Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue

alphadogg writes "The Obama Administration bills itself as the most tech-savvy political team ever, but until now it has ignored one of the biggest issues facing the Internet: the rapid depletion of IPv4 Internet addresses and the imminent need for carriers and content providers to adopt IPv6. Today, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will host a workshop on IPv6 that features high-profile executives from government, industry and Internet policymaking organizations. Some observers are hoping the Obama Administration will use the workshop to issue a deadline for all federal agencies to support IPv6 on their public-facing Web sites."

Comments

Deadline

[pete-classic]

I heard he's going to mandate that all Federal agencies cut over to IPv6 by the time they close Gitmo.

-Peter

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard he's going to mandate that all Federal agencies cut over to IPv6 by the time they close Gitmo.

Barry said that?

Re:Deadline

[wjousts]

I'm sure Fox News will bill it as Obama trying to take over the internet. Your IP address will have to face a death panel!

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

Don't need to Fox news, just a brain and one rational thought to know king barry is the death panel for America!!!

Right. Because no president before Obama has ever made bad decisions on a large scale. ::eye roll::

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, he's a REAL technocrat

Fucking authoritarian federal assholes ...

Re:Deadline

[bonch]

Way to fit in a completely irrelevant Fox News bash.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

You might have more luck getting your political agenda heard if you could type out a coherent post.

Good luck.

Re:Deadline

[bonch]

What's the point of your comment? That nobody is supposed to criticize Obama for making bad decisions because other presidents in the past have made bad decisions?

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

>>>Because no president before Obama has ever made bad decisions on a large scale. ::eye roll::

Right on! It's disgusting to see Obama posters with Hitler mustaches. I used to carry round a sign with Bush == Hitler, but to do it to Obama? Sacrilege.

Re:Deadline

[Surt]

I suspect the point was that Obama won't be death for America, just like all the other presidents who have made mistakes did not result in the death of America.

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

No, my point is that claiming Obama is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, especially when you consider what previous leaders have done, is ludicrous.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as the IPV4 lobby gives him a campaign contribution, he'll reverse his position.

Re:Deadline

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yes. It is a gating opportunity - by which they can better identify and wiretap all those connections.

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

I think it's disgusting to do that to any American President.

It has nothing to do with the "sanctity" of the office, but the fact that no American President comes even close to the atrocities that Hitler inflicted on other people. It's a bad analogy, one which indicates a ignorance at best and an outright denial of facts at worst.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

(Score:5, Insightful) - I used to carry round a sign with Bush == Hitler, but to do it to Obama? Sacrilege.

This is too funny. I was being sarcastic and yet the mods appear to agree comparing Bush to Hitler is acceptable.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

The problem seems to be, in my eyes, that the shoe just... keeps on fitting.

BO is a huge improvement over bush. Of course, thats kind of like your doctor saying "good news, it turns out its just lupus".

What I find is that, a lot of people talk about the issues where democrats and republicans differ. Frankly, its the vast majority of issues where they agree that scares the bejesus out of me. Neither side has any problem with courts accepting "oh national security" as a lame ass blanket excuse to remove ANY issue that they want. (god forbid the truth be known! Our reputation is clearly more important than truth and justice!)

Neither side really cares about personal privacy or liberty, or even truth. We have a government full of guys like Ray Lahood who, when a study came out showing that states which banned txting while driving had NO decrease in accidents, called the study "irresponsible". Yes, its irresponsible to challenge our assumptions and guesses about how to fix things with data that contradicts them. Quite irresponsible.

The republicans don't deserve all the blame by far.

-Steve

Re:Deadline

[blair1q]

it's not sacrilege.

it's hypocrisy.

sacrilege would be if it was a pope's hat instead of a hitler mustache.

of course, with this pope, i can understand the confusion...

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

I'm sure Fox News will bill it as Obama trying to take over the internet. Your IP address will have to face a death panel!

It's FAUX news - as in fake news.

I hate them.
But I love Obama.

Re:Deadline

[pete-classic]

I would argue that Jackson comes close. I think it's shameful that he's on the US $20.

-Peter

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

True...the motivation and scale was different, but the ultimate result was fairly close in message.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Andrew Jackson? The only president to never have a national debt. What's wrong with him?

Re:Deadline

[AhabTheArab]

Within the DoD (and perhaps other departments are the same), there has for a few years already been somewhat of a IPv6 compliance policy. Basically all it is currently is purchase orders are more likely to be approved if you check the "IPv6 capable" box when you submit it. It means nothing currently.

Also, who the hell cares if government websites support IPv6? That's not going to cause people to pressure their ISPs to cut over.

"Customer Service, how may I help you?"
"When are you going to support IPv6 - I NEED to see the dancing turtle on whitehouse.gov"

If he were serious, he would issue a deadline to have all internal government networks IPv6 as well. This would help with one half of the chicken/egg problem - that's a lot of client machines.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

states which banned txting while driving had NO decrease in accident

You misinterpreted the study's conclusion. "Our research shows that texting bans do not decrease crashes. No one should take that as meaning that texting while driving is not hazardous. It is hazardous," said Anne Fleming, spokesperson for HLDI, which is an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "What we are saying is the laws as they now stand are not addressing the hazard," Fleming said.

Probably the same reason DUI laws don't reduce accidents. It's hard to locate those drivers who are driving drunk and probably equally hard to find drivers who are texting.

Re:Deadline

[hedwards]

You were being ignorant. Comparing a fascist to a fascist is quasi reasonable, even if it is sort of absurd to imply a similar level of crime. But comparing somebody that's been regularly accused of being a socialist to a fascist just makes one a jack ass.

Re:Deadline

[Beerdood]

I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

You didn't pay attention in school, did you.

Re:Deadline

[RapmasterT]

I'm sure Fox News will bill it as Obama trying to take over the internet. Your IP address will have to face a death panel!

It's FAUX news - as in fake news.

I hate them. But I love Obama.

I hear this so very clever "faux news" pun a LOT, with the usual unreferenced claims of fake news.

To be honest, I don't watch TV news networks, and haven't for many years. What EXACTLY is the problem people have with Fox? Is it their political bent? Is there some factual complaint that couldn't also be leveled at CNN, MSNBC, etc by people from the other side?

If it's a lack of "objective journalism" that's the problem, then Fox hardly stands alone atop that dung heap.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

See I actually think the whole issue misses the real issue. They are playing whack a mole with symptoms. Its one thing to bathe a patient in ice to lower a fever but, any doctor that expects that treating the fever is going to treat the underlying cause would be deservedly laughed at in this day and age.

The real problem is that people are not all that good at judging their abilities and multitasking. Taking away one of the plethora of distractions available to them is not going to fix anything. People can get distracted by anything from talking on the phone, to playing with the radio, to checking out cute girls walking by on the side of the road. Which of these will we ban next? Eating while driving? Thinking while driving?

Frankly, I think texting while driving, if done with proper technique (I can do it, albeit slowly, without ever taking my eyes off the road longer than it takes to look in my rear view, if you are willing to take a full minute to type a message, it does work)

In the end, I think it comes down to simple attention management and judgement. As such, I think we have long since hit the point of diminishing returns on making driving safer. So long as humans are doing the driving, I doubt we will ever see further reductions in traffic accidents and or deaths.

-Steve

Re:Deadline

[dkleinsc]

Well, to be fair, Jackson's policies towards American Indians (I'm using that term because that's what American Indian leaders in my area have told me to use) was in many ways just part of a continuing genocide committed by the British colonies and later the United States from 1650 or so to 1900 or so.

That said, Andrew Jackson's removal of the Cherokee was a demonstration that American Indians couldn't avoid their fate by attempting to assimilate into white society. Many of the Cherokee had adopted white lifestyles, with white-style homes, converting to Christianity, and participating in US business. It didn't help them, just like it didn't help to negotiate with the US government.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

wow I fudged that second to last paragraph. I need a better proof reader, because I suck at it.... badly.

Anyway, I don't think, if done properly, its any more dangerous than listening to the radio or chatting it up with a particularly interesting passenger.

-Steve

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

well a camel is brown....

Re:Deadline

[crashandburn66]

It's a damn good thing that Jackson didn't have access to Zyklon B and electrified fences. Seriously.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

FOX is Republican (or Libertariaan) leaning and people don't like Republicans/Libertarians.

