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IPv6 Tested in Space

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Cisco router orbiting on a satellite in space? Well, it's now also the first to run IPv6 in space. Since no-one is choosing to run IPv6 on the ground, isn't this a bit pointless?"

47 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Pointless? No. by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you're going to start putting Interplanetary WAN infrastructure in place, might as well go IPv6 from the get go. Then once there are a few billion nodes scattered about the Solar System we won't have any addressing problems ;)

    1. Re:Pointless? No. by myrdos2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Exactly, someone has to be the first to roll it out. The first IPv6 device might as well be a satellite, since these are notoriously difficult to upgrade later.

      Even with a stepladder.

    2. Re:Pointless? No. by user24 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He has a good point. As you all know, IPv6 allows 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6 addresses, while IPv4 allows only 4,294,967,296 addresses (tinyurl.com/6gqkc). Nothing like planning ahead, eh?

    3. Re:Pointless? No. by thegameiam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because we all know that newly-implemented code never requires patching, and is guaranteed bug-free...

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    4. Re:Pointless? No. by NeilTheStupidHead · · Score: 2, Funny

      Obviously your step ladder isn't able to scale. Time to upgrade.

      --
      Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
    5. Re:Pointless? No. by jovetoo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Newly implemented code? IPv6 has been around for more than 10 years (RFC 1883). IPv6 integration in Cisco routers ran from 2001 to 2003. Other vendors have had similar release dates. This hardly qualifies a "newly-implemented".

      IPv6 is stable and ready for deployment. It has been for a long time.

  2. Just in case it catastrophically fails.... by m0ng0l · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, testing it in space isn't pointless! If the IPv6 stack fails catastrophically, there's no one around to be hurt by the flying shrapnel!

    I mean after all it might even potentially set the Earths atmosphere on fire, if it were testing on the ground!

    --
    Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
  3. IP in Space by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is nothing new. The ill fated STS-107 carried a complete CANDOS pacage offering a wealth of IP protocols. In fact UoSat-12 back in May of 2000 ran an ftp server. The only thing new here is IPV6. IPV4 has been in space for a long time. You an find more about this at our website http://ipinspace.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    Thank you,
    your NASA team

  4. Imagine a beowulf cluster of these... by Channard · · Score: 2, Funny

    .. oh, wait, that'd be the Ultimate Marvel entity known as Gah Lak Tus. Not sure I'd want them to reach us easier.

  5. Cosmic Rays by muftak · · Score: 2

    Cosmic Rays cause Cisco routers to break enough on Earth, wouldn't the effect be multiplied with them being in space?

  6. This surely is bullshit! by ReinisFMF · · Score: 4, Funny

    Everybody knows that satellites go round faster than earth rotates. The tubes would certainly break!

  7. Cisco's New Marketing Campaign by JoeCommodore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cisco - we hold 100% of the IPv6 market*

    Cisco - We circle the globe with IPv6 support.

    Cisco - THE standard for aerospace IPv6 deplyment archetecture.

    Cisco - Our IPv6 technology is rated "higher" than any of our competitors.

    *in space

    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
    1. Re:Cisco's New Marketing Campaign by Stormwatch · · Score: 2, Funny

      When I see "Cisco" I think "Crisco". O_o
      And when I see "Cisco" I think "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".
  8. Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by kimvette · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since no-one is choosing to run IPv6 on the ground, isn't this a bit pointless?


    Why is no one running IPv6 on the ground? Well, I'll tell you why I don't run it:

    • Neither of my ISPs (work or home) supports it
    • NONE of my routers support it
    • A lot of applications I run don't support it
    • Dealing with it on apache would be a PITA, wouldn't it?


    Besides, who wants to deal with IPv6 when dotted quads are easier to memorize? Just wrench the class A address assignments away from the current assignees (not a single one of them needs a class A block) and reallocate them reasonably. Apple does not need a class A block, Merck doesn't, HP doesn't, GE doesn't, IBM doesn't, MIT doesn't. Halliburton doesn't, and the DoD certainly does not need multiple /8 assignments. Besides, isn't the DoD largely on IPv6 now? Reallocate the IPv4 space reasonably, force organizations such as Apple, HP, IBM, Merck, and Halliburton justify their IP allocation request like I had to for my puny /27 block, and then there will be plenty of space for all.
    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    1. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree about the downsides of running IPv6, but pulling the /8 assignments from the current assignees would be a lot of headache and trouble for not so much benefit - yeah, a couple of those could be returned easily (probably not the DoD ones - they already returned the ones they don't need anymore) (and you forgot to mention that Level3 currently owns 3 /8s due to their purchase of BBNPlanet (AS1), and that would add maybe an additional year at our current run rate, but we'll come to a point where we need to do something different.

