IANA has run out of IPv4 addresses. IANA distributes IPv4 address blocks to regional suppliers. So, even though IANA might have run out, those regional suppliers still have some available. IPv4 addresses can also be recycled. Old, unused addresses are sent back to IANA and then redistributed to the regional suppliers. Once IANA got down to the last addresses they implemented their “exhaustive stage” which allotted an eighth of the remaining address blocks to the regional suppliers and reserved an eighth for themselves.
IPv4 addresses were finite and the global community was still growing so in an effort to slow the consumption of the final remaining IPv4 addresses Network Address Translation (NAT) was developed. A single IPv4 address can be used for multiple devices using the NAT protocol. Business and home networks with multiple devices are being added constantly. Instead of giving each device their own unique IP address, the NAT protocol allows a router to use a public IP address to connect the web to every device within the network. NAT will allow us to continue to maximize our IPv4 usage.
IPv6 addresses are not backwards compatible with IPv4 addresses. IPv6 addresses also come with a list of security flaws and once implemented, will make IPv4 addresses susceptible to those security flaws as well. Security risks in the IPv6 route headers will cause a number of problems with current firewalls that weren’t built with IPv6 addresses in mind. Firewalls could allow hackers that have tampered with the IPv6 route headers, through to access your network and your computer. The complete infrastructure has had to be overhauled to resolve these issues and is still being worked on today.
As an end user, it seems as if everything is running smoothly I believe windows ten is operating with both IPv4 and IPv6 as a stack?
