dig -t aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

@kemona_halftau what IP version would that be, with 512-bit addresses?

if IPvx has 2*2^x-bit addresses (which fits for IPv4 and IPv6, but not for ST (the Internet Stream Protocol, which is assigned version number 5 and reuses IPv4 addresses) or TP/IX: The Next Internet (RFC 1475), which has 64-bit addresses and is assigned version number 7)), then it should be IPv8

but the actual protocol that is assigned IP version number 8 (Pip (RFC 1621)) has 64-bit IDs and variable length hierarchical addresses consisting of one or more 16-bit FTIFs (Forwarding Table Index Fields), the recent IPv8 Internet-Draft has 64-bit addresses, and Jim Fleming’s 1990s IPv8 Internet-Draft has 43-bit addresses apparently (I can’t actually find a copy of it anywhere, but it seems about as crazy as the 2026 draft)

interestingly RFC 1621 doesn’t explicitly state the version number it uses, but according to the IANA version number registry it is version 8 and it does say:

The Version Number places Pip as a subsequent version of IP.

from which it can presumably be inferred that it is version 8 if 7 (TP/IX) was the previous assigned version number

@noisytoot ipv9 >:3

@kemona_halftau apparently the chinese ipv9 has variable length addresses up to 2048 bits so that fits (it's unclear how long the addresses in TUBA or the joke ipv9 are (except that the joke ipv9 has 42 "routing levels"))