RFC8369: Internationalizing IPv6 Using 128-bit Unicode

RFC8369: Internationalizing IPv6 Using 128-bit Unicode

In a forward-looking RFC that presupposes an expansion of the Unicode address space to 128-bits, it is proposed that IPv6 addresses may instead of the standard notations proposed in RFC8600, be represented by a specific emoji or equivalent.

Assuming the new Unicode code point space is 128 bits — excluding some reserved bits for backwards compatibility and future expansion — it seems only natural to use Unicode code points for IPv6 addresses, and vice versa. This leads to some exciting changes – RFC8369 Section 3: Unicode IPv6 addresses

It should be noted that equivalent transitions are not available from UTF-32 to IPv4 as the ISO version of the standard (ISO 10646) explicitly zeros the highest order bit, meaning all address above 128.0.0.0 are unable to be encoded.

John Dixon

John Dixon is the Principal Consultant of thirteen-ten nanometre networks Ltd, based in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. He has a wide range of experience, (including, but not limited to) operating, designing and optimizing systems and networks for customers from global to domestic in scale. He has worked with many international brands to implement both data centres and wide-area networks across a range of industries. He is currently supporting a major SD-WAN vendor on the implementation of an environment supporting a major global fast-food chain.

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