The end. If you have "Web of Trust" installed on your browser the foxnews.com site is actually blocked and the WOT page reveals a deep-seated hatred towards that channel: http://www.mywot.com/scorecard/foxnews.com

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Please make sure to distinguish "absence of evidence" from "evidence of absence".

From Wikipedia:
* "After 1939, the camps increasingly became places where Jews and POWs were either killed or forced to live as slave laborers, undernourished and tortured."
* "By at least 9 October 1942, English radio had broadcast news of gassing of Jews to The Netherlands."

That's three full years of brutal slavery, rape, torture, and murder inflicted on millions before someone so much as broadcast a news piece anywhere on the face of the Earth. Let me say it again, millions endured three full years of:

* malnutrition
* slavery
* rape
* torture
* murder

All the while stupid idiots saying stuff like:

"No German President comes even close to the atrocities that inflicted on other people. It's a bad analogy, one which indicates a ignorance at best and an outright denial of facts at worst."

Boy didn't they feel like assholes!

Re:Deadline

[interkin3tic]

I heard he's going to mandate that all Federal agencies cut over to IPv6 by the time they close Gitmo.

It will dovetail nicely with his plan for ensuring net neutrality, at least the parts that aren't "Say that we support net neutrality."

Re:Deadline

[ArcherB]

You were being ignorant. Comparing a fascist to a fascist is quasi reasonable, even if it is sort of absurd to imply a similar level of crime. But comparing somebody that's been regularly accused of being a socialist to a fascist just makes one a jack ass.

Of course, because there is absolutely no relation between the Nazi's and Socialists. None whatsoever.

Now, plug your ears and repeat that over and over whenever someone tells you what Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei means.

Re:Deadline

[crashandburn66]

Hitler WAS a socialist* (and a fascist as well, you're correct). The German name of the Nazi Party translates to "National Socialist German Workers' Party". However, he detested communism, which is where most people get the idea that he also hated socialism. Socialism != Communism.

Hmm, apparently Firefox's spellcheck doesn't know that 'Obama' is a word. You'd think they'd update their dictionary.

Source: http://mises.org/daily/1937

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

But he didn't gas the Indians (like Hitler did to jews/gypsies). He wasn't even directly involved. The CONGRESS was the actor, and they merely asked these people to sign treaties (which they did) and move westward to new land (which they did).

As far as I can tell the only overt crime Jackson committed was ignoring the Supreme Court case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1831 which said the Cherokee had the right to remain in their home because they were a sovereign nation. In all other cases the Indians signed a treaty & left voluntarily.

Re:Deadline

[techno-vampire]

If it's a lack of "objective journalism" that's the problem, then Fox hardly stands alone atop that dung heap.

The problem isn't that Fox news isn't objective. The problem is that they have a conservative bias and all of the liberals here think that's a good reason to hate them.

Re:Deadline

[bsDaemon]

Jackson was the last good President. This country's been all down hill ever since.

Re:Deadline

[Abcd1234]

FOX is Republican (or Libertariaan) leaning and people don't like Republicans/Libertarians.

Please.

People don't like FOX because FOX is populated by lying sacks of shit. Just look at how the mosque situation in NYC was handled: they attempt (badly) to link the Imam to a Saudi who supposedly funds terror, with no basis for their claims. And on top of it, their fucking hypocrites, conveniently neglecting to point out that that very same Saudi owns the second largest share of FOX corporate.

If they were just partisan, fine, so be it. But they actually *manufacture* news out of whole cloth... and in fact went to court (and won) to defend their right to do so!

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Correction:

It was not Jackson who removed the Cherokees. It was the Governor of Georgia. It was the governor who ignored the Supreme Court, and that is where the blame should be laid

Re:Deadline

[BobMcD]

No, my point is that claiming Obama is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, especially when you consider what previous leaders have done, is ludicrous.

This seems insightful, but depending on the actual demographics of their time, it might not be. Obama rode a wave of 'change' into the whitehouse, propelled by the fewest number of voters to label themselves as 'liberal' ever. He vaguely promised that he'd be different, and everyone bought it. He even won a Nobel Peace Prize for his promises.

Here we are, working on our third year together and ALL of the changes we're seeing are for the worse. While few would have thought that Bush would have become a war President, he clearly adapted when the towers were struck. He got on that new pony and rode it into oblivion. Fast forward to Obama, and not only did he not foresee the oncoming financial disaster, he also did basically nothing to counteract it. Nothing, anyway, that he wasn't already planning to do. In fact he continued to press his agendas despite our clear unwillingness and inability to pay for them, and is continuing to do so to this very day.

Obama demonstrated to the voter that 'change' means what Obama wants it to mean. It doesn't mean what the people clearly wanted - as in a leadership that listens to the voters, is honest, and behaves responsibly. Obama and Bush are genuine equals when it comes to alienating the majority of the nation with their blindly-followed agendas. His 'change' was only that from 'war and profits' to 'war and socialism'.

If you can find a President with that exact same circumstance, THEN I'd be impressed. Otherwise, the outcome of this round of shenanigans could well be unique.

Re:Deadline

[Machtyn]

As a person who despises Obama and the harm he has made to the country, I agree with the parent. He's not the first and, unfortunately, won't be the last of our leaders to try and push the USA down the path of the Roman empire.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

The firebombing of Japan comes to mind. "a change to firebombing tactics resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities, as many as 500,000 Japanese deaths" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II#Japanese_bombing combined with 5 million homeless (which adds to the deal toll, they get sick and die more easily without shelter) brings you within an order of magnitude of Hitler. You could of course add the German civilian causalities from fire bombing, i.e. 50,000 in Hamburg alone and you're rapidly getting up there.

Words cannot express the feelings of profound horror with which the news of these raids had been received by the whole civilized world. They are often directed against places far from the actual area of hostilities. The military objective, where it exists, seems to take a completely second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians...

—Lord Cranborne

Re:Deadline

[Machtyn]

I'm surprised if they still teach this in school... Jackson is a wonderful progressive who centralized the banking system!

Re:Deadline

[Machtyn]

When thinking of Hitler, is the only thing you think of the Holocaust? If it is, you are only getting a part of the story, granted this is a major part of the story. It is how Hitler got to power, what he did to the government, how the people went along with it like crabs in the pot, that the comparisons are eerily similar to certain political leaders' actions.

Is the Autobahn nice this time of year?

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

I notice you never put forward a solution.

If people are distracted by various things (texting, adjusting radio, eating) it makes logical sense to ban doing them. Otherwise we'll have distracted people doing everything BUT driving, and more accidents. The AAA study shows that texting decreases braking time worse than being legally drunk.

AAA has even shown using hands-free phones reduce braking time (because the human brain is focused on the conversation not the road).

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

I was making a point. During the Bush era I saw Democrats/liberals carrying Hitler signs. But now suddenly, that's not allowed. Hypocrites.

By the way fascists ARE socialists.
"socialist" was in the name of the 1920s-40s fascist parties of Spain, Italy, and Germany. And the parties of Eastern Europe, USSR and China.
Of course not all socialists are fascists.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

No, my point is that claiming Obama is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, especially when you consider what previous leaders have done, is ludicrous.

You can identify a credit/deficit problem just as one can identify a housing bubble or "irrational exuberance" in the stock market. What is generally ludicrous - or very damn hard - is knowing precisely when that final straw is coming.

To correct your thought, assuming Obama is OR is not that final straw is risky. Hedge your bets. Hope for the best.

Re:Deadline

[DragonWriter]

Hitler WAS a socialist* (and a fascist as well, you're correct).

No, he wasn't a socialist, for all that the Nazi Party had "socialist" in its name.

The German name of the Nazi Party translates to "National Socialist German Workers' Party".

Yes, and the official name of the North Korean state translates to "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea", but that doesn't make North Korea a democracy.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

O yeah:

The irony is that MSNBC is just as slanted as FOX, but in the opposite direction. (FOX is pro-R and MSNBC is pro-Democrat.) But for some reason almost nobody sees that obvious bias MSNBC has. They think it's a great channel! Amazing.....

Re:Deadline

[Captain Splendid]

Obligatory ATHF quote: "Man, we should have just cloned twenties. Jackson wouldn't have given a shit."