      Whether that something is IPv6 or is wide-scale NAT, or some other protocol entirely, I don't know. IPv6 implementation and deployment has been hampered by the protocol designers attempting to fix every known problem with it, rather than simply fixing the address space...

      -David

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    2. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Besides, who wants to deal with IPv6 when dotted quads are easier to memorize? Just wrench the class A address assignments away from the current assignees (not a single one of them needs a class A block) and reallocate them reasonably. Apple does not need a class A block, Merck doesn't, HP doesn't, GE doesn't, IBM doesn't, MIT doesn't. Halliburton doesn't, and the DoD certainly does not need multiple /8 assignments. Besides, isn't the DoD largely on IPv6 now? Reallocate the IPv4 space reasonably, force organizations such as Apple, HP, IBM, Merck, and Halliburton justify their IP allocation request like I had to for my puny /27 block, and then there will be plenty of space for all. - And who wants to deal with dotted quads when a single digit is even easier to memorise. Except that wouldn't be much good when the 11th person comes along and asks for an IP address would it? Same with IPv4. We will run out of IPv4 addresses. Maybe not today, tomorrow or even next year, but short of the annihilation of civilisation as we know it it will happen sooner or later. It doesn't matter if we liberate x hundred million unused addresses, that will only delay the inevitable by a few years or maybe a decade at most.

      The real PITA then, is trying to get people to do something about this problem before it really becomes a problem. People keep commenting on the slow transition to IPv6 as if it's a failure of the protocol. No, as you implied, it's a failure of the software developers who aren't implementing it, the hardware manufacturers who aren't supporting it, and the ISPs who aren't providing it. Instead of trying to free up more IPv4 address space we should be letting it become a scarce resource to force the guilty parties to make the necessary updates so that nobody's caught short on that fateful day when we well and truly are out of IPv4 addresses. We should be taking every step possible to limit the amount of software and hardware from being deployed that we already know will be useless a couple of decades from now, instead it seems like so many people are quite happy to take their sweet time with it until alarm bells start ringing.

      You'd think with things like the Y2k bug and numerous other situations which exposed the fallacies of the "it'll do for now, we'll deal with that later" ideology that the computing industry would be all too happy to see that the IP address situation was spotted well ahead of time and would be embracing the ability to future-proof their software and IT infrastructures. Instead it seems like we're going to have another case of fingers-in-their-ears-"la-la we're not listening - oh shit! we're out of IP addresses!" situation with a mad dash to half-assed implementations and slap-dash patches.
      --
      Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
    3. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by vertinox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Reallocate the IPv4 space reasonably, force organizations such as Apple, HP, IBM, Merck, and Halliburton justify their IP allocation request like I had to for my puny /27 block, and then there will be plenty of space for all.

      If I may make a car analogy...

      Let us say that IPv4 is the oil we get from the ground and all cars run off it. Then a small group of scientists do a study and say discover "Egads! We've only got 10 years worth of oil left!"

      Everyone panics and the scientists come up with a pure ethanol based car (IPv6) that has none of the limitations of oil when it comes to making new ones (In theory we could eventually use up all our natural resources in production of corn, but that would take thousands of years so that is someone eles's problem)

      However, such a switch over would cost millions if not billions of dollars spent replacing all the oil based motors, but they start the work.

      Then.... Some smart ingenious mechanic finds a way to make regular engines work off 50% ethanol and 50% oil (NAT addressing) and everyone goes "Phew! Problem solved!"

      However, that doesn't resolve the fact that oil is still going to run out in 20 years but by then that will be someone else's problem.

      But in reality, I think the US, Canada, and Europe will switch to IPv6 when their counter parts in China and India surpass us economically in 10 to 20 years. (As in Chinese companies start buying US companies and then tell their network departments to migrate so they can communicate better)

      Asia is the big pusher for IPv6 because they simply did not get any of the IPv4 to start with and NAT isn't helping them much considering they will have literally the majority of world's internet users. Unless, like you say, the big US tech companies give up the IPv4 spaces to companies in Asia I think they are on the path to complete IPv6 networks over there.

