Internet Development –Governments as Catalysts For The Internet Protocol Address Challenge
Published Monday, October 20, 2008 - 17:34
The RIPE NCC recently held a Roundtable for European government representatives to discuss Internet addressing and the protection of best practice development of the Internet for the region.
The author introduces issues surrounding the underlying infrastructure of the Internet and calls for governments to take a leading role in Internet development.
Where are we now?
The Internet has come a long way since the late 80s and early 90s, when only a few organisations, in both the private and public sectors, were actively and aggressively building an online presence. Times have changed, and it is widely acknowledged that the Internet plays a vital role in the global economy. According to a recent report by the European Commission, e-commerce within the EU alone will be worth £100 billion in 2008, and despite the current economic turmoil, it is expected to soar by more than 200 per cent to £227 billion over the next five years.
Addressing A Legacy Challenge
The Internet currently operates mostly on Internet Protocol version four (IPv4), a system of addresses that are the equivalent of phone numbers or postal addresses. These addresses are assigned to devices participating in a computer network. Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers they are usually displayed in human readable form, such as 192.168.100.1. The role of IP addresses has been characterised as follows:
"A [domain] name indicates what we seek. An [IP] address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."
IP addresses are distributed by the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) on a "first come, first served" basis. The five RIRs are AfriNIC for the African region, APNIC for the Asia Pacific region, ARIN for Canada, many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands and the United States, LACNIC for Latin America and parts of the Caribbean, and the RIPE NCC, which manages IP addresses for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia.
The RIR system was set up during the early 90s, with the RIPE NCC established in 1993. Prior to this, IP addresses were allocated by a series of US-based organisations, but these registrations were not rigorously maintained. This means there is a large pool (30% of the total number of addresses) of “legacy” address space, for which there is little or no registration information. A vast proportion of these addresses are held by private sector and government organisations.
Because this address space is not registered, it is susceptible to criminal abuse, such as address hijacking. The prevention of such activity is in the interest of both the legitimate original recipients of the address space, and the broader Internet community.
The RIPE NCC has committed to identifying and registering the majority of legacy space in use in the RIPE NCC service region over the next two years. By registering this space the opportunities for criminal abuse of legacy addresses (including address hijacking) are minimised.
IPv4 exhaustion/IPv6 exhaustion
The situation surrounding legacy address space has been compounded by the shrinking number of unallocated IPv4 addresses. Almost 85% of all IPv4 addresses (180 of the 256 blocks of “/8” ) have been allocated, and it is widely accepted that we will run out altogether by 2011. Thirty-five blocks are reserved for special use by the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) and the remaining forty-one blocks are held in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) pool for future allocation to the RIRs.
The future of the Internet relies on a rapid deployment of a new generation of IP address protocol, IPv6, by both public and private sectors. IPv6 numbers on a 128-bit system, so there are more numbers available than under the 32-bit IPv4 system. Unfortunately, IPv6 is not backward compatible. Therefore, when upgrading to IPv6 organisations often need to ‘dual stack’, and run IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously to guarantee ubiquitous access.
Significant migration to IPv6 has already begun in areas such as China, but it is important for Internet community members throughout the world to realise that this development is coming, and early migration will offer benefits in terms of financial impact and technical preparedness.
The Role of Government
Europe is making good strides towards IPv6 migration. In May this year the European Commission set a target of 2010 for enabling 25% of users to connect to the Internet, and to present critical resources and services using IPv6 addresses. European ministerial involvement at this year’s OECD Ministerial meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on the Future of the Internet was significant. It’s clear to see that governmental appetite and intention exists to assist in the development of the Internet.
What is obvious, however, is that more effort and investment needs to be made to ensure European governments, organisations and citizens are well placed to take advantage of Internet development beyond 2011.
Governments are influential forces for Internet growth. Leading by example, governments can play an important part assisting in the deployment of IPv6. Where governments lead in creating an atmosphere of change and encouraging a landscape for safe and effective Internet development, the private sector will join
Public sector, commercial companies and the wider community of Internet stakeholders must work together in a concerted effort to push for migration to IPv6 sooner rather than later. We know we’re running out of addresses, now it’s time to actually do something about it.
