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The Internet Is 'Built Wrong'
An anonymous reader writes "API Lead at Twitter, Alex Payne, writes today that the Internet was 'built wrong,' and continues to be accepted as an inferior system, due to a software engineering philosophy called Worse Is Better. 'We now know, for example, that IPv4 won't scale to the projected size of the future Internet. We know too that near-universal deployment of technologies with inadequate security and trust models, like SMTP, can mean millions if not billions lost to electronic crime, defensive measures, and reduced productivity,' says Payne, who calls for a 'content-centric approach to networking.' Payne doesn't mention, however, that his own system, Twitter, was built wrong and is consistently down."
On the shoulders of giants we stand.
Any of these ideas of improvement are not new. But neither are they working. And the internet as we know it is working quite well. Far beyond what anyone would have predicted.
Are there things to be fixed? Sure, around every corner. But I'm not going to listen to some guy from some wicked kewl startup in SFO tell me how to do it.
It's hardly going out on a limb criticizing IPv4 -- it has proven an easy target for going on two decades now, with its weakness apparent to all.
And the switch to IPv6 is happening. Many backbone providers are rolling it out, and it is gaining wider support among mainstream operating systems and applications. The only reason it hasn't been a hastier migration is that NAT really did undermine the necessity for expediency.
Best explanation of what Twitter is that you'll ever find.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
IPv6 ... still a limit, who cares if it's 10 or 10,000 years in the future
2^128 addresses, or 2^52 addresses for every observable star in the known universe. Compared to 2^32 for IPv4.
IPv6 may well not be the last protocol on the web, but it won't be for lack of addresses.
Not to address this specific issues, but that is a fallacy.
Someone can point out something that is wrong without needing to create something better.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You run the two protocols simultaneously for years, add AAAA records to DNS which get looked up and tried before A records, and when you notice that no-one is connecting to your services over v4 any more, you have a v6 only network.
Look:
Try it yourself. Your box will look up the v6 address, try to connect, and if not, use the v4 address.
It's quite depressing really how people (mainly American, it seems) on Slashdot are so anti IPv6. They bleat on about NAT, and how there are loads of addresses, and why on earth would you want your fridge with an IP address. It's not just to do with the extra addresses. There. Did you get that?
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