Stories about: IANA

In 2011, the increasingly mobile and socially networked world of technology became more intertwined than ever with politics and the law. Patent wars shaped competition in tablets and smartphones, hacktivists attacked a widening array of political and corporate targets, repressive regimes unplugged citizens from the Internet, and the U.S. government moved to block the giant merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA. With the passing of Steve Jobs, the world lost a technology icon who redefined the computer, entertainment and consumer electronics industries. These are the IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 technology stories of the year:

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is aiming to strengthen requirements for transparency, independence and accountability in its next contract for the creation of top-level domains.

As the number of available IPv4 addresses dwindle, operators are getting ready to ramp up the roll-out of IPv6 and World IPv6 Day, on Wednesday, will help the industry root out any problems.

Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author's employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.

Control of North Korea's top-level Internet domain has been formally assigned to a government-backed venture after the previous operator, a German company, let the national domain disappear from the Internet for several months.

The looming depletion of Internet addresses has split the networking world into "IPv4 diehards" and "IPv6 purists," but the real needs of businesses lie somewhere in between the views of these extremists, a Brocade Communications Systems executive said this week.

For 15 years, Internet engineers and policymakers have been publicizing the need to upgrade the 'Net's current addressing scheme -- known as IPv4 -- to handle the network-of-network's explosive growth. Yet many U.S. CIOs and CTOs continue to harbor misinformation that they use to justify why they are not adopting the next-generation IPv6 standard.

For IT professionals and network industry vendors alike, the events of last week represent a game changer regarding IPv6, which was developed in 1998 but has scarcely been deployed. 

A critical juncture in history arrived this week as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigned the last IPv4 addresses to the five regions of the world's Regional Internet Registries.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has handed out its last IPv4 addresses, leaving the remaining blocks to regional registries that in some cases may exhaust them within a few months.