      Either way... I think most of us will get IPv6 equipment when it was cheaper for the manufacture to not disable the feature in our standard IPv4 products (think built in modem or video into the mother board trend) but this might be some time from now.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    4. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by Znork · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Neither of my ISPs (work or home) supports it"

      You dont need their support. Use 6to4. Or a tunnel.

      "NONE of my routers support it"

      You dont need them to. Use 6to4.

      "A lot of applications I run don't support it."

      Some do tho. It's wonderful to be able to ssh and scp directly into the boxes you have behind a NAT gateway without having to resort to two-stage jumps.

      "Dealing with it on apache would be a PITA, wouldn't it?"

      No.

      "who wants to deal with IPv6 when dotted quads are easier to memorize?"

      There's this new development called DNS you know...

      "Just wrench the class A"

      Mmm, like that's going to happen...

      Meanwhile I sit here on a bazillion addresses, merit of having one single v4 address. Get with the times, it's not like IPv6 is rocket science anymore.

    5. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      While it is certainly true that there aren't a whole ton of home routers that support IPv6 yet, it's on the way. Vista installs IPv6 by default and it's a pain to get rid of it. Vista tells you you've got full IPv4 connectivity, but limited IPv6 connectivity...and I've already had one client ask me what that meant, and how he could get full IPv6. Folks will buy an IPv6 router just because it's got a bigger number...and now that Vista advertises IPv6 connectivity, people will be aware that there is a bigger number to be had.

      Plus, some stupid applications insist on trying IPv6 if it is installed and wait forever for the packets to time out... A common problem I ran into with folks who tinkered under XP was massive slowdowns with Firefox after someone had installed IPv6. Remove IPv6 and everything was fine. Of course...Vista doesn't like it when you try to remove IPv6... Haven't had any calls about slowdowns yet...maybe Vista handles the stack better than XP did...

      As far as "no-one is choosing to run IPv6 on the ground"... Well, that's just not true. Many ISPs are running IPv6 on their internal networks. You'll never see it because your modem/router/LAN live in an IPv4 tunnel...but it's there. I know I've seen Job Ads for the local hospital asking for IPv6 experience as well...though I don't know if they're actually using it yet or just preparing for the future.

      "Dotted quads" may be easier for you to memorize...but I suspect this is largely because that's what you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Remember when you were little and it was hard to memorize addresses or phone numbers? Now that seems incredibly simple, doesn't it? Remember when you were just learning IP and wondered why you couldn't use DNS for absolutely everything (because names are so much easier to memorize than numbers). Plus, IPv6 supports a couple different ways to abbreviate addresses...such as stripping leading 0's or replacing them with :: Which makes our old friend 127.0.0.1 something much easier to remember - ::1

      And simply re-allocating the IPv4 address space just isn't going to cut it. There aren't enough addresses out there. The only reason we've been able to stay with IPv4 for so long is NAT, which causes problems of its own. The bottom line is that we need more addresses than IPv4 has.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    6. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'd challenge the assertion that "many ISPs are running IPv6 on their internal networks" - the only ISP which has made any sort of argument that running IPv6 as a core service (rather than an edge service across the existing IPv4 core) is Comcast, and that has to do with the number of devices they're trying to manage with regard to set-top-boxes.

      Comcast is nowhere near implementing this, either.

      The US ISPs either run IPv6 as an edge service (in a VRF, say) or using tunneling approaches, or on limited deployments on specific hardware - but nobody's tunneling IPv4 inside IPv6 (although theoretically that'll work)

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    7. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by lukas84 · · Score: 2, Informative

      run nslookup or ping, and then c&p.

      I also don't know why you think apache needs ip addresses. It understands DNS hostnames perfectly well, in VirtualHost blocks, Listen, etc.

