At SC10 last week, I found out that the ARIN group, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, has created a series of graphic novels to explain the transition between IPv4 and IPv6. The failure of IPv4 to scale to current usage patterns is discussed widely, but often difficult to understand. The graphic novel format, they’ve found, does a good job of putting the same information in an easier to understand format.
Some liberties are taken in order to present this information in comic book style, but the aspects of the story that illustrate how ARIN and its community work are taken directly from technical documents, like ARIN’s Policy Development Process, and based on the ideals and roles described in multiple RFCs.
Team ARIN is not a typical group of superheroes — they do not battle a literal enemy directly. Instead they use their powers to educate the public and facilitate community participation in the existing open, transparent, bottom-up policy process. Team ARIN presents the true mission of the “real” team ARIN, as we facilitate the open and transparent policy process, technical discussions, and act as an informational resource for the community.
Check out the 3-issue series in PDF format on their site below.
