by Leo Vegoda on March 12, 2008
Back in October I wrote about how my landlord provides an Internet connection with a private IPv4 address. I explained that I want to connect several devices and so I have installed my own NAT and now sit behind a “double NAT”. The only problems I’ve had have been with some VoIP software that can’t jump multiple NATs.
My landlord isn’t the only ISP providing an Internet connection using private IPv4 addresses. As mentioned at the last AfriNIC meeting, there are many millions of connections sitting behind hierarchies of IPv4 NATs.
by Leo Vegoda on February 27, 2008
Last week we improved the format of the IANA IPv4 Address Space Registry. It is now much easier to see which address space is available for allocation to RIRs and which address space is reserved for Multicast and Future Use.
We made other changes, too. The IPv4 registry used to report that a lot of /8s were allocated to “Various Registries”. That wasn’t very helpful to anyone; it was a bit like saying “we don’t know”. In fact, the RIRs have been providing DNS and Whois services for addresses in these /8s but the IANA IPv4 registry didn’t indicate which RIR to consult because addresses in each of these /8s are often used by organisations in different RIR regions.
by Leo Vegoda on February 6, 2008
More IPv4 /8s returned to an “IANA – Reserved” status in 2007 then ever before.
With help from the Regional Internet Registries, three /8s were returned in 2007 and last month we recovered one more. We now have 43 unallocated /8s. Here’s a table showing the details of the returned blocks.
by Kim Davies on November 15, 2007
I am at the UN Internet Governance Forum, being held this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A recurring theme you can hear here is one that has vexed the technical community many times before — “Why are there 13 root servers?” This question is usually followed by questions like “Why are most of the root servers in the US?”
So let’s dispel these myths.
There are not 13 root servers.
by Kim Davies on October 12, 2007
Earlier this week, we inserted eleven new top-level domains in the DNS root zone. These represent the term “test” translated into ten languages, in ten different scripts (Chinese is represented in two different scripts, and Arabic script is used by two different languages).
This blog post is not about that. (If you’re interested about it, read [...]
by Kim Davies on September 19, 2007
ICANN made a little piece of history in three countries a few days ago when it approved the delegation of the .KP domain for North Korea, the .RS domain for Serbia, and the .ME domain for Montenegro. For the former it marks a further step in their efforts to connect their country to the Internet. [...]
by Kim Davies on May 3, 2007
In the foyer of the ICANN head office, we have hung on the walls a number of interesting maps of the Internet. There are various takes on displaying the Internet on charts and in diagrams. They range from the mind-bogglingly complex to the almost comically simple:
Then again, this was the Internet back in 1969.
One map [...]
by Kim Davies on January 25, 2007
Last year, American retailer Wal-Mart gave up in an attempt to expand into Germany, and one of the reasons they cited was that they didn’t understand the local market. “Did you know that American pillow cases are a different size than those in Germany?” Wal-Mart Germany CEO David Wild asked Welt am Sonntag.
Hearing this reminded [...]
