Oh by, here we go again.  This is bring back memories of Y2K.  Sounds like there might be a run on Internet real estate, but hey we can jsut create some more, right?  I would imagine that this is going to be a boom for GoDaddy and Networksolutions but a big headache for the rest of us.  We are going to need trillions of IP addresses. 

Hey the Freddie Mac and the Fannie Mae mess are only about a 5 Trillion screw up.  David Walker, Comptroller General of the GAO says we are only about $54 Trillion in debt depending on which books we look at and if we include the new Wall Street bail out.  This is sort of like the government printing more money, we can just make some new IP addresses.

The world is about to run out of the internet addresses that allow computers to identify each other and communicate, the man who invented the system has told The Times.

Vint Cerf, the “father of the internet” and one of the world’s leading computer scientists, said that businesses and consumers needed to act now to switch to the next generation of net addresses. Unless preparations were made ow, he said, some computers might not be able to go online and the connectivity of the internet might be damaged.

Mr Cerf said that internet service providers in particular needed to prepare and that time was running out for a smooth transition.

Every computer and online device is assigned a unique IP address, but the pool of unallocated numbers is about to dry up.