    8. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Perhaps I am wrong... One of our larger local ISPs is rolling out its own fiber and offering a comprehensive package that includes broadband, unlimited phone, and video - and they're using IPv6 on their internal network. The end user doesn't see that though...they get an IPv4 address on their broadband router, just like with a regular cable/DSL connection. I just assumed that if a local ISP here was doing IPv6 internally that more worldwide would be doing so.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    9. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by MyNameIsFred · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...But in reality, I think the US, Canada, and Europe will switch to IPv6 when their counter parts in China and India surpass us economically in 10 to 20 years...
      The main problem with your theory is that China and India are unlikely to surpass us economically in 20 years. To illustrate my point, let's compare the US and China. According to wikipedia the US GDP is approx $12.5 Trillion. The Chinese GDP is about $2.2 Trillion. If the US economy had zero growth for 20 years, and the Chinese economy would have to grow at almost 9.1% per year to equal the current US GDP. Zero growth rate for the US is rather unlikely the historic growth rate is a little over 3%. And I do not believe any country has had sustained economic growth of 9% for 20 years.
    10. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by slamb · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've done work on their devices more than once and can attest that they are running IPv6 - a separate address for each interface on the device: bandwidth, video, phone. I have been told by their installers that this is typical and that their internal equipment is all running IPv6, though I have no proof of that myself.

      That doesn't mean they're running it. My MacBook right now says this:

      [slamb@spiff ~]$ /sbin/ifconfig en1
      en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULT ICAST> mtu 1500
      inet6 fe80::217:f2ff:fe9c:84f2%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
      inet 172.16.1.4 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255
      ether 00:17:f2:9c:84:f2
      media: autoselect status: active
      supported media: autoselect

      IPv6 auto-assigns link-local addresses, much like the IPv4 169.255.0.0/16 addresses you see when no DHCP is running. I did nothing to set up that "%en1" address, I have never used it, and in fact it can't actually be used anywhere but on that network segment. All this means is that their equipment supports it, which is much more likely than them having upstream IPv6 connectivity and actually learning to use it.

      No one uses IPv6. Your other example is equally bogus. The hospital you mentioned is probably just asking for experience with it because someone saw it in a trade magazine, similar to the people who were asking for "10 years Java experience" when Java had only existed outside of Sun for three years. Or because they know a particular person with IPv6 on his/her resumé and have made the job requirements so (s)he will be the only one who matches them. In a university- or government-run institution, that's how you get around the affirmative action people when you want to hire from within. I have seen it happen at a hospital.

    11. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's quite common not to route 6to4. The ISP I'm with now is the first I've had in 3 years to route 192.88.99.1 and they've got native ipv6 anyway.

      Tunnels I can sympathise. No quality. Abysmal uptime, and nobody to complain to if it goes wrong.. not to mention that 90% of the people who were providing them have packed up and gone home when the 6bone went titsup. I eventually gave up on my hosting machines' ipv6 after I did the uptime graphs.. uptime was about 30%, and the latency never got less than 500ms to the first hop.

      ipv6 is still going backwards - it's *far* harder to get connectivity now than it was 5 years ago.

    12. Re:Gee, why is no one switching to IPv6? by ScytheBlade1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're going to flame, I'm going to flame. You're an idiot.

      He never said that knowledge of IP addresses is totally unnecessary, he said that memorization of IP addresses is unnecessary.

      New and different technology means new and different ways of management. Just because it means you have to re-think how you manage and impliment things doesn't mean that it's a bad thing or bad idea..

      Once again: "Somehow, you are suggesting that knowledge of IP addresses is totally unnecessary on the administration and development side." <-- No, he really isn't.

  9. Re:Not true by pla · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are many large business models that depend on it.

    Such as?

    First, what does a networking potocol have to do with a business model; And second, how can any company survive with a business model dependant on something not supported by most ISPs?



    Serious questions, not sarcasm.

  10. Re:Not true by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First, what does a networking potocol have to do with a business model;

    Go look up Communication clients and services, from simple IM and Voice to remote clients and client tracking.

    And second, how can any company survive with a business model dependant on something not supported by most ISPs?

    Go look up, "tunneling."

  11. Ignorance is NOT bliss by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since nobody runs ipv6????? Sad, that so many Americans are clueless. Asia has moved into IPv6 in a big way, esp. China. They are all hoping to get a jump on it before we do. China, Japan, and even South Korea have pushed it like there is no tomorrow.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Informative

      sort of - there's a lot more IPv6 there than here, but there are still a whole bunch of thoroughly under-implemented pieces of IPv6 (like, has anyone written an actual implementation of IPv6Sec yet?), and actual traffic rates using native v6 native v6 all the way through are exceptionally low.

      If you go to one of the good latency calculators, you'll see that the delta between IPv6 performance and IPv4 performance is substantial, with IPv6 performance showing as a heck of a lot worse (about twice as poor). Once this isn't the case, then an argument for widespread adoption of v6 will be more effective.

