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How Things Will Change Under IPv6
Da Massive writes "IPv6 Forum leader Latif Ladid provides an insight into the workings of IPv6. He also talks about how peer-to-peer file serving as we know it today will be redundant with the newer protocol." From the article: "Q: What is the most significant benefit that IPv6 offers the world? A: Global connectivity. Currently we have less than 50 percent world-wide Internet penetration, and we have used most of the address space. If you look at the Western world, we have more than 50 percent penetration. In total we have close to a billion people connected to the Internet. So it is a false perception that we have full Internet penetration. We have six billion people on the planet. When the Internet protocol was designed back in 1980 there were 4.3 billion address spaces; it was already insufficient for the population. By 2050 we will be nearly 10 billion people. But there are not only people. There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people."
How long will a complete transition to IPV6 take? Many many years IMO, if it ever happens at all. None of the firms I know of or work with have even started looking into migrating yet. Hell they are'nt even talking about it.
"There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people"
I for one welcome our new.... thingy overlords...
So it is a false perception that we have full Internet penetration.
This is completely untrue! There is lots of full penetration on the internet.
On the comment "Billions and billions of devices that will serve these people", it seems to be unmentioned that (random estimate, not researched in any way) half of them will not be directly hooked into the interweb. Many of those are intended to be that way, since you want your layers of security, and that's why we have however many thousands of addresses in the range 10.0.0.[0-256]; technically they're using the same IP, but it doesn't matter because that IP is kept internally, and not in contact with the web.
IPv4 does not have enough numbers to give every single device its own unique IP. On the flip side... if we were locked into the system, it would still be workable.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
Q: Besides the obvious thing about address space, what other advantages does it have?
A: Penetration! Because we don't have everybody connected yet!
Q: And how does IPv6 increase penetration? Does it build wires to people's houses or make provide satellite dishes to third-world countries?
A: No, but it does make sure we have enough addresses once they have some money to buy the actual hardware stuff!
Look, I know that eventually we're going to have to transition off IPv4 because of the address space issues, and that we might as well start now, but articles like this make it more like a marketing stunt to sell new hardware RIGHT NOW.
What people dont seem to realize is that IPv6 is not only about adding more addresses.
They also improve the packet structure (by doing things like removing the fragmentation flag)
And we should be looking at making wireless roaming easier (consider forwarding mechanisms when changing WAP's)
But more addresses is a key benefit. And there is no real harm, just the cost of transition which can be minimized due to the backwards compatibility provided through tunneling, etc. So if everyone just starts installing IPv6 hardware, everything is happy. Why is this issue being rehashed?
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Not a terrible idea, but it assumes that end users are going to be able to figure out how to configure static IP addresses for all their devices, which is a pretty big assumption.
Plus, who would be in charge of assigning them? Would that mean that I have to register for an IP like I do for a domain name? Who's handing them out, the DMV? The Social Security office? The UN?
Also, it seems like it would be easy for hackers to mimic other people's IP address. Seems like maintenence nightmare.
Actually, it'll eliminate the need for costly conversions to a new standard for a period of time, after which we'll all need to upgrade anyway, when it'll be even more costly.
Ladid's main point seems to be that NAT-proponents take this kind of short-term, client/server-centric view. There's nothing wrong with client/server, but it's a significant hinderance for independent development of things like VoIP, where peer-to-peer makes far more sense.
Basically, it's not just that we're running out of address space; it's also that treating NAT like anything other than a (relatively) short-term fix ultimately hinders the development of new uses for the internets.
hang brain.
Why does IPv6 make P2P any easier to implement?
Why does it remove the need for servers?
Why does it mean that we "won't need providers such as Skype anymore because we'll be able to do it all ourselves"?
I don't see how IPv6 lets you do ANY of these things. You'll still be firewalled, you'll still need servers and software vendors like Skype. In fact the only thing about IPv6 that would seem to me to help P2P is that slighly more people might end up not being NATed but that won't affect anything much.
Does this person actually know what they're talking about or are they from marketing?
To all o' you people asking, "What does it give me?"
/. users-- old, out-of-date, and constantly reminiscing about the old days.
It gives you nothing. You're already on the internet.
IPv6 is going to give India and China and other high-populous countries connectivity. As it is, they don't have enough IPv4 addresses even to *nat* their country, let alone to provide real services with which NATing interferes.