Re:Deadline

[pete-classic]

The next time you find yourself tempted to use the phrase, "just part of a continuing genocide" I'd like you to take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to slap some god damned humanity into yourself.

-Peter

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

FOX..... lying sacks of shit.

AKA Republicans and Libertarians. ;-)

Re:Deadline

[Wonko the Sane]

Why would you exclude Bush from "war and socialism"? Medicare part D is one of the largest expansion of entitlements ever enacted and by far the largest threat to long-term budget stability.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Yeah it wasn't only Jews that were victims.

In the 1930s, long before the gas chambers were built, Hitler killed his own Germans simply because they were mentally retarded (purify the German race). Communists because they were considered an enemy of the national socialists. He did not kill but did imprison Christians who felt forcing Jews to wear stars was immoral (Pastor Niemoller in 1939, for example) and other white persons who dared question Hitler's rule. And sterilized Germans he considered inferior or "mongrel" instead of pure.

Even if Hitler had been executed in 1940, and never killed one single Jewish person, he would STILL be considered one of the worst tyrants in history (like Mussolini, Nero, Napoleon, Roberspierre, Pol Pot, ...) simply because of his anti-civil rights attitude.

Re:Deadline

[Wonko the Sane]

People don't like FOX because FOX is populated by lying sacks of shit.

All the news companies are populated by lying sacks of shit (yes, even NPR). Why does FOX get singled out?

Re:Deadline

[BobMcD]

Why would you exclude Bush from "war and socialism"?

I wouldn't necessarily do so, but I think the whole Haliburton angle is probably more defining.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

- Free Healthcare for All? Check.
- Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
- Free Housing/Food for the Poor? Check.
- Free School plus College for the People? Check.
- Not free, but government-subsidized "People's Wagons" for everyone, even the poor? Check.

Hitler and his Parliament of the 1930s looks socialist to me. In fact that was the key goal in Spain, Italy, and Germany: To bring corporations under Direct government control (i.e. strictly regulated), while providing lots of government-and-corporate-sponsored benefits to the workers. It was an extremely popular party platform.

Re:Deadline

[swb]

While you and all your friends are raging against Fox news (and presumably swallowing all the pro-Democrat propaganda), the real powers that be are wetting themselves, knowing they have you exactly where they want you, caught up in an empty shouting match.

These TV shows are about entertainment, not about issues or anything else.

Re:Deadline

[Abcd1234]

All the news companies are populated by lying sacks of shit (yes, even NPR). Why does FOX get singled out?

Okay, well, you find another news organization that regularly attempts to deceive it's viewership, not just through simple spin, but by actually creating new facts out of whole cloth, and you might have a point. But I suspect you're gonna have a little trouble.

FOX news aren't simple spin artists. They're liars and propagandists, and actually had the audacity to defend their right to lie to their viewers in a fucking court of law. No other organization is so bald faced in their lying, so actively deceptive, so transparently partisan and unobjective in their news reporting (note, I distinguish this from the talking heads, who are universally liars and spin artists, at least to some degree).

Re:Deadline

[Wonko the Sane]

In that case I'd refer you to Obama's illegal use of executive authority to ignore federal law and give the UAW a windfall at the expense of the preferred creditors.

When it really comes down to it there is no difference between those two presidents.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

I did, in fact, imply a solution. The solution is realizing that we have done all that we reasonably can in this area, and moving on to other problems. I mean, there are all manner of silly solutions. You could mandate that nobody ever drive faster than 5 mph, anywhere. However, in terms of realistic solutions, I think we have long since hit the point of diminishing returns.

Accept that there is risk involved in some activities. Frankly I think all these "solutions" fall into the trap of starting from the assumption that something must be done.

-Steve

Re:Deadline

[Machtyn]

Interestingly, how would you rank the worst tyrant of the 20th century? Choices are Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, or some other that I haven't mentioned or don't know about. If Hitler didn't have the Holocaust, I would probably put him down around the Saddam or Milosevich level. (Actually, looking at a list of genocide numbers, without the Holocaust part, Hitler would likely be at the Pol Pot level.)

Re:Deadline

[Wonko the Sane]

No other organization is so bald faced in their lying, so actively deceptive, so transparently partisan and unobjective in their news reporting

I'm sorry, but if you can't see that the other organizations are just as guilty you're being willfully blind.

Re:Deadline

[BobMcD]

Interesting factiod. But it still works towards the premise. He said he would be different, and we inferred that this would be desirable. Neither materialized.

Re:Deadline

[conspirator57]

to too many of us, the state/president is our religion, and they worship it unthinkingly, no matter its actions or their hypocrisy.

as pointed out by greenwald yet again:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/28/obama/index.html

Obama in Rolling Stone:

The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible. . . . .If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we'd better fight in this election.

compare against:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/27/privacy/index.html
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/25/secrecy/index.html

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably also missed Hiroshima and McCarthyism

Re:Deadline

[operagost]

Wilson could have been worse.

He re-segregated the military and the post office.
He signed the Federal Reserve into law, enabling our current system of fiat currency.
He ran for reelection based on keeping us out of WWI, then pushed us into WWI immediately upon reelection.
During WWI, he signed a law that jailed anyone who protested the war. The post office would not deliver any periodicals critical of the war.
He created a Committee on Public Information to create war propaganda. Goebbels cited the American WWI propaganda as his inspiration.

Re:Deadline

[dkleinsc]

I'm not saying in any way, shape, or form that the genocide of the American Indians was morally justifiable. What I am saying is that the problem was (and is) much bigger than the actions of Andrew Jackson.

It's the difference between genocide as a relatively quick and atypical affair (e.g. the Rwandan Genocide) and genocide as a longstanding act of national policy.

Re:Deadline

[FoolishOwl]

You missed the part where Jackson invaded Florida, multiple times, with the open goal of acquiring new territory by force of arms.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Bob. I'm so sorry that this comment is going to be modded into oblivion. :(

I'm going to do my part and mod you up, because this is an insightful comment, and it appears that Pojut doesn't exactly understand the concept of "the straw that broke the camel's back," in his dismissal of how "Obama's bad decisions" could be the ones to send us fully off the rails.

Bad decisions are bad decisions, regardless of who (or which party) is making them, and we are rapidly approaching a point where massive pain and restructuring are the only things that will dig us out of our financial mess. Obama's not the only one who made bad decisions to put us in these straits, but he IS the man behind the wheel right now, and he is steering us directly at the iceberg and telling the people manning the engines that he wants full steam ahead.

Re:Deadline

[FoolishOwl]

While it's not a great choice of words, it seems clear to me that dkleinsc is on the side of humanity here.

We're in a sub-thread launched by someone's comment that Jackson, who became president based on his murdering large numbers of people and taking their land, was a good president because there was no national debt during his administration.

There are definitely some people around here who need some god damned humanity slapped into them.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Might not want to do quotes with a '>>>', there's an infamous forum troll that that uses that.

Or you might want to remember which account you're posting on.

Re:Deadline

[zeno53]

Several million Vietnamese might ask, "How close is close enough?", if they weren't dead. How many Iraqis? We don't know. Another poster has mentioned Indian removal. How about Japanese civilians? Sure, war, but proportionate? Your current president is not Hitler but he is a bloody murderer, like most who went before. And you may well replace him with much worse.

Re:Deadline

[Bert64]

The nazis are also no longer around to cover up their crimes... Had they not been defeated, would the rest of the world have ever found out?

Concentration camps were a british invention btw.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Lenin doesn't look so bad after all. He and his party basically stopped ww1.

Re:Deadline

[FoolishOwl]

In addition to murdering Jews, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled, the Nazis murdered Social Democrats and trade unionists.

If someone was honestly trying to point out a common theme of "socialism" that united Nazis, social democrats, and Communists, they'd need to come up with another way to explain the difference between the Nazis, who went to great trouble to set up a police state to crush social democrats and Communists, and the social democrats and Communists who were murdered, or went underground and organized armed resistance to the Nazis.

Given that the policies that are objected to by those making the "Nazis are socialists" argument are usually the policies of liberals, social democrats, and (rarely) Communists, the moral and political descendants of the most committed opponents of the Nazis, an honest argument would have to acknowledge that whatever policies are claimed to be in common among these groups are either illusory, or unrelated to the crimes of the Nazis.

