---
title: "Stop using numbers in your IP addresses."
date: 2003-02-20T12:46:15-05:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2003/02/20/ooodae/
author: Les Orchard
---

# Stop using numbers in your IP addresses.

By the way, <a href="http://mysteryrobot.com/cgi/namber?address=www.decafbad.com" target="_top">Namber DNS</a> at mysteryrobot.com (found via <a href="http://www.diaweblog.org" target="_top">DiaWebLog</a>) is damn nifty.  As I understand it, it works from a set of 256 very short and simple words.  Assemble four of these, and you can represent any IP address.  Seems like this would make for very easily remembered IP addresses, as well as fairly simple to recite over the phone.
For example: decafbad.com is <a href="http://sing.far.dry.today.mysteryrobot.com" target="_top">sing.far.dry.today.mysteryrobot.com</a>
<!--more-->
shortname=ooodae

<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221085340">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.gazingus.org"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=ab4456548b7db1b74c9d27496498e16f&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.gazingus.org">Dave</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221085340" class="permalink"><time datetime="2003-02-20T14:49:02">2003-02-20T14:49:02</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">I can understand how this could be useful for long ugly domain names, but I find it much easier to remember and recite "decafbad dot com" rather than "sing dot far dot dry dot today dot mysteryrobot dot com." What other advantages am I missing?</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221085343">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://w6daily.winn.com/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=3b2770ebe1507f2f69faa9bed4304680&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://w6daily.winn.com/">Phillip Winn</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221085343" class="permalink"><time datetime="2003-02-21T16:24:51">2003-02-21T16:24:51</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">This doesn't work for name-based virtual IPs, however. My website is http://dry.cake.cool.home.mysteryrobot.com/ but that takes you to my ISP's control panel. You have to use http://w6daily.winn.com/ to get to my site.

And Dave, the real comparison should be between 'decafbad' and 'sing, far, dry, today'. It's debatable, and would only be truly useful it the mapping was done locally, because then it would still work if DNS was unavailable. 

Of course, moving to a different ISP would meaning changing your "name" then, too, so it's not a perfect solution by any means. 8^)</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221085344">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://advogato.org/person/mbrubeck/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=eabca9ecf7258f220a05177b1606e622&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://advogato.org/person/mbrubeck/">Matt Brubeck</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221085344" class="permalink"><time datetime="2003-02-24T19:42:53">2003-02-24T19:42:53</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">I recently made a comparison of three similar mnemonic codes for IP addresses.  This is the first live implementation I've seen, though.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221085346">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101365/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=10ff0e2c470a0e7e5fe06c9ce1bf2036&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0101365/">Chris</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221085346" class="permalink"><time datetime="2003-03-06T01:55:27">2003-03-06T01:55:27</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">I don't get it.  How am I supposed to remember the order of the words? Those little words are way too similar to differentiate in a four word phrase devoid of all meaning. I'd just as soon remember four numbers, then at least then I could find patterns in the numbers to help remind me.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>