And that's why you and I have very little say about the adoption of IPv6. It's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen soon (say, the next 5 years, tops). Pretty soon, those of us who remember IPv4 are going to be like 3-digit
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
If you've ever tried to implement an IPSEC VPN with numerous endusers that have DSL/CableModem gateways that default to 192.168.1.x, you'll know why NAT is so bad, particularly if you're using that address space internally already. Granted, there are workarounds to this.
That's dicey, but what's even more dicey is trying to interconnect corporate networks that use the same private address space. Companies that run virtual trading floors, for example, offer private line connections. You end up with multiple IP subnet conflicts and it's an incredible headache. That having been said, there are workarounds to that, too.
When NAT became popular way back when, I was part of a few really painful reIPing projects. The reason we went to NAT was because there was no way to get portable IP space and our ISP was being a complete dick, jacking their prices and refusing to run BGP with us. Moving to NAT meant portability and portability meant our ISP couldn't dick us. If I was to move away from NAT and put v6 addresses in my corp network, that's what I'd worry about more than anything.
Back in the 70's, President Carter was going to move us to the Metric system. Road signs were being converted to mph/metric, goods were dual marked, etc. The idea was to make the conversion in 1981. Then reagan came in and stopped it. America was nearly ready, but it was stopped. Now, we are just about the only nation that does not do metric. That means that special labeling is done just for us. That also means, our goods are more expensive. Sadly, at this point, we have raised several whole generations without as much metric as we had in the 60's, and 70's. When we decide to finally change, it will be expensive and hard. reagan's choice was very short-sighted.
Right now, is the time to switch. In the future, it will only be more expensive esp. as small devices get IPs. They will also have to be switched. Finally, a new wave of software development could take place with IPv6, that is more difficult to do with IPv4. Not siwtching is very short-sighted.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Of course companies and academics don't want IPv6 they already have the only real advantage it provides - per machine addressing. Why would they invest money to get something they already have?
IPv6 benefits individuals. It benefits P2P, VoIP, photo sharing, blogging and email (yes email - you don't need a third party server if you have a permanent web presence). Yes you can have all of that with IPv4, but its held together with hacks like NAT, port forwarding and man-in-the-middle servers. That's fine, if like me, you hold a degree in computer science and arn't put off by the nuances of network security, berkley ports and subnet masks but if you're a noob who just wants to share their Christmas pictures with friends and family its a pretty steep learning curve.
I'm a pretty typical nerd. My home network has 4 computers that regularly connect to the internet. Of those, 2 offer services such as SSH, bittorent, email and my testing web server. After christmas that will probably extend to a new XBox360 and a PSP (admittedly passive net users). Next Christmas it might be my mobile. The Christmas after that my espresso machine will probably be consulting a distributed database to see what is the best way of brewing Co-op's Fairtrade Java.
You can buy a computer the size of a pack of gum with a complete Linux operating system and enough horse power to run a web server for ~$200. That's too expensive to be ubiquitous but in 2-3 years time that figure will be in the region of $20 and it will be a WiFi network. It's going to happen.
IPv4 forces our devices to be passive because configuring a NAT Router and Firewall is hard for Joe Public. IPv4 means that we have to poll to get system updates. IPv4 means that I can't just ask my fridge what its contents are without configuring a seperate box. IPv4 means that I'm happy when a third party agrees to handle my communications - I actually ask them to listen in and they 'promise' not to read my mail or listen to my conversations. IPv4 means that when I get an email from my girlfriend at 195.95.195.94 I have no method of authenticating that.
IPv6 means that I buy bandwidth and nothing else. I don't get 100MB of web hosting, or a whopping 5 emails addresses, I get to use my over powered desktop machine with 200GB of 'web space' and as many email addresses as I please. IPv6 means that I can start to build a web of trust, so that I can start to authenticate the messages I receive against a web of my peers - not a single verisign certificate. IPv6 means that consumer electoronics can be connected to my data pipe and that the manufacturer can be responible for its up keep - including firewalls and virus protection.
In short IPv6 allows people to own a bit of the internet and say it's theirs rather than renting an inch and getting kicked off that inch every 4 hours.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
The ONLY machines that need actual IP addresses are servers and gateways. PERIOD. Everyone else can be NATted.
Sigh.
The problem with this statement is that it presumes all content comes from central servers. But that's not what the Internet was designed to be, and forcing it into that model will severly retard, and in many cases simply destroy, all future innovation.
