decaff - 5:58 pm on May 5, 2006 (gmt 0)

Thanks Bear...
I was fascinated when I first read about IPv6 several years back...and the number of IP numbers that can be assigned to devices is staggering....everything can be connected to the web ... and I mean everything...(embedded, rfid chips, sites, cars,..watches, cell phones each with its own IP number...the possibilities are staggering...so are the problems...
I have seen several different numbers quoted on this...

Example of an IPv6 address:
1080:0000:0000:0000:0000:0034:0000:417A

Here's the math:
2¹²⁸, or about 3.403 × 1038 unique host interface addresses. That translates into 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses.

39 digits equals 1000 sextillion

IPv6 goes officially live in 2008 (though there is already an active IPv6 network in place....and all Linux dists support this protocol currently..)