to understand and deal with. It still could be, with the aforementioned-yet-not-developed-nor-propsed IPv7.
1 comments
stephen_g 1760 days ago
Sorry, that is a misinformed view. Your proposal has exactly the same problem IPv6 has - all network hardware knows the format of an IPv4 header, and you can’t fit larger addresses in it without changing all network hardware and software. So large swathes of the internet would be inaccessible until all those routers, firewalls, middle boxes, cell towers, etc. are replaced, which would take another 20 years! Whereas it’s mostly been done for IPv6.
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kazen44 1760 days ago
20 years to replace core infra is optimistic in a lot of places.

I've seen some places running ATM hardware which was phased out two years ago. it has been running for well over 20 years.

people also seem to forget that with a new network protocol, new designs probably need to be made to make use of new (much needed) features.

those designs already exist in ipv6.

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