IPv4 address shortage? Really?

[nanog at jima.tk (Jima)]

On 3/7/2011 5:43 AM, Vadim Antonov wrote:
> I'm wondering (and that shows that I have nothing better to do at 3:30am
> on Monday...) how many people around here realize that the plain old
> IPv4 - as widely implemented and specified in standard RFCs can be
> easily used to connect pretty much arbitrary number (arbitrary means
>> 2^256) of computers WITHOUT NETWORK ADDRESS TRANSLATION.  Yes, you hear
> me right.

  This seems like either truly bizarre trolling, or the misguided idea 
of someone who's way too invested in IPv4 and hasn't made any necessary 
plans or steps to implement IPv6.  To implement this -- which, to begin 
with, seems like a bad idea to me (and judging by Mr. Andrews' response, 
others) -- you'd have to overhaul software on many, many computers, 
routers, and other devices.  (Wait, why does this sound familiar?)  Of 
course, the groundwork would need to be laid out and discussed, which 
will probably cost us a few years...too bad we don't have a plan that 
could be put into action sooner, or maybe even was already deployed.

  Anyway, the needless ROT13 text fairly well convinced me that our 
messages may be traveling over an ethernet bridge.

      Jima