In fact, if one notices that the very first thing that the Nazis did, upon securing control of the German state, was to crush social democrats, Communists, and trade unionists, one might conclude that if the Nazis claimed to be socialists, THEY WERE LYING for political reasons.

I know it's shocking to suggest that psychotic genocidal racists might tell lies, but it has to be said.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

How was stopping WWII == to genocide? Heck, we had to drop it TWICE to get the japanese gov. to agree to surrenderer.
Windbourne.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

you find another news organization that regularly attempts to deceive it's viewership,

MSNBC did a report about a black man carrying a gun at a Liberty Rally. They even captured the guy on video.

They then chopped the black guy's head off (in the edit room, not literally) and turned it into a 15 minute story about "gun toting whites" who "are probably racist" and "don't like having a black man as president".

That's just the most obvious example. There are many, many others.... although MSNBC's favorite technique is not to lie, but simply not cover worthy events (censorship through silence). For example they never covered the Muslim rally that called for the Pope to "go to hell" and "pay for crimes against humanity" and "death to the pope!". FOX and CNN covered it. But if you were watching MSNBC you probably never even knew that happened.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Spain's Florida attacked first, according to historians. Constant raids into Georgia. The US tolerated it for about 20 years, and then finally decided it had enough and declared war. As its right when an aggressor is being belligerent.

Re:Deadline

[pete-classic]

Fair enough.

-Peter

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

"Genocide"? What genocide? It's not as if the US Government (or Carolina or Georgia governments) rounded-up Indians alongside giant pits, shot them, and buried them over with dirt. There was NO genocide.

Oh and before you discuss the "high death toll" after Europeans arrived
- it was caused by bacteria and viruses.
Maybe we should put Smallpox on trial?

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

"He signed the Federal Reserve into law, enabling our current system of fiat currency."
.

Unfortunately most people don't know what this means. In a nutshell: What used to cost a penny in 1910 (candybars, sodas, etc) now costs about a dollar. i.e. The private central bank (the fed) ran the printing presses like mad, and devalued the money to 1/100th its previous value.

Re:Deadline

[geekoid]

That's not it at all.

The lie, misrepresent, and use loud people spew logical fallacies to 'prove' a point.

They claim 'Fair and Balance' but they aren't.

But you have a small mind, and need to boil everything down to a simple sound bite,

Your sig alone tells the world you have no clue and US politics works.

And only a simpleton would think Fox is really libertarian.

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Oftentimes the worst and most virilant hate happens between brothers.

The National Socialists, Communists, and Social Democrats were all "reds" but they still did not get along. It's akin to how I read a lot of Greens calling the Democrat Congress "lousy" even though they are all liberals and all want basically the same goal (healthcare, environmental protection, etc). It's brother against brother infighting.

BTW one of the key differences between National Socialists and Communists was that one wanted to maintain private ownership of land, while the other wanted no private ownership (collectivism). Otherwise they have pretty much the same policies (free healthcare, free college, etc).

Re:Deadline

[theaveng]

Your solution to an increased number of accidents due to texting and cellphone use is..... do nothing? That's nuts. Like saying we should not outlaw drunk driving.

We KNOW the activity impairs drivers (slows their response time) and therefore endangers the rest of us. While current laws may not be working that's no reason to just "do nothing". Let's try a different tactic, like immediately lifting the license of anybody who is caught DUI or texting. And then send them to drivers' ed if they want to earn it back.

Re:Deadline

[geekoid]

I see far too many rational discussion on NPR to put them in the same boat with FOX.

Even people that have policy and belief completely counter to the 'expect' view get reasonable air time and get good questions.

And people that have the 'expect' liberal view are asked hard and tough question.

And here is a tip to think about before replying you inevitable logical fallacy, I hate logical fallacy's. I don't care who tries to use them to bolster a point.

I ahve also change my world view on subjects based on facts.

Re:Deadline

[geekoid]

Yeah, the MSNBC clip was defiantly sloppy. They wanted to talk about the white people carrying guns(which there where over a dozen) but shot a black guy. All of which was a weak ass attempt to stir the racism pot. Sloppy and shameful.

That said it was blown out of proportion. They wanted to have a 'discussion' about whether the amount of firearms at an Obama rally was sparked by racism. To me, I think it was. Including the black man. Not to say he was racists, but perhaps because for the first time he felt he could openly carry a fire arm.

There was a change for a real and interesting discussion, and they blew it.

Re:Deadline

[geekoid]

Don't make the presumption. You're just making your self look like a ignorant slack jawed fool.

Re:Deadline

[geekoid]

It's not about the conservative bias. It that they lie, and are hypocrites, and bullies.

If ti was just a bias, that would suck but hey it's ok. When it's specific lies, promote false hoods, and fanning the flams of anger it impacts every one.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Both "left" and "right" in america are "right" by world standards. You're kidding yourself if you think the truth is somewhere in the middle between fox and msnbc - they're both right wing corporatists!

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

A left-center bias cannot pretend to represent a unified view of events that appears unbiased to each and every person in the country any longer. They liked it better when the opinions further right were buried in various newspapers and talk radio and less accessible to the average person.

I support gathering information from a variety of sources and sussing things out for ones self...

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

Never let facts get in the way of righteous indignation.

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

The next time you find yourself tempted to apply contemporary values to actions taken hundreds of years in the past, I'd like you to take a step back, take a deep breath, try to slap some god damned sense into yourself.

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

Of course, because there is absolutely no relation between the Nazi's and Socialists. None whatsoever.

Now, plug your ears and repeat that over and over whenever someone tells you what Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei means.

It means a fascist douchebag co-opted a nice, grass roots organization to his own tyrannical means.

Kinda like Dick Armey and Glenn Beck.

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

Only problem with this line of thinking is that it's never Lupus.

-Greg House

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

wow I fudged that second to last paragraph. I need a better proof reader, because I suck at it.... badly.

Admit it: you were driving while you typed that.

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

Then the appropriate answer is to outlaw driving like a jackass. And guess what? There are already many laws that address this on the books.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

Yes thats exactly what I am saying. I am saying that we keep piling on more and more laws, more and more penalties, costing people more and more money, putting restrictions on more and more people and, making little to no difference. Why are we not asking what the cost is to all the people who are "being caught"? What about the cost we are imposing on them?

I can understand if its justified by an actual, significant, improvement in the safety. However, if that improvement can't be realized, for any reason, then how is that cost justified? Cost in terms of extra police, police training, police time, court time, time off work, loss of license, loss of jobs...all... to make no difference.

Sounds like a monumental waste to me.

-Steve

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

MSNBC can only be compared to Fox on the basis of their primetime programming (and the overnight repeats). From roughly 5 am until 6 pm, MSNBC is rather balanced, while the Fox propaganda continues unabated. How can you call Joe Scarborough "pro-Democrat" and how does Mrs. Alan Greenspan (is she still on midday?) owe allegiance to anyone other than big business? You won't find a prominent Democratic ex Representative on for three hours on Fox. You won't find the spouse of the head of the UAW with a show on Fox.

The simple equation "MSNBC=Fox, but on the left" is absurd.

Re:Deadline

[scot4875]

Holy crap. When I saw all those exclamation points, for a second I thought I was over on the CNN message boards.

--Jeremy

Re:Deadline

[Veggiesama]

You didn't pay attention in school, did you.

Possibly not his fault. Before the 90s, public school textbooks have traditionally ignored the topic of the forced removal of Native American peoples. Usually Americans know there were Natives at the First Thanksgiving, and that's about where their education ended.

Re:Deadline

[scot4875]

You have an atrocious memory.

Here we are, working on our third year together

Second year. He started in 2009.

Fast forward to Obama, and not only did he not foresee the oncoming financial disaster, he also did basically nothing to counteract it.

The financial disaster started in early 2008 with some large problems in the financial industry, then became a really major issue with the stock markets losing some 30% of their value over the last few months, starting prior to the election, and basically leveling off before Obama ever even took office.

During that time, Bush and the congress of the time passed the TARP. After Obama took office, he passed the stimulus bill. So you really can't say he has done "basically nothing to counteract it." What would you have had him do?

