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Obsession With Firewalls Could Hinder IPv6
DosIgriegas writes "The obsession with firewalls in IPv6 may result in some of the quirks of IPv4 reappearing. Ars Technica has an article looking at the topic in depth, exploring the technical challenges of securing the new protocol, and looking a the re-emergence of old problems in new guises. 'Ironically, what's required to make IPv6 work through a stateful firewall is almost identical to what's required to make IPv4 work though NAT. This means the IETF's efforts to keep IPv6 NAT-free in order to make protocols do their job without messy workarounds are defeated by the notion that everything should be firewalled.' If we decide to stick with firewalls in IPv6, we'll see many of the same hard-to-diagnose network problems that we have with IPv4."
05:45 The first strains of Das Lied der Deutschen surranged from Michael's speakers, shaking the headboard of his waterbed. Opening a bloodshot eye, Michael peeled the comforter off and crawled to the edge of his bed where he reached out and slapped the space bar of his keyboard. iTunes stopped the nationalistic hymn, leaving the room in a vacuumed silence. Turning to the window, Michael opened his Venetian blinds and inhaled as the sunlight hit him. It was going to be a fine day.
06:00 Michael was still damp from his shower. He'd had just fifteen minutes to soap, scour, and shave before he was due in front of his computer. Michael's rigorous routine was self-imposed as a method of keeping rigid discipline and utter efficiency. Otherwise, he would become soft and weak. He itched his scalp where he'd nicked himself shaving. The blood would stop eventually, Michael thought. The shallowest wounds always bled the most.
Michael loaded Safari and watched as his RSS feeds filled with new posts. He sneered as he proceeded to read the latest from Censoreware.net.
07:45 Michael stretched and cracked his neck. After almost two hours of scouring every site, blog, and post by Seth Finkelstein, Jamie McCarthy, and the entire Slashdot staff, he was stiff. He always tensed when he read the meandering lies of the poisonous vipers that had taken his rightful place on the Internet away from him.
In fact, he noted as iCal alerted him, he had an appointment at the dentist today to address his bruxism. Michael had been told he sounded like a trash compactor at night as he slept, slowly chewing his teeth apart. He only remembered his dreams of vengeance.
08:30 Reading the latest issue of Time magazine, Michael sneered at the media's latest attempt to besmear Adolf Hitler by likening Saddam Hussein to him. Hussein was just an amateur, Michael thought. Germany would have marched through Iraq and taken it without a shot if it hadn't been for the inept Italians losing North Africa.
His fantasy was interrupted by the cute blonde receptionist as she called him to follow her back to his exam room. As he clomped to the back of the building in his jackboots, he saw that her roots were just as blonde as her ends. Michael paid close attention to people's hair and clothes. How rare a thing real blonde hair was in New York nowadays, Michael mused. Too bad she was female.
11:00 Michael looked at the mouthguard his dentist had given him and recounted his bad luck. He blamed Finkelstein and Malda, the traitorous bastards that had backstabbed him so many times. Were it not for them, Michael deduced as he clenched the steering wheel of his VW bug, he wouldn't have to use this mouthguard. Or the testosterone shots. Or the Viagra. Or the special, embarrassing combo cock-ring condoms. He was worked up now, breathing hard and near tears.
Michael reached for his mobile phone and called Eric Raymond.
12:37 "This is not what you trained me for. Sitting and waiting while our own people disavow me was not part of the plan!" Michael whined into his phone at Eric
Michael was crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. He couldn't believe how even Eric Raymond, his mentor and commander, was shitting all over him. Any other time that would be just fine but not now. Not when Michael's fragile ego was taking a beating.
"Listen, Michael, I'm speaking at a Linux conference this weekend," Eric said. "If you can just settle your ass down and wait a couple days we can get together and talk things out. I know this must be hard for you."
Michael perked up, happy to hear his Teutonic gas-master would be in town soon. "Can- can we go out?" Michael asked, a tremble of hope in his voice.
"Sure, Michael, anywhere you want," Eric said. "Maybe we can check out the leather district. I haven't been there in a while."
"Oh, I know just the place!" Michael cooed. "There's this place called the Fo
Its easy to manually configure a network using IP4. Try doing it using IP6 with its incomprehensible 128 bit hexcode addresses. But its self configuring the IP6 proponents exclaim. Oh yeah , and thats really fullproof isn't it. Not. There always end up being manual intervention with any network topology and trying to do it with IP6 is like trying to pull teeth with a very sharp paperclip - painful and slow.
In the tech world, you must adapt or die.
:-(
Your reasoning for using NAT seems to be based on dogma and tradition, not actual... reason.
So it seems you have selected "die." Good luck with that, dinosaur!
As a security pro, I can't WAIT to see the death of NAT. I am concerned that some of the older people around here will make it a lot harder than it needs to be out of an irrational fear of change and (gasp) having to learn something new
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.