I don’t normally cheer for Google when I don’t own shares in the company, but this time I will make an exception. Alma Whitten, Software Engineer at Google, today posted to their Public Policy Blog that IP addresses shouldn’t be considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This is not a problem in the United States but it is in the EU, and if the EU actually were to legislate this it would most definitely affect Microsoft and Google’s business functionality in the EU… More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

With IPv4 addresses becoming scarcer, there has been talk that a trading market will develop. The idea is that those holding addresses they do not really need will sell them for a profit. More alarming is that there have been a few articles about how the Regional Internet Registries (RIR) are contemplating creating such a market so that they can regulate it, conceding that it will happen anyway and taking the “if you can’t be ‘em, join ‘em” attitude. This is all a bit disturbing. Maybe I’m naïve, but it’s a little unclear to me how an unsanctioned trading market could really operate without the RIRs at least being aware… More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is considering sweeping changes to the way they distribute IP addresses that could allow network operators to make money by transferring unused blocks of IPv4 address space to others in need. One result could be lessened incentive to move to IPv6 any time soon. More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

ICANN is reported to have found a little breathing room in the IPv4 address space with its recovery of a block of 16 million IPv4 addresses. The IP addresses recovered were once used to connect older protocol packet-data networks with the fledgling Internet. The block of addresses, technically referred to as 14.0.0.0/8, is also known as Net-14. More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a second draft of a proposed standards profile to support the implementation of IPv6 by government agencies. “NIST developed the ‘profile’ to help ensure that IPv6-enabled federal information systems are interoperable, secure and able to co-exist with the current IPv4 systems.” …The White House’s Office of Management and Budget declared in 2005 that all federal agencies shall migrated to IPv6 by June 30, 2008… More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

Only 16% of IT professionals consider IPv4 address depletion “a huge concern that has or will soon force us to migrate to IPv6,” according to a BT INS survey of 310 IT professionals that was conducted in December 2007. A whopping 26% of IT professionals felt IPv4 address depletion was “no concern.'’ More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

The debates are raging over whether or not we should migrate to IPv6. The strongest argument is the enormous address space that will allow for everyone and everything to have a unique public address, many addresses actually. It is often said that the shortage of public IPv4 addresses has limited our capabilities because it led to the pervasive use of private addressing, Network Address Translation (NAT) and Port Address Translation (PAT). Though these technologies remain critical, they are often regarded as stop-gap measures, and they sometimes create problems. In some circles, NAT has acquired a very bad name. But is that a fair perspective of the technology? Let’s review the positives and negatives. More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

Interesting things happening in China. An article in the English edition of the People’s Daily on line is headlined, Decimal network security address begins operation: “China’s decimal network security address was officially launched. China has made a fundamental breakthrough in its Internet development; and actual use has been successful. The birth of decimal network technology makes China the only country able to unify domain names, IP addresses and MAC addresses into the text of a metric system…” Someone asked whether this was a rumored IPv9? It appears IPv9 is a project name, not a new protocol. It lumps together several activities, including at least… More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

The study report analyzes the distribution and the trends of IP address allocation in 238 countries for 2007. From the data analysis (see Table 1 & Chart 1), the United States tops the allocation list by holding 37.73% of the IP addresses worldwide. It follows by United Kingdom (12.83%), Japan (7.64%), China (5.74%), Germany (3.81%), France (3.65%), Canada (2.81%), Korea (2.74%), Netherlands (2.00%) and Italy (1.67%). These Top 11 countries in the list occupied more than 80% of total allocated IP address ranges in the world in 2007. More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back

Germany’s data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others comply with EU privacy law. He told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP address “then it has to be regarded as personal data.” More…

Original post by submitnews@thewhir.com (Web Hosting’s Premier Daily News) and software by Elliott Back