It doesn't mean what the people clearly wanted - as in a leadership that listens to the voters

Some 90% of the public was supportive of some form of health care reform. Then the bickering and misinformation started. Now we have a terrible bill (that's still better than nothing) that few support. One could say that Obama *was* doing what the voters wanted by initiating the health care reform. Unfortunately, it really didn't work out very well.

Anyway, your reality doesn't match my reality. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't match most other people's reality either when half of what you assert as facts are demonstratably false, and all you have left is subjective, unsupported opinion.

--Jeremy

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

I don't know, have you ever watched Fox News? If you mention anything about Obama its hard not to think about how Fox will present it. Fair and Balanced of course.

Re:Deadline

[zerocool^]

Just ignore him, he's another one of those "Both sides are bad! (vote republican)" guys.

Re:Deadline

[zerocool^]

I was making a point. During the Bush era I saw Democrats/liberals carrying Hitler signs.

[citation needed]

But now suddenly, that's not allowed. Hypocrites.

Pending your above [citation needed], clearly two wrongs make a right, so you're now allowed to do it? Is that how that works?

By the way fascists ARE socialists.

Incorrect.

Fascists support a "third position" in economic policy, which they believe superior to both the rampant individualism of laissez-faire capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.[27][28] Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist economy whereby, in theory, representatives of capital and labour interest groups work together within sectoral corporations to create both harmonious labour relations and maximization of production that would serve the national interest.[29] However other fascist movements and ideologies, such as Nazism, did not utilize this form of economy.[29]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facism

In a socialist economic system, production is carried out by a free association of workers to directly maximise use-values (instead of indirectly producing use-value through maximising exchange-values), through coordinated planning of investment decisions, distribution of surplus, and the means of production. Socialism is a set of social and economic arrangements based on a post-monetary system of calculation, such as labour time, energy units or calculation-in-kind; at least for the factors of production.[4] Socialists advocate a method of compensation based on individual merit or the amount of labour one contributes to society.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

"socialist" was in the name of the 1920s-40s fascist parties of Spain, Italy, and Germany. And the parties of Eastern Europe, USSR and China.

[citation needed]

• Franco was a member of the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (http://bit.ly/avLQU4)

• Mussolini was a member of the National Fascist Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party)

• Hitler was a member of the Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists) party, as in "National Socialists", which is in no way associated with actual socialism. "National Socialist" and "Socialist" are categorically different:

Nazism is a politically syncretic variety of fascism, which incorporates policies, tactics and philosophic tenets from left and right-wing politics. Italian fascism and German Nazism reject liberalism, democracy and Marxism.[67] Usually supported by the far right (military, business, Church), fascism is historically anti-communist, anti-conservative and anti-parliamentary.[68] The Nazis' rise to power was assisted by the Fascist government of Italy that began to financially subsidize the Nazi party in 1928.[69]

• The former USSR was lead by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was ACTUALLY a socialist state; it was, however, in no way fascist. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union)

Of course not all socialists are fascists.

If I am willing to consider that "No" and "Not all" are close-ish, this is the first thing you've said that borders on being marginally correct.

Re:Deadline

[TheCarp]

I can neither confirm nor deny what I may or may not have been doing when I may or may not have written that statement.

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

Oh and before you discuss the "high death toll" after Europeans arrived - it was caused by bacteria and viruses. Maybe we should put Smallpox on trial?

Because we all know that Europeans never actively spread those diseases to natives.

Re:Deadline

[mjwx]

All the news companies are populated by lying sacks of shit (yes, even NPR). Why does FOX get singled out?

Because they are the smelliest bag of shit.

When I bring up the subject of Fox news, every American I talk to tells me that MSNBC is just as bad. Well I cant say as I've never seen it (Probably because those lefty, eco-nazi's turn off the TV when they leave the room).

Seriously, I'd rather watch the BBC, at least they separate news from editorial (commentary) content (BBC News is for factual news, BBC World is for cometary).

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

What was the change from 1810 to 1910? I'm assuming there was some kind of inflation.

I'm sure you're not arguing that all inflation is bad, as the alternatives of stagnation and deflation are generally considered bad by economist. Just like an unemployment rate of 0% is not good.

Also according to the Hershey Bar Index (yes there is one) A candy bar in 1908 was 9/16 of an oz and cost 2 cents. In 2010 a 1.55 oz bar cost .95 cents. So a penny is a little closer to 1/20th it's value over the last 100 years not 1/100th.

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

People follow others who appear to know what they are doing.

People with confidence appear to know what they are doing.

Good liars are confident

Confident people rarely believe they make mistakes and therefore never correct there behavior

Conclusion: The human race will always follow bad leaders and almost never follow anyone who knows what they are doing. Someone who actually knows what they are doing are rarely confident about it, otherwise they would have never acknowledged and learned from their mistakes.

Re:Deadline

[zerocool^]

- Free Healthcare for All? Check.
- Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
- Free Housing/Food for the Poor? Check.
- Free School plus College for the People? Check.
- Not free, but government-subsidized "People's Wagons" for everyone, even the poor? Check.

Boy... Of course, you know none of that stuff is free, right? It's all paid for with taxes. So, by that definition:

* Free Healthcare for at least some, including all elderly and poor? Check.
* Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
* Free and/or greatly subsidized Food/Housing for the Poor? Check.
* Free school, plus subsidized college for the people? Check.
* Not free, but government-subsidized "locally-built cars" for everyone, even the poor?

Man, the USA looks pretty socialist.

Actually, this is the 2nd of your posts I've replied to, and I'm starting to wonder if you're either trolling or being sarcastic. It's either that, or you're a Tea Party true believer; the fact that I can't tell is a troubling sign of the political weather.

Tea Partiers: The vuvuzelas of socio-political discourse.

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

Pol Pot. The only guy from the list who deliberately and meticulously slaughtered a large part of his own nation, with absolutely no even slightly mitigating circumstances or achievements (i.e. no people were better of as a result of his rule).

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

The party was called NSDAP before Hitler joined them. It was a true socialist party, and even later on it did have a true (national) socialist wing - the guys who wanted to nationalize everything, line up the "fat cats" against the wall, etc. The wing which Hitler mercilessly purged once he had the upper hand within the party, because their political ideas didn't mesh well with his.

But he was also a smart salesman, and knew that you don't abandon well-publicized brands just because the product becomes different.

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

- Free Healthcare for All? Check.
- Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
- Free Housing/Food for the Poor? Check.
- Free School plus College for the People? Check.

- Collective (public) ownership of means of production? Oh...

Hitler and his Parliament of the 1930s looks socialist to me.

That's because you confuse welfare state with socialism. The latter is an economic system; the former is just an economic policy that can be used in practically any economic system (e.g. most western states today implement it in an otherwise capitalist economy).

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

"socialist" was in the name of the 1920s-40s fascist parties of Spain, Italy, and Germany.

That's wrong on many levels.

First of all, while Germany did have a true Italian-inspired fascist movement, I somehow think you aren't really talking about them. They were never really popular, and were pretty much taken over by the Nazis. So you probably mean NSDAP, which wasn't fascist (fascism is an ideology which puts state above all; nazism puts race above all, with state but a tool at its disposal).

Coincidentally, NSDAP is also the only party of those listed that called itself "socialist". Italian party was called "National Fascist Party". Spanish Falange was officially called "National Syndicalist", though even that is disputed, as many believe that, after the founder and original leader of Falange died, Franco has pretty much hijacked the party name and image for his own authoritarian but non-syndicalist (and non-socialist) ideas.

In practice, though, all of those were expressedly against the very basics of socialism, such as class struggle, collective ownership of means of production; and also the typical manifestations, such as trade unions or workers' democracy. They were all effectively corporatist (in the sense of corporations as guilds, not the modern meaning of the word), though to various degrees - Nazis being least so.

Re:Deadline

[ffreeloader]

- Free Healthcare for All? Check.
- Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
- Free Housing/Food for the Poor? Check.
- Free School plus College for the People? Check.
- Not free, but government-subsidized "People's Wagons" for everyone, even the poor? Check.

Boy... Of course, you know none of that stuff is free, right? It's all paid for with taxes. So, by that definition:

* Free Healthcare for at least some, including all elderly and poor? Check.
* Free Retirement for the Elderly? Check.
* Free and/or greatly subsidized Food/Housing for the Poor? Check.
* Free school, plus subsidized college for the people? Check.
* Not free, but government-subsidized "locally-built cars" for everyone, even the poor?

