In the early 1990s, internetworking wonks realized the world was not many years away from running out of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, the numbers needed to identify any device connected to the public internet. Noting booming interest in the internet, the internet community went looking for ways to avoid an IP address shortage that many feared would harm technology adoption and therefore the global economy.

A possible fix arrived in December 1995 in the form of RFC 1883, the first definition of IPv6, the planned successor to IPv4.

The most important change from IPv4 to IPv6 was moving from 32-bit to 128-bit addresses, a decision that increased the available pool of IP addresses from around 4.3 billion to over 340 undecillion – a 39-digit number. IPv6 was therefore thought to have future-proofed the internet, because nobody could imagine humanity would ever need more than a handful of undecillion IP addresses, never mind the entire range available under IPv6. //

"IPv6 was an extremely conservative protocol that changed as little as possible," APNIC chief scientist Geoff Huston told The Register. "It was a classic case of mis-design by committee."

And that notional committee made one more critical choice: IPv6 was not backward-compatible with IPv4, meaning users had to choose one or the other – or decide to run both in parallel.

For many, the decision of which protocol to use was easy because IPv6 didn't add features that represented major improvements. //

While IPv6 didn't take off as expected, it's not fair to say it failed.

"IPv6 wasn't about turning IPv4 off, but about ensuring the internet could continue to grow without breaking," said John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).

"In fact, IPv4's continued viability is largely because IPv6 absorbed that growth pressure elsewhere – particularly in mobile, broadband, and cloud environments," he added. "In that sense, IPv6 succeeded where it was needed most, and must be regarded as a success." //

But there are plenty of organizations that still see a need for IPv6. Huawei sought 2.56 decillion IPv6 addresses and Starlink appears to have acquired 150 sextillion, which is helping to push more countries past 50 percent IPv6 adoption.

As Think Tank the Mercator Institute for China Studies last year observed, IPv6+ “has obvious appeal for authoritarian regimes looking to control their citizens,” because a carrier could read metadata and act on it. //

Reading metadata could also enable censorship: Beijing already blocks a lot of content, and if dissidents had to identify themselves in packets, they’d be easier to find and block.

The Institute also notes that China’s telco equipment companies have implemented IPv6+ and exported kit that runs it to several nations.

That’s worrying because China already tried to create a protocol called “New IP” that also included surveillance-friendly features.

The flight lasted less than nine minutes, the right two engines losing power in quick succession as the Douglas DC-4 made its initial climb from San Juan, Puerto Rico, en route to New York.

The pilot of the Pan American Clipper Endeavor had no choice but to ditch the plane at sea. All 69 of the passengers and crew members survived the initial crash on April 11, 1952, only for panic and confusion to hit in the precious few minutes after the water landing.

The plane’s tail section broke off and the fuselage sank, an accident that claimed 52 lives and became a catalyst for airline safety briefings and procedures for generations to come. //

Josh Gates, a host of “Expedition Unknown,” said, “Every time you step onboard an airplane today, you are safer because of what happened to ‘Clipper Endeavor’ and her passengers three-quarters of a century ago.”

Some never saw their files again either, infosec biz Proofpoint finds //

Authorities have long warned organizations not to pay ransoms, and fresh figures underline why: handing over the money doesn't mean the crooks leave you alone.

Proofpoint survey data suggests that 58 percent of affected UK organizations paid a ransom. Worse, 22 percent of those who pay get extorted again anyway.

The UK broadly tracks the global picture: 54 percent of victim organizations paid, though the rate swings sharply by region, from just 19 percent in Japan to 93 percent in the US. //

UK organizations that paid fared somewhat better than the 37 percent global average for repeat extortion. Still, the core lesson stands: paying doesn't reverse an attack. You can't trust a criminal's word. It just restarts a negotiation where the attacker holds every card, including the data, decryption keys, and the threat of publishing what they've stolen.

Operation Cronos, law enforcement's LockBit takedown, provided hard proof of what had long been suspected: cybercriminals often retain victim data even after being paid. Before Dmitry Khoroshev's cybercrime empire collapsed, this was an assumption, not evidence-based.