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    2. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Informative

      None of the significant US ISPs support native IPv6 transport across an infrastructure without any IPv4 present at this time.

      No government agency does either.

      Evidence? Try to get OSPFv3 working without an IPv4 router-ID. Try to get encryption (IPv6SEC) working without using IPSEC (over IPv4 transport). Try getting VoIPv6 working, or looking for hardware support for multiple queues for IPv6 packets.

      Networx was just awarded a couple of days ago, and specifies those services which are to be orderable over the next 15 years. It shouldn't be used as evidence of what is supported today.

      -David

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    3. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Informative

      My contract with Jeppesen ran out in Sept. Since early Feb, I have been working at Verizon Business. Please look up the players in Networx. I can tell you that very little IPv6 is currently being used. The FEDS are wanting to move to IPv6, but none of the players in Networx currently use it (they have small networks of it, but they are all IPv4 shops). Hopefully, that contract will change things.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    4. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by GooberToo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Isn't that because it's tunneling IPv6 over IPv4? So of course the latency is going to be much higher. I would be hard pressed to imagine why latency would be higher for IPv4 versus IPv6 so long as it's an apples to apples comparison. If what I read is correct on the URL you provided, it's like comparing IPv4 verses IPv4 traveling over an VPN. So of course the latency is going to be higher...but one has nothing to do with the other if a fair comparison is your intention.

      Please correct me if I failed to properly interpret "tunneling", as stated on that site.

    5. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Many governement projects treat IPv6 support as a checkbox, not as something to be actually used. There are big, big, holes in the implementations, and nobody really wants to go first...

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    6. Re:Ignorance is NOT bliss by anticypher · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try to get OSPFv3 working without an IPv4 router-ID

      Router IDs, at least in OSPF (all versions) and BGP, are not IPv4 addresses. They are a 32 bit number, that in some implementations are displayed as dotted quad. It is only common practice to make your publicly available router ID to match one of your assigned IPv4 addresses, so that collisions between Router IDs will rarely happen.

      I still run across companies that have router IDs of 1, 2, 3 etc. Some router implementations will randomly grab the lowest IP address of all the local interfaces, and use that if an ID isn't explicitly specified. I've seen BGP4 Router IDs of 10.0.0.1, which switch to other random addresses from time to time, creating all kinds of confusion. I guess it all depends on how well you learned your networking, some training companies are worse than others, and many universities don't bother hiring professors with a clue, and for many cisco==networking.

      None of the significant US ISPs support native IPv6 transport across an infrastructure without any IPv4 present at this time

      This is a straw man argument, close to trolling. Nobody expects an ISP to roll out an all IPv6 network any time soon, but any ISP that expects to continue growing after 2010 will certainly need to dual stack their whole network from end to end.

      I have built a proof of concept 100% IPv6 network, the full report on all the things right and wrong with it costs quite a bit of money. But for a /. summary, there is much work to be done on the server end. Apache, IIS, python, ruby, perl, PHP, VoIP, SIP/H.323, firewalls and most other server end technologies have a huge amount of development to do, none of them deal with IPv6 properly at all. On the client side, at least at the consumer level, Vista, Mac OSX, linux, BSD, Solaris and all the other modern OSes are quite well advanced, but applications rarely take advantage of the underlying support.

      the AC

      --
      Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
  12. Re:Not true by nevali · · Score: 2, Informative

    3G mobile networks utilise IPv6, AIUI; I've a feeling it's part of the specs (well, everything is specified somewhere in mobile telco land), which makes it part of the business model.

  13. New meme by bcmm · · Score: 5, Funny
    Pretty please can we make this into a new meme?
    Examples:
    • IPv6 Tested ...in Space
    • SCO Vs. IBM Leaks Exposed ...in Space
    • O'Reilly Opens Online Tech School ...in Space
    • Microsoft Opposing California Open Doc Bill ..in Space
    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  14. You are already are using IPv6 by AndyMcL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ever use a new cell phone? Want to watch TV? The truth is IPv4 addresses are almost gone. Not the number of hosts, but amount of allocatable new address are almost gone. Companies do not usually give back allocated addresses even when they are acquired or merge plus of course the number of hosts are ever increasing.

    The practical number of usable IPv4 addresses is about 250 million. Remember there is at least one host address AND THEN gateway and broadcast when provisioning new Internet services. This is very inefficient and one reason why there is not the notion of broadcast domain in IPv6. Also companies especially early on were given large blocks of addresses. So yes there are addresses out there which can be reused, but are you going to start calling up companies and universities and ask them for addresses? Not very realistic.