Man, the USA looks pretty socialist.

Actually, this is the 2nd of your posts I've replied to, and I'm starting to wonder if you're either trolling or being sarcastic. It's either that, or you're a Tea Party true believer; the fact that I can't tell is a troubling sign of the political weather.

Tea Partiers: The vuvuzelas of socio-political discourse.

You're correct, the US is becoming Socialistic. It's been moving slowly that way for a while, but since Obama being elected it's been careening wildly down that path.

Re:Deadline

[ArcherB]

Of course, because there is absolutely no relation between the Nazi's and Socialists. None whatsoever.

Now, plug your ears and repeat that over and over whenever someone tells you what Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei means.

It means a fascist douchebag co-opted a nice, grass roots organization to his own tyrannical means.

Kinda like Dick Armey and Glenn Beck.

Strange... and here I thought Glenn Beck was a Libertarian calling for LESS government and is constantly preaching about his fear of tyrannical government. So let's see. Either you're completely ignorant and totally speaking out your ass when you call Beck a Fascist or we're talking about two different Glenn Becks.

I think you're talking out your ass and just throwing around the biggest insult word you know about people you don't understand, yet have nothing but pure, white-hot hatred for. You call these people Fascist because they have done nothing to justify your hatred, so you have to make stuff up. It's easy to make yourself believe it because the hatred, or the result, is already there. You just need justification. Here is how it works:
1) You hate people who have an opinion different than your own.
2) You make up things in your head to justify that hatred (Beck is a Nazi, for example)
3) You believe it because you already hated Beck so much, him being a Nazi is not really a stretch, even though you completely fabricated it in your head.

(is there a ??? and profit in there?)

Oh, and Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei stands for "National Socialist German Workers' Party". Not that it matters as you simply won't believe a Nazi they have the word "Socialist" and "Worker's Party", right there in the name, because, you know, it doesn't fit your preconceived notions of what you hate (Nazi's) and what you don't hate (Socialism) and even the though the evidence slaps you in the face, you simply won't believe it because it's not what you believe.

Oh, and are you really saying that the Nazi's were nice people before Hitler took over? Seriously!??!

Re:Deadline

[Abcd1234]

Nah, that's BS. MSNBC is biased as hell, no doubt about it. But I've never come across a credible instance where they've flat out, unequivocally lied to their viewership, something that FOX has absolutely done (and, I once again repeat, has gone to court in order to defend their right to do so).

Re:Deadline

[ivan256]

People don't like FOX because FOX is populated by lying sacks of shit.

You're fooling yourself.

People love Fox.

Re:Deadline

[mjwx]

Most of my info is third hand from Americans I've met abroad in Asia (I'm from Australia). Interesting that, moderate republicans tend to own customer service businesses (hotels, bars, cafe's) whilst moderate democrats tend to have less public facing income streams (stocks, term deposits), nice people the lot of them. Never met an extreme republican or extreme democrat in the flesh, they must come from somewhere as you get batshit insane posts on /. and other forums where Americans congregate.

Re:Deadline

[pandaman9000]

Banning does not solve the problem. Banning just gives the government more excuses to intrude into our privacy. You simply make a blanket "Driving while distracted" bonus penalty.

Best solution:

Mandatory REAL driver training. You are piloting a vehicle. Force future drivers to drive distracted on a road course. Force them to try to stop in inclement conditions, etc.

FORCE THEM TO KNOW HOW TO DRIVE!

Re:Deadline

[pandaman9000]

That is a lot of name calling with zero facts. Funny thing is that Glenn Beck backs up his stuff with easily provable facts. Where are your sound arguments/facts?

I suggest you do as many smart independent thinkers do: Watch Fox and some mainstream, and derive your news from that mix and some google scholar searches.

It's easy to call names, and make sweeping generalizations. You have zero credibility, and your message has no weight, however.

Re:Deadline

[lonecrow]

Examples? I would like to see your examples of the worst cases of manufactured lies from other news outfits, and then we will put them side by side with FOX and see how they compare.

Put your money were your mouth is and provide some examples.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

1. No, merchants will jump at any chance to raise prices, and workers will jump at any chance to get higher wages, each causing the other.

2. Good, money is for exchanging goods and services, not for hording.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh just shut the fuck up, your sig gives away your ignorance you worthless fascist piece of shit. Why not go ask the government if you can jack off again, isn't that what is needed in your socialist utopia? Fuck you.

Re:Deadline

[gmhowell]

YHBT.
YHL.
HAND.

Re:Deadline

[bogjobber]

The problem isn't that Fox news isn't objective.

Yes, that is precisely the problem. Fox News consists almost entirely of talking heads and op-eds with a very conservative bias, yet they present themselves as a source of objective, non-biased news. Hell, they even admitted that they are not journalists in a court case a few years ago.

You don't see the same complaints about the Wall Street Journal or The Weekly Standard, which also have heavy conservative biases and are published by News Corp. That's because they actually have some credibility and don't just print random sensationalist headlines or nonsensical ranting by professional blowhards.

Re:Deadline

[drinkypoo]

I like how you made a right turn here and now instead of attacking the idea that Hitler was socialist we're now attacking the idea that the USA isn't. We call this attacking a straw man.

All governments are inherently socialist, the only difference is the degree. All redistribution of wealth is socialism.

Re:Deadline

[BobMcD]

Dennis Kucinich seems like a good guy.

At any rate, it isn't my fault that the Red Team generally has it right. The 'American dream' genuinely does involve running your own business. The Blue Team feels that anyone not on welfare is in danger of shifting over to the Red Team, and yet seems to never pass a single law in their favor. It's all Robin Hood for them, take it from the evil rich and give it to the deserving poor. The long view of that plan has us all in the 'poor' category, with only the ruling elite able to afford to be 'rich'. At least on the Red Team, there can be such a thing as a 'wealthy small business owner'. This is a target reasonably achievable by people I actually know.

I believe in merit through action, and not through mere birth.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

Bullies?

Really? Who did FOX bully? Not just your opinion but a google citation please.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>Fox News [and MSNBC] consists almost entirely of talking heads and op-eds with a bias, yet they present themselves as a source of objective, non-biased news.

Fixed that for you.
The same can be said of CNN, ABC, CBS, and PBS too, albeit not as obvious.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>I see far too many rational discussion on NPR to put them in the same boat with FOX.

See? That's a neat trick.

The truth of the matter is that most Americans get their News/Opinions from TV channels. The radio programs and newspapers (both of which are on the verge of bankruptcy) have little impact on the typical US citizen.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>ind another news organization that regularly attempts to deceive it's viewership, not just through simple spin, but by actually creating new facts out of whole cloth

Theaveng already did it.
Unfortunately the Democrats have modded him (-1 troll)
and made his post invisible. So I'll just summarize:

MSNBC did a report about a black man carrying a gun at a Liberty Rally (where Obama was going to be speaking). They even captured the guy on video. They then chopped the black guy's head off (via editing), aired the doctored video on national television, and turned it into a daylong story about "gun toting whites" who "are probably racist" and "don't like having a black man as president". They also speculated Obama might be in danger of being shot.

That's just one example of many. MSNBC is just as bad as FOX, but in the opposite direction (in favor of Democrats instead of Republicans). Personally I don't "hate" either channel, but neither do I see one as better than the other. They are mirror images of each other, using the exact same tactics.
.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>perhaps because for the first time he felt he could openly carry a fire arm.

Uh. No. The black man was later interviewed by Alex Jones for about an hour, and he said he's been carrying a gun since the 1990s. It's one of the advantages of living in an open-carry state.

He also said he doesn't think the opposition against Obama is any different than the opposition against Clinton/Gore eight years earlier. That he and his fellow Tea Partiers are opposed to Obama, Pelosi, and the other Democrats because of their anti-liberty POLICIES, and they could care less about color. He also felt MSNBC's censorship of the interview they did with him (they never aired it) demonstrated they were not interested in the truth, but creating an anti-tea party spin.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

MSNBC is FOX in the other direction.

Instead of Glenn Beck and other Republican/libertarian commentators, they have Rachel Maddow and other Democrat/green commentators. Where FOX reporters slant stories as "evil government" or "government is spying on you again", the MSNBC channel slants their stories as "government is good" and "trust the government". And so on. I think you get the point. MSNBC == the democrat/liberal version of FOX.