The Internet was designed as an endpoint-to-endpoint communications medium. The intelligence is at the edges, every device on the network has equal access to every other device, none are "special". In practice, of course, 72.14.207.99 (one of Google's servers) *is* special, recieving many more connections than most other addresses, but that's an emergent phenomenon, not one that's designed in. It's only special because lots of other devices *choose* to talk to it. One day they could all choose to begin sending their search requests to some sort of massive, distributed, peer-to-peer search engine (I don't think so, I think it makes sense to centralize search, but perhaps there's a really powerful distributed indexing and search algorithm that no one has yet discovered).
There's huge power, flexibility and opportunity in that model. We do a lot of things using the Internet now, in 2005, but it's still in its infancy. We have no idea what other kinds of communications technologies will arise or what sorts of things people might come up with to do with this medium ten, twenty, fifty years from now. That means it is critically important for the future of technology and innovation that we preserve the ultra-flexible model that the really bright guys at DARPA came up with.
End-to-end delivery. Intelligent endpoints. Dynamic, multi-path routing. No central control. Those are the characteristics that turned the Internet from a lab-based curiosity to such a worldwide phenomenon that we seriously talk about how it will one day touch every human being on the planet. Think about it. The Internet looks poised to become the *single* communications medium used for all electronic communications, be it text, audio, video. What is it that made this such a powerful medium? End-to-end. PERIOD.
Let's not throw it away before we even find out what we can really do with it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Awww... c'mon, that's classic family guy comedy!
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
No? Why not? Why can't you just get more IPv4 addresses so that I can connect to each of them?
The advent of NAT has solved the main problems that ISPs have had with giving their customers addresses to use for connecting to "content providers", but it has pretty much eliminated the original "every node is a peer" architecture of the internet.
Sure, if you're an ISP that works for you, but if you're some random guy that wants it to be easy to connect two (currently natted) devices together without involving a third device as a go-between, it's not such a good solution.
It's easy not to get it, just because we're all so used to having to do things the way we have been forced to. The epiphany comes when you realize how much more flexible the system is when NAT is not involved.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
IPV6 could well be DOA, because it solves the wrong problem.
IPV6 solves the problems of the Internet, as originally conceived - egalitarian and end-to-end.
Nobody in power wants that any more. I'm sure that those in power would mostly prefer that the Internet would just go back and hide under the rock it came from, but they DO like the benefits it gives to THEM. If IPV6 goes forward, it'll only be because it has enough momentum as the "logical successor," and because TPTB can't propose what they'd really like.
If IPV6 were being designed TODAY:
It would have DRM built-in for the ??AA, as well as router-based monitors and controls for peer-to-peer networking.
It would have built-in provisions for wiretapping, even at the opportunistic VPN level, for government TLAs.
It would have content and traffic filtering provisions, for China and the Religious Right.
Of course IPV6 really runs counter to all of these "design criteria."
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Tell me, Grandpa, what was it like in the days of IPv4?" young Suzy asked as she played with the IP wireless transmitters in her golden locks of hair.
"Well Suzy," Grandpa said, his mind on the distant past, "back then we only had 32 bit addressing, and much of it was provisioned out to various regional entities, with large corporate interests sitting on whole chunks of the space. We had these things called NAT routers."
"Sounds scary, Grandpa." Suzy shivered.
"It was." Grandpa replied. "The first NAT routers could only support FTP and IRC, and folks using some chat programs could barely get their software to work at all. Still NAT did okay, for a while."
"Then what happened Grandpa?" Suzy asked, enthralled.
"Well, as I recall, the first problems came when handheld wireless devices became more common. They had to sit behind various other networks, without direct connectivity. Proprietary solutions abounded, and connectivity was in the hands of large corporate communications giants. Everyone knew that IPv4 had been in trouble for many years, but some folks said 'NAT's all we need' while others didn't think there was a crisis at all, and even if there was one coming, it was nothing to worry about."
"But there was, wasn't there Grandpa?" Suzy knew the best part of the story was coming.
"Very much so." Grandpa said after a moment. "You see, even with NAT and various other networks between the IPv4 network and the average person's devices, the Internet was growing too fast. The limited supply of IP addresses as beginning to slow the expansion of the Internet. Finally, with the great IP Famine of '18, we had no choice. IPv6 was rolled out. Some folks were mad, because they had put their heads in the sand and refused to recognize the problem had been coming for a while. It costs those people lots of money, and some either had to put up with being stuck behind NAT routers and losing out on new functionality or simply going out of business."
Suzy laughed. "They were very silly people, Grandpa!"
Grandpa nodded. "Yes, they were, but most of us survived. Now it's time to go. Don't forget your data glasses and your book tablet. The last flight to Tokyo leaves in an hour, and I promised I'd get you home before dinner."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.