    It should only take just a couple of examples to see why companies already have and will have to move to IPv6:

    Remembering there are about 250 million usable addresses, what if you want to IP enable 80 million cell phone customers for web, video, IM, e-mail and other services? Where are you going to get all of those addresses? How will you get about 30% of the world's useable IPv4 addresses so you can make money from the new services? You can not. This is why NTT moved to IPv6 about 4-5 years ago.

    Another example could be a US cable service provider (no names - protecting the innocent) who has 40 million customers and wants/needs to roll out new IP enabled digital set top boxes so they can provide video (1 address), VoIP (1 address), and Internet data (1 address). If each customer bought all three services the ISP would need 120 million address. Do you think anyone will give up their addresses so this one provider can have about half (120 million) of all of the useable IPv4 address in the world? No. IPv6.

    The fact that you do not understand how to subnet IPv6 or understand how it works is irrelevant. It is needed because of the scale of IP enabled devices and services. Should people in developing counties do without the Internet revolution because Americans have most of the addresses and we are fat, dumb, and happy (it is phase meaning complacent) because we already have the lions share of the IPv4 addresses and as such many of the services already? --Yes I know we have fallen way behind Asia and Europe in many areas.

    Also, IPv6 is needed to enable more interactive use of IP enabled technologies. Sitting behind NAT devices inhibits accessibility. (I know most are saying..well duh...) But networks should be secure and accessible. Think of talking to your friend on a mobile phone and then sharing/watching with him on your and his mobile phones some of the highlights of a sports game you watched last night and are being streamed from home your home server --of course taunting him while watching because your team won.

    Of course some of this can be done now, but it is more male geeks doing it manually. When it can be seamless and by the main stream, then things will really be different. We will live in a much more collaborative society. One where using technology will not create social misfits who do not know how to interact with real people anymore, but one that uses technology TO interact socially with people. When you can video conference from your mobile, PC, work, school, or living room and the clarity of visual and sound are so good it seems like the people are there, you will not longer have to do " ;-) :-) :-S :-( lol " which are poor substitutes for seeing and hearing actual emotion and reacting to it.

    So what does IPv6 enable? The future.

    -Andy

    1. Re:You are already are using IPv6 by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IPv6 is one possible solution to the address shortage (which is hardly at the *dire* stage, but will be soon enough). Other solutions include widespread adoption of NAT and/or adopting some entirely different layer-3 paradigm.

      The IPv6 designers have hampered adoption by insisting on solving problems which are not directly related to address size (like autoconfiguration, QoS, etc) and rolling those into the protocol - because so many of these useful features which were steadily glommed onto IPv4 have not yet been implemented in v6, those customers who need the features have no incentive to deploy it.

      Examples: IPv6SEC is not yet implemented. Autoconfiguration in a truly native v6 environment (i.e. no v4 at all) doesn't have a mechanism for learning about DNS servers. OSPFv3 is substantially different from OSPFv2. The list goes on...

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    2. Re:You are already are using IPv6 by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh believe me, I'm familiar with ARIN's policies: I'm one of the people who argued for the adoption of PI (provider independent) allocations as opposed to PA-only allocations, which was the policy for a very long time.

      IPv6 was designed by a lot of smart people who work on end-systems, with not a whole lot of folks who actually run very large networks being involved - that's why multihoming still remains a problem (yes, yes, I know, get some PI-space, or is Shim-6 still the suggested approach? Oh wait, that's right, there isn't a working implementation of shim-6...), and to a great extent, IPv6 solves problems which have already been solved for most ISPs and enterprises.

      Other than address shortage.

      Yes, I agree that there is an IPv4 address shortage, and there is a concern about depletion. But deploying IPv6 requires changing a lot of operational paradigms of the network (middlebox proxy vs. end-to-end), and also the firewall behavior is quite different.

      So yeah, I think that there's a v4 address issue: I'm just not sure that v6 is the answer. Time will tell.

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  15. um, no. by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bonjour does not rely on IPv6 - IPv6 autoconf was based on Appletalk autoconf, as was Apple's Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous). Bonjour works just fine with no v6 on the network.

    And Apple's business model is absolutely not dependent on Bonjour: I think perhaps you are misunderstanding the term "business model." An example of a business model is:

    "We give away high-quality software for free to get people to buy our hardware, where we make high margins" - that's an example of Apple's business model.