As for BBC, they too have a bias. There's is pro-EU and pro-centralization to turn Europe into a single nation (rather than the current union of 25 nations).

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>Both "left" and "right" in america are "right" by world standards.

Thank God. Most of the world is so-far Socialist/Communist that they enjoy very little freedom, are taxed at 50-70% of their income, and are spied upon by their governments with nonsense like "Three Strike Laws", "Net Filters", and such.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

Pro-big business IS Democrat.

Look at the recent laws passed. "You must buy from an insurance company, or face a ~$1000 fine." Insurance stocks soared when that law was passed. "ISPs must turn over names to RIAA/MPAA so citizens can be prosecuted for not buying CDs/DVDs." Also Cash for Clunkers where taxpayers were subsidizing the car industry, and billions in handouts to the public & private education industry (both K-12 and University level). Also this new National Broadband plan to hand-over 500 megahertz to cellphone/internet companies is like finding the Golden Chalice for ATT, Sprint, and so on.

I'm too lazy to look up the whole list, but Democrats are just as "big business" as the Republicans. You are naive if you think they are not.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>People love Fox.

So it appears. FOX NEWS is watched by double the number who watch CNN, and triple the number who watch MSNBC.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>What was the change from 1810 to 1910? I'm assuming there was some kind of inflation.

Nope. Because the "US dollar" was defined as one dollar of gold (a measurement of weight). There was a little bit of fluctuation due to the markets, but a dollar in 1910 still had the approximately the same value as an 1800 dollar. Put another way, what cost $1.00 in 1800 would cost you 95 cents in 1910. Very, very little fluctuation.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

Secondary conclusion:

It's unwise to give leaders more than the bare minimum of power. Like the ~25 specifically enumerated rights in the US Constitution, and nothing more.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>Man, the USA looks pretty socialist.

Correct. And look at the mess Socialist USA has created. We're headed for a Greece style meltdown. Thank Buddha for the Chinese & Saudis, and their willingness to bail us out.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>- Collective (public) ownership of means of production? Oh...

Neither Hitler nor Mussolini supported this idea, which is why they were so anti-communist (who did support outlawing all private ownership). Hitler, Mussolini, and other fascists wanted corporations to remain private, but strictly controlled by the government.

Which is actually NOT a bad idea when you think about it (corporations should be controlled). But it IS a socialist idea. To sit here and claim it's not socialist is ridiculous.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>I saw Democrats/liberals carrying Hitler signs.

[citation needed]
.

You're joking right??? Here let me google that for you:
General images: http://www.google.com/images?q=bush+nazi
Protester posters: http://www.google.com/images?q=bush+nazi+protest
AND: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=bush+nazi
.

>>>clearly two wrongs make a right, so you're now allowed to do it? Is that how that works?

(whoosh). You missed theaveng's point. It is hypocritical for the Democrats to say "Nazi posters are wrong" when they themselves were holding similar posters ~4 years ago. Some even showed-up at a Nancy Pelosi speech in 2007, and she said, "That's okay. I don't agree that Bush is Hitler but it's free speech and they are allowed to do it. They can stay in the room." - Basically giving tacit approval.

But NOW, three years later, suddenly Ms. Pelosi and colleagues are saying it's wrong. If she thought it was okay three years ago (protected by free speech) then she should think it's okay now. Hypocrite.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

If the Fascists support 95% of the policies of Socialists, except the collectivism bit (no private ownership of land/factories), then they are 95% socialist. There's no real difference. They are simply less extreme versions of socialism.

Like how some Muslims want to see the Pope "go to hell" (see London protests), but less-extreme versions of Muslims do not, and yet they are all Muslims. They are all part of the same group.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

>>>making little to no difference.

Maybe we should just make murder and rape legal then, since the current abolition laws make "no difference" and don't drop the rat or murder/rape. Eh? That's where the logic of your argument leads, if taken to its logical conclusion.

Which means your argument is not logical.

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

Which is actually NOT a bad idea when you think about it (corporations should be controlled). But it IS a socialist idea. To sit here and claim it's not socialist is ridiculous.

Economic systems don't end at socialism and communism. No, private corporations controlled by the state is not a socialist idea. This isn't to say that Nazis didn't have any socialist ideas - they did, after all, embrace welfare state - but this particular one isn't it.

But I do find it ironic that, while you insist that it really is socialist, actual communists and socialists around the world just as vehemently insist that it was actually the pinnacle and ultimate expression of capitalism. Clearly, it has some aspects of both, but is contrary to either one. Well, fascists themselves called their political platform "third position" (as in, "anti-socialist and anti-capitalist") for a reason.

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

P.S.

Just so you don't think I'm picking on Muslims, I will modify my last post: "There's no real difference. Fascists are simply less extreme versions of socialism (i.e. they support all socialist ideas, but not collectivism).

"Like how some Christians want to deport muslims back to Arabia (see WTC mosque protests), but less-extreme versions of Christians do not, and yet they are all Christians. They are all part of the same group.

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

If the Fascists support 95% of the policies of Socialists, except the collectivism bit (no private ownership of land/factories)

The "collectivist" bit is the defining characteristic of socialism. You can't have socialism without it, just like you cannot have capitalism without private property. The "95%" bit is silly - it's as if you have pure capitalism, and then any deviation from it is automatically N%-socialism. That's obviously wrong.

Like how some Muslims want to see the Pope "go to hell" (see London protests), but less-extreme versions of Muslims do not, and yet they are all Muslims. They are all part of the same group.

The defining characteristic of Islam is belief in the oneness of God, and that Muhammad was the final Prophet of God. Someone who does not adhere to either belief is not a Muslim, even if he practices many of the same rituals. One example of such would be Ahmadiyya.

Similarly, fascists partake in many of the same "rituals" as etatist socialists (totalitarianism, economic interventionism), but their fundamental ideology is different at its core. Socialists believe in socioeconomic equality and "fairness" as a core idea, an axiom that needs no proof, and from which everything else (including state and authoritarianism of the "dictatorship of the proletariat") follows. Fascists do not; for them, etatism is a thing virtuous in and of itself, and any economic regulation and redistribution of wealth is used only insofar as it contributes to the power and stability of the state. They don't aim to equalize fully, but only enough so as to prevent class struggle within the state.

Re:Deadline

[shutdown -p now]

... and in a similar example to my other reply - belief in oneness of god, and in Jesus as the Son of God (which prenecessitates the concept of Trinity) is the key characteristic of being a Christian. Consequently, neither Mormons nor Jehova's Witnesses are Christians, even though they otherwise share large parts of theology, and many similar rituals.

Re:Deadline

[techno-vampire]

Exactly. Of course, their bias is liberal, so the Slashtards never complain about it. In fact, I personally doubt that most of them are aware that it's a bias at all.

Re:Deadline

[Belial6]

From your link:

In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us a citizens or the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.

You think it is fare to liken a man who wrote that as being anything like Hitler? Yes, he was an expansionist, as everyone at the time was, but your link points out that he did NOT want to commit genocide, and in fact wanted to bring the Indians into his society. He was clearly stating that they either could stay and be one of 'us', or leave.

I know it is trendy to hate the early US 'white man', but as conquering nations go, the US was pretty tame.

Re:Deadline

[Pojut]

As I mentioned in a post earlier in this discussion, I don't think any US president (yes, including Bush and Obama) should be compared to Hitler.

There was an AC who asked (seemingly genuinely) what Jackson ever did that could be considered bad, so I offered up the major thing that I know is considered bad about Jackson. Didn't provide my opinion on the matter one way or the other, just merely provided the information.

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

It that they lie, and are hypocrites, and bullies.

Bullies?

Really? Who did FOX bully?

I love how that was the item you chose to argue against, Troll64 XD

Reminds me of The Simpsons.

Woman: "You ugly, hate-filled man!"

Moe Szyslak: "Hey, I may be ugly and I may be hate-filled, but I am not.. um, what was that third thing?"

Re:Deadline

[commodore64_love]

They did not.

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

While you make a good argument... Scholars may argue over whether Europeans effectively spread diseases intentionally but there is little doubt that they tried. From wikipedia...

On June 29, 1763, a week after the siege began, Bouquet was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt when he received a letter from Amherst making the following proposal: "Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.

