Networks

Giving v4 an ‘area code’ based on ASNs to give operators more addresses to play with, without upgrades

A veteran network architect named James Thain has drafted a proposal for “Internet Protocol Version 8” (IPv8) and hopes to crowdfund work to create a testbed that will demonstrate his ideas.

Thain’s proposal appeared as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet-Draft on April 16th. Like all such documents, it has no official standing – the multistakeholder systems under which the internet is governed allow open participation and this is Thain’s contribution.

The draft opens with a bold vision for IPv8, describing it as “a managed network protocol suite that transforms how networks of every scale – from home networks to the global internet – are operated, secured, and monitored.”

On the IPv8 website he describes it as “a managed network protocol suite that resolves IPv4 exhaustion, unifies network management, and stays 100 percent backward compatible — no flag day, no forced…