To answer JHP - Your ISP will assign any required IP identity needed to your computer, so you won't see any change until your ISP turns on the new system. Some ISPs, for some connection types, assign a permanent ID, and others assign only a "session address" that changes each time you connect. For most of us, we'll never see any effect at all, unless we happen to use an ISP that never gets with the system.

Of course, with all the new numbers now available, all the ISPs could assign everybody a permanent number, which would certainly be an enormous benefit for all the advertisers (and others) who now have to use crumbly cookies to track you. Instead of having to watch where you go they'd be able to just look and see where you are any time you're turned on, and could do it for any specific one among all the machines online. (The same system works for phones and such.)

(Hey guys - we do have to have some kind of conspiracy theory, don't we?)

John