    "By becoming the de-facto standard desktop environment, we encourage customers to buy applications from us which are specifically geared for that environment" - that's an example of Microsoft's business model.

    Notice that neither of those models require calling out a specific technology. Any company which is completely dependent on a single technology will find itself obsolete when the next big thing is created.

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  16. I wonder if that Cisco has been patched... by mnemotronic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For this configuration exploit, this SNMP vulnerability, this IP sequence generation problem, this ICMP vuln, this H.323 problem, and this buffer overflow.

    NOTE: Some of the listed problems indicate a "Cisco 3200 Catalyst", which may not be the same as the orbiting "Cisco 3200 Mobile Access Router". IANACG (I am not a Cisco geek).

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  17. If only I could hack the ISS by interstellar_donkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Slightly off topic, but if there was some way I could figure out how to connect to and hack the ISS computers, I'd love to get in there and replace whatever is on the display to read simply "All of these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there".

    It'd have a fun effect, to be sure.

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  18. You want IPv6 adoption? Make it reasonable. by shaitand · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Start an open site dedicated to CONTENT providers who have made their content available for IPv6 and give blue ribbon graphics to IPv6 only sites. Then.. and this is the biggest one.

    Make getting address space cheap and easy!!! IPv6 is huge, why do I have pay ridiculous recurring fees to get a block? Make small allocations free, registration free and online, then just make me return a confirmation letter/call/email once every 5 years to renew. IPv6 space is monstrous, it is terrible that you have to pay outrageous fees to become a member organization and then huge recurring fees for addresses. Why do ISP's have to go through the same backflips and outrageous pricing schemes that served to reduce demand for IPv4 addresses.

    Once you have major content providers onboard and make it free and easy to get address space, then ISP can advertise access to the 'NEW AND IMPROVED' internet.

  19. Re:Not true by Kizeh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cellular carriers have looked at it very seriously for the next generation (4G?) networks, as one potential idea is to do packetized voice, and the number of addressable devices is potentially huge, and depending on how mobility is done, each device may need several addresses.

    The U.S. federal government has mandated it, so anyone wishing to get into that business needs it.

    That being said, my university has been running IPv6 for a few years now -- we luckily have native IPv6 feed from I2 -- and all of our routers (Cisco IOS), servers (various variants of Linux) and clients (MacOS X, Linux, Windows XP) have supported it just fine.

  20. Sprint & Verio by thegameiam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I assume by "Verio" you mean NTT (AS2914). NTT is an incumbent Japanese telco, which bought the US-based Verio some years ago. I know that NTT offers IPv6 services, and their brochure is here, which claims that they're running dual stack on all of their routers. That brochure also claims that they have 500 customers for their IPv6 services, and claims that they're the largest provider of IPv6 in the world.

    As for Sprint, they often brag about their L2TPv3 core, with MPLS, and other private-IP services offered as edge services. It would make sense for them to run 6PE and just treat v6 as yet another edge service which doesn't interfere with their core. BTW, Sprint's documentation on this indicates that they have a grand total of seven IPv6 speaking routers.

    So while you might have a point about NTT running v6 in the core, they're not that big an ISP in the US: the weekly routing table analysis doesn't show them in the top 20 in either the ARIN region or the APNIC region. From the map on their website, they've got all of 9 POPs in the US... Their focus seems to be on business and webhosting customers, rather than on end-users - they don't offer a TDM product below a DS3.

    In any case, the idea that having 500 customers of a given technology shows the provider as the most deployed/largest in the world misses the scale of the Internet entirely: Cablevision might have more than 500 customers in a single building who are IPv4-only.

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  21. Re:That's nominal GDP by MyNameIsFred · · Score: 2, Informative

    To quote wikipedia ..."The differences between PPP and market exchange rates can be significant. For example, the World Bank's World Development Indicators 2005 estimates that one United States dollar is equivalent to approximately 1.8 Chinese yuan by purchasing power parity in 2003. [1]. However, based on nominal exchange rates, one U.S. dollar is currently equal to 7.9 yuan. This discrepancy has large implications; for instance, GDP per capita in the People's Republic of China is about US$1,800, while on a PPP basis it is about US$7,204. This is frequently misused to assert that China is the world's second largest economy, but such a calculation would be invalid under the PPP theory..."