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IPv6 is Here
shawn(at)fsu writes "Reuters is running a story that Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) says that "IPv6 been added to its root server systems" I like how they said that it will run along side IPv4 for 20 years to get rid of the bugs.
A few previous Slashdot stories out of many here, here and here"
You can't just give objects IP addresses like you are handing out cookies to homeless people. Your object must have a network interface to start with, or do you put microchips in your pieces of toilet paper?
This is just the first step to real world-wide IPv6 deployment (replacing the mbone experimental setup). You still need to get all the intermediaries like ISPs up to speed.
an ip address for every human being... and they're non portable great!
i've said it before, and i'll say it again: ipv6 looks good on paper, but their current policy of not assigning IPs to anyone but big isps who will in turn sub delegate them to others is hindering the usefulness to small and medium ISPs
basicly you'll be locked into one isp, or face a major renumbering burden due to the non-portability of the addresses (and no it does NOT involve simply switching the network part)
or does "virtually unlimited" seem like a very silly and shortsighted estimate of the number of possible addresses? Especially because the uses/monopolization of these addresses will probably grow in unforeseeable ways.
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
Let's add "good netizens who want to be anonymous". Maybe I'm not thinking clearly, but I don't see a way of making the net spammer-proof without ending the concept of internet anonymity.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Having more IP addresses doesn't mean that they will be statically assigned, nor that they will be assigned on a "per-user" rather than on a "per-device" basis. Even if each individual were assigned a block of addresses for their devices (this packet comes from John's palm pilot, this from his cell phone, and that one from his refrigerator...) you'd still have the problem of multiple users with a single physical device (public library computers, internet cafes, office beer fridges...) so, unless each device includes biometric identification and logging, you'll never be able to attribute every internet communication to a human party, even when one exists. I won't even get into the privacy concerns there.
The vast majority of bad netizenship occurs at protocol levels above IP -- spammers abuse SMTP, advertisers abuse DHTML, hackers abuse various services running on open ports. While some of this bad netizenship can be addressed at lower protocol levels (e.g. by blackholing certian IP ranges) the real solution is in fixing the higher-level protocols.
Well, since there are enough addresses in IPv6 to give every grain of sand in the solar system a unique IP address with plenty to spare, I look forward to trying to exhaust the address space.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
No static IP addr. for everyone. Think of this:
If I move from CA to NY, the routers of the world would have to change their tables to be able to get information to me. That is just for one person. Now think of all the people who move or change ISPs.
So static IPs for everyone is not a good idea.
of course, if we all have ip addresses and are directly on the internet, dont we loose the nat protection for all our windows os ! i depend on my linksys to save me from the internet!!
The current IPv4 net has de-facto weak anonymity via DHCP, proxying, etc. It is effectively anonymous unless police authorities get very interested and are willing to wade through logs. And these logs get quickly lost/deleted.
IPv6 is the end of the 'net as we know it. Whether it will be an improvement is hard to say. I'm sure it will have a chilling effect. This might be good at stopping some undesireable activities (spam, etc. if enforced) but will also inhibit free speech, particularly in less-free countries.
I don't see a way of making the sending of email spammer-proof without ending the concept of email-sender anonymity. But that is not the same thing as Internet anonymity. Such a scheme need have no effect whatsoever on all the other numerous Internet protocols, including the Web.
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
I live in Portland Oregon and every once in a while I survey the local DSL ISPs about IPv6. The answer has been consistenly "We have no plans to deploy IPv6." and "No customers have been asking for it."
Can someone point out ISPs that offer native IPv6 service to home users?
You already have it (assuming your an American) - it's called your Social Security Number.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
You don't have to worry about that, though, because it isn't possible. How would the routers handle those (theoretical) 6 billion addresses? The routing tables could never handle it.
At best, you'd continue to have a dynamic address, and then have a static address that resolves to some sort of forwarding service. So some agency would own a big chunk of 6 billion addresses (and routers would only then need that one routing entry), and then that agency's network would reroute packets to those addresses to your current dynamic IP assigned by your ISP for whichever device you want the IP to relate to.
Which is pretty pointless and stupid, because you'll have many different devices and thus many different IP addresses, so what purpose would there be in having a single static IP just to refer to you personally?
(And no, conspiracy theorists, I'm not going to assume that we all have chips implanted in our heads; trust me, we'd have another Revolution before that happened.)
Who cares about NAT if the router could tunnel IPv6? I'd gladly pay for that (assuming by that time there are other IPv6 networks worth talking to). What they would kill in NAT sales they'd more than gain in tunnel sales... except they'd be the same product anyway.
Not to be a flame, but is internet anonymity realy all that good? I see very little gain in it. Hell there is piles of things (like pgp sigs) that attempt to remove the anonymity problem.
People have a desire to privacy which doesn't make all that much sense.... seriously, it isn't like you have anything to hide!!
I can't see any problems with directly linking IP's with MAC adresses. Allowing you to know exactly which computer things are coming from. There are still ways to change your MAC adress but I think that those could be stopped.
Using stalkers as an example of problems doesn't work either because the stalker would be easily tracable and blockable as well.
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Typed during smoke break, forgive typing mistakes.
I don't need my SSN to make a phone call.
In fact, there are a lot of daily activities I don't need my SSN for, and I've never needed it online. It's hard to imagine any online activity that doesn't require an IP though.
