*No one* knows how to do it any differently.
I have an idea: Let's merge IP addresses with telephone numbers. A person
will have one IP address for each telephone number he owns, and vice versa,
and the two numbers will be the same. Because the identifying number of a
telephone is open-ended at both the front and back of the number, there is
no limit to the number of addresses that can be accommodated, and the
addresses can be used for routing without any danger of exhausting the
address space.
Example: My machine would be, say,
.............85794... to people on my block
..........44785794... to people in my city
.......37744785794... to people in my state
.....1737744785794... to people outside my country
...421737744785794... to people on Mars
.................401. to other machines on my home LAN
.................4015 to the subnet of machine 402 on my home LAN
The digits in common between the two machines are not explicitly specified.
The address space extends to infinity in both directions.
The addressing scheme would locate the starting digit and the number of
significant digits, so my full address would be any of the following:
32768-00004-4015
32768-00003-401
32744-00015-421737744785794
32767-00008-94015487
The scheme would allow for starting digits and lengths in excess of 1-65534.
The starting digit would be a plus or minus offset, allowing infinite
expansion in either direction (there would be no root, but there would be a
level 0).
I want to talk to a machine in Zumbalu. It's address is
32744-00016-4216849200420283:
...4216849200420283.. Zumbalu
...4217377447857940.. me
...xxx6849200420283.. strip out common digits
I connect to 32747-00013-6849200420283.
I want to talk to my next-door neighbor. Her address is
32740-00020-04754217377447858662:
04754217377447858662. Jane
04754217377447857940. me
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx8662. strip out common digits
I connect to 32766-00004-8662.
I have three physical routes from my machine; I select the one with the
highest starting digit that is equal to or lower than the start digit of my
destination address:
R1 = 32768 = nope, too high
R2 = 32740 = OK
R3 = 32000 = too low
Obviously other details can be worked out. This is just back-of-envelope
stuff. The important thing is that there is unlimited room for expansion.
Additionally, individual nodes in the network need only really know about
their immediate neighbors. You wouldn't need worldwide root servers or
anything like that.