Hacker News: billpg

Let's Standardize the 1970 Epoch

billpg — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:28:25 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/billpg/1970EpochalTime/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47532527

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by billpg in "Aliens.gov ~ domain registered 17MAR2026"

billpg — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:27:56 +0000

It's a cookbook!

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:18:48 +0000

An earlier draft had a section discussing how IPv4x would work with NAT routers. Essentially, an IPv4x packet would be a UDP/IPv4 packet using a port number (84) that's been allocated to IPv4x.

Old routers would be a normal UDP packet inside a normal IPv4 and route it normally. New routers would detect UDP port 84 and treat it as an extended IPv4x packet.

I took all that out because I wasn't writing a proposal for something we should actually implement in the real world, but an alternate history "What if people who wanted IPv4 but with extra space got their way" and the story was already too long.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 07:55:50 +0000

le sigh

Thanks though. Your comment really cheered me up.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:20:39 +0000

"I bet one _could_ accelerate IPv6 deployment a lot by have a standard ..."

ahem

https://owl.billpg.com/sixgate/

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:24:19 +0000

Yes. The router in your home would absolutely need to support IPv4x if you wanted to make use of the extended address space, just like how in the real world your home router needs to support NAT if you want to make use of shared IP.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:11:37 +0000

My point is that we're still dependent on IPv4. For all the progress IPv6 has made, no-one is willing to switch IPv4 off yet. Until we do, we're still constrained by all the problems IPv4 has.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 23:02:22 +0000

Until you would happily deploy a service on IPv6 only, I suggest that you're still dependent on IPv4.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:41:27 +0000

You'd happily deploy a website for use by the general public on IPv6-only?

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:38:17 +0000

Your local machine isn't on the IPv4 internet if it doesn't have a globally routable IPv4 address.

Your home router that sits on the end of a single IPv4 address would need to know about IPv4x, but in this parallel world you'd buy a router that does.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:31:00 +0000

If it does that's great, but why couldn't I connect to IPv6-only services back when my ISP was IPv4 only?

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:30:07 +0000

This wasn't a proposal, but an alternate history. The world where the people who wished for IPv4 but with extra address space get their way. By the end I come down on being happy with we're in the IPv6 world, but wishing interoperability could be slicker.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:25:40 +0000

Thanks for reading and commenting everyone!

Note though that I'm not proposing IPv4x as something we should work towards now. Indeed, I come down on the side of being happy that we're in the IPv6 world instead of this alternative history.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:22:04 +0000

Interesting. Who deploys and maintains the gateway?

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:14:14 +0000

The central idea is that a IPv4x packet is still a globally routable IPv4 packet. The extra stuff all goes in the body of the packet.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:12:12 +0000

Essentially.I imagined this hypothetical happening decades ago when there were still a few /8s unallocated. I suggested that those would be set aside for IPv4x only.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:08:52 +0000

"IPv6 does that."

Are you sure about that? Until a few years ago my residential ISP was IPv4 only. I definitely couldn't connect to an IPv6-only service back then.

New comment by billpg in "The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved"

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:05:49 +0000

No, in this hypothetical, routers that don't know about IPv4x will still route based on the top 32 bits of the address which is still in the same place for IPv4 packets. If your machine on your desk and the other machine across the internet both understand IPv4x, but no other machines in the middle do, you'll still get your packets across.

The Road Not Taken: A World Where IPv4 Evolved

billpg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:31:21 +0000

Article URL: https://owl.billpg.com/ipv4x/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47352236

Points: 95

# Comments: 237

"Too Clever by Half" (Thanks HN)

billpg — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:56:54 +0000

Article URL: https://owl.billpg.com/too-clever-by-half/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263174

Points: 2

# Comments: 1