=Smidge=
I wish I could get something equivalent to my own Class A block of IPv6 addresses for my home. I'd give every object in my apartment an assigned IP Address. How the pieces of toilet paper get access to the Internet would remain to be seen, but at least on paper (heh) it would have an IP Address. And why not? So many IP addresses possible I could have my own class A block (or IPv6 equivalent) and hardly put a dent in the amount of available IPv6 addresses...but until an ISP offering DSL in my area supports IPv6 I'm outta luck...
See, to me, this is the exact thinking that got us in trouble in the first place! I realise that IPv6 has a hojillion (the technical term) times more addresses than v4, but if we start doling them out on a whim, we're going to hit the same problem again. Remember, there was a time when we though v4 addresses were all but infinite... hence Apple, Ford and Halliburton each were granted 16 million adresses (which they don't realistically need)
Human nature seems to tend towards excess whenever possible. Fresh water, trees, the ozone etc were all once abundant and we thought we'd never be able to make a dent in any of them
Even with the truly massive number of available addresses in IPv6, I'd still like to see some careful thought put into their assignment.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
You may have more addresses, but addresses are chosen based on how efficient you can route packets to those addresses (more local information, less global knowledge about routes).
IPv6 (as IPv4) is also designed with the idea that addresses are somewhat related to physical location, you cannot choose arbitrary addresses, there isn't an easy way to provide the IP equivalent of "number portability" among providers.
Spam is a side-effect of the origins of the internet, when it was a network of peers, where everyone was the same (universities, mostly).
Trust was the primary asset, and email was designed without concerns about anonymity nor security (in the beggining, they all knew each other)
Now the network has become global, millions of people use it everyday, and we lost the trust, we have firewalls, spam checkers, complex authentication mechanisms, etc.
We have to find a way to re-establish the trust (maybe through better protocolos and infrastructure), but until then, all sorts of abuse will continue to be commonplace.
I keep hearing this claim. Let me get this straight, once and for all. I have a 16/16Mb connection, and I use it. How could a free, underpowered relay in Farawayistan ever handle that?!
Also, what about my el-cheapo Zyxel POS firewall, what will it think about IPv6?
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
Blocking a /48 under IPv6 is no harder than blocking a /24 under IPv4.
Considering IP (v4) is over 20 years old and we still have issues with it, I don't see the problem o f keeping it around. And you are forgetting that people still use COBOL. You really think all those programs using IPv4 can just be switched over? It's the same problem as Y2K, though I think this one can't be considered a "bug" and that is exactly why they are giving it 20 years. So people *aren't* forced into upgrades.
You can quote me on this too.. there will be nothing after IPv6. Every neuron in every single *creature's* brain on the entire face of the earth can be addressed with IPv6. I'm sure the singularity event will occur and other freaky shit long before we run out...
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I disagree. Making the net spammer-proof would not neccessarily end anonymity. You can always upload your stuff somewhere, and hope people look at it.
However, it would be the end of anonymous mailing. But I think that the receiver should be allowed to require people sending him mail to identify themselves. It's the classical debate of one's freedom ending where another one's begins.
the pun is mightier than the sword
There's always a reason for anonymity. Here's a simple one: I want it. According to the 10th ammendment, as the Constitution does not grant the right to take it away to the government, I have the right to be anonymous.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
My ISP recently decided to NAT everyone. Now I can't log into my machine remotely. Now I can't receive email to me@rockway.gotdns.org. Now I can't use BitTorrent.
:)
So no, NAT isn't a good idea. It BREAKS the internet. If I wasn't going back to school in a few weeks I would change ISPs. This is borderline unacceptable
My other car is first.
What do you mean by switchincg to IPv6? you'll still need to provide some sort of IPv4 connectivity because your users will ask for it. XP is pretty much IPv6 ready, but you'll have to make some investment in equipment and training, it isn't as simple as it sounds.
IPSec is part of IPv6 anything that supports IPv6 MUST support IPSec. You don't need DHCP for most cases (though you can still use it for "managed" situations) IPv6 pretty much takes care of autoconfiguration.
The world of IPv6 will be much simpler than that of IPv4, but getting there will be a total pain in the neck.
You're el cheapo firewall is irrelevent since the IPv6 traffic is encapsulated in your IPv4 traffic. So as long as you don't do content filtering it works fine, although I'm not sure it even supports content filtering so odds are it works fine.
Totally no idea how that was modded as insightful.Except the shortage of valid domain names (which are ven vaguely memorable or pronounceable) would then come into play.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
That's NOT going to happen. IN IPv6 you are not allowed to take your address with you to another ISP. All address blocks assigned by almighty on high are only to be given to tier 1 and possibly tier 2 providers. These Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers then subnet the v6 address space to their customers.
DNS becomes MUCH more important. Since that is the only thing you will be able to take with you if you move ISP's.
This was done to keep the internet backbone routers clean of having to deal with huge routing tables.
But the difference is that it's not an easy number to find.
There aren't huge databases, with interfaces in every shopping mall parking lot, that are gathering your car's registration number, and correlating it to your shopping habits, the other sites you visit, etc.
I'd be perfectly happy with a unique identifier etched inot my computer, but I don't want it being tatooed on my forehead, as IPs essentially are.
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