"Bouquet agreed, writing back to Amherst on July 13, 1763: "I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself." Amherst responded favorably on July 16, 1763: "You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race."[2]

Re:Deadline

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that wages also decreased during that time period, right?

Average weekly wages in 1800: $16

Average weekly wages in 1900: $7

Another source for 1900 weekly wages, this one claiming around $9.26 weekly.

Re:Deadline

[similar_name]

From http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/result.php

$0.67 in the year 1900 has the same "purchase power" as $1 in the year 1800.

It would appear there was deflation over that period. Also, paper money was disconnected from precious metals several times throughout U.S. history. Typically around wartime. I tend to think the purpose of money is to provide liquidity and a floating currency provides more liquidity than a fixed one. Besides I never saw any intrinsic value in rocks. Can't eat or drink them. I think if we were going to tie it to anything, energy would be a much more rational valuation of the wealth of a country.

Re:Deadline

[mjwx]

As for BBC, they too have a bias. There's is pro-EU and pro-centralization

Despite this being typical anti-Beeb rhetoric...

I said the Beeb separates out it's biased content from its factual content. So the pro-EU stories you'll only see on BBC World, not BBC News. The Beeb does not print crap and try to create controversy like the Daily Mail and has quite a few openly anti-EU presenters (Hammond, May and Clarkson just to name a few) but then again Top Gear isn't advertised as news either.

But the real issue is when they stations outright lie, Fox and to a lesser extent the Daily Mail deliberately print/broadcast "non-truths", the only difference is the Daily Mail is not permitted to do it legally (doesn't stop them though). With the BBC, they are forced to issue retractions when someone spots a factual error in their news.

Re:Deadline

[bogjobber]

No, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. There is no other cable channel as blatantly partisan as Fox News. MSNBC may seem similar because Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann's shows are liberal counterparts to Fox's primetime shows, but Joe Scarborough certainly isn't a liberal and they give him three hours a day. Ed Schultz isn't a liberal either, he's more of a center-right populist in the mold of Lou Dobbs. What liberal or centrist has a show on Fox? All their pundits are not just conservative, but hard conservatives. Socially, fiscally, politically, they simply do not present liberal points of view on their network.

I'd say CNN is very similar to Fox in the way they present their news (ie they have very little of it) but its programming focuses more on soft news and doesn't feature politics as heavily. And I think the networks are fairly non-partisan. There are often conservative or liberal biases but the programming is more traditional. It seems like individuals have more control, whereas Fox has company-wide talking points and management can really promote a single story or point of view. PBS and NPR certainly are liberal, but they are just a loose group of individual stations. That business and organizational model is non-partisan almost by default.

That's really the part that distinguishes Fox from the other channels. They have strong relationships with the Republican party at a very high level, and they can and do control the information that people see in order to promote Republican political objectives. The fact that Fox News viewers are more likely to have fewer sources for their news amplifies this effect. No other channel compares.

The only thing on TV that is a left-leaning version of Fox is MSNBC's primetime programming and Bill Maher's show on HBO. And there certainly isn't anything compared to Fox's talk radio empire. Air America tried, but it sucked so bad that it died an early death.

NAT

[FuckingNickName]

Can we at least all agree that NAT is evil, and destroys one of the nicest features of TCP/IP (and a free Internet): it creates a network of peers?

Re:NAT

[crazygeek02]

Logical thought has no place on the internets.

Re:NAT

[Samantha Wright]

IPv6 still has NAT, dude. This just means we get to use it when we want it, instead of being forced into using it due to address shortages.

Re:NAT

[linuxgurugamer]

There actually isn't any need for NAT with IPV6. Each public address will have 64000 addresses available to do the equivilent of nat'ing.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

It also means that the generic outside-in security that is inherent in most home networks can go away. This is good then? Here's hoping the vendors selling $30 Wifi routers leave this enabled by default.

Re:NAT

[FranTaylor]

Yes, there still is a need for NAT if you don't like showing the world how many hosts you have behind your firewall.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISPs like that NAT makes it harder to run servers. I wouldn't be surprised if, even with IPv6, the ISPs insist on only giving you a NATed connection.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they just add a firewall rule that blocks incoming SYN from the WAN interface and be done with it.

Re:NAT

[AxemRed]

Unless Comcast decides to give me more IP addresses for free just because they can, I will have a need for NAT.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6 still has NAT, dude. This just means we get to use it when we want it, instead of being forced into using it due to address shortages.

Amen to that! NAT is an evil being forced on networks since the beginning of commercial internet - no home user could get a /28 or /24 IPv4 address. Now, home networks finally get a full /64 with a secondary /64 for PPP connection. Even a small ISP can easily get a /48 allowing for to 65k customers. With a /32, ISPs can easily have 4 *billion* access points, and they are only using 1-IPv4-equivalent of the address space.

NAT is a stupid hack, breaking protocols from Torrent, to FTP to SIP to simple UDP/TCP servers. NAT is not a security device, yet there are people that somehow believe it is. But then I guess going deaf can be considered a security vs. profanity too.

Re:NAT

[nj_peeps]

They do?? Every ISP I ever had the dis-pleasure of paying always gave me a public IP, that i could ping, ssh, etc. to.

Re:NAT

[Beetjebrak]

I'm already on IPv6 at home through sixxs.net. They (or actually SurfNet.nl) gave me a /48 all to myself. I can now give unique addresses to my mediacenter, my 2 notebooks, the lady's 2 notebooks and the SGI O2 that's purring peacefully in the corner. Now what to do with the zillion addresses I have left?

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do NAT on it. Last I heard iptables didn't support it, but in princible, it can be done. Just not been demanded enough to write the code.

The only situation in which you might actually need NAT is if your ISP is deliberatly limiting you to one IP for business reasons - eg, to prevent a business from using a cheaper residential connection, or discourage connection-shareing. It is still a potentially useful security tool though, as it can obscure your network specs from outside attackers. In some configurations (If you use auto-config) the IPv6 address will reveal the endpoint MAC address, so this can be quite important. If you know the MAC, you can identify a router's manufacturer, even model sometimes.

Re:NAT

[silas_moeckel]

And why would you need nat for that? Inbound scans can be blocked by the firewall on the router. Outbound traffic sniffing needs to approximate anyways either by looking at the IP's in use or how fast the ports change in NAT (PAT really). NAT has never been anything but security through obscurity over a standard firewall.

Re:NAT

[flyingfsck]

There are many situations that will still require NAT on IPv6. It won't go away.

Re:NAT

[Joe The Dragon]

but how many people and small business what all printers / desktops and more on the internet with any one can just type in and get to with no need for port forwarding or other stuff like it?

also will when AT&T and comcast even have IPv6? will they give you more then 1 ip other ipv6? this is the same comcast that wants $8 or more per tv to rent there box.

Re:NAT

[hsthompson69]

Eventually, every network gets subdivided at some piece of equipment, be it a transparent bridge or router somewhere. The idea of being a "peer" is an imaginary one really - other than boxes plugged into the exact same switch or router on the same subnet, you're doing a network traversal somewhere. NAT makes this traversal more explicit, perhaps, but evil?

Hell, if you really want other "peers", there's all kinds of VPN stuff you can do that will effectively give you the same thing.

Re:NAT

[Beetjebrak]

Require NAT? As in *REQUIRE* and be the absolutely non-optional best-if-not-only way to do something? Would you mind naming a few of such scenarios?

Re:NAT

[Abcd1234]

There are many situations that will still require NAT on IPv6.

Such as?

Re:NAT

[slapout]

There are quite a few "peers" I don't want connecting to my network.

Re:NAT

[simcop2387]

Actually on the current 6rd deployment of comcast they are giving out more ip addresses for free. Mostly because they have to or you can't use the privacy extensions of ipv6.

Re:NAT

[vlm]

Require NAT? As in *REQUIRE* and be the absolutely non-optional best-if-not-only way to do something? Would you mind naming a few of such scenarios?

Amongst the clueless, the answer usually revolves around "statefull firewalls can only be implemented by using NAT" or often some variety of security thru obscurity.

Amongst the clueful, the answer usually revolves around mobile vehicles with substantial LANs that want to talk to numerous fixed station networks, don't want to talk BGP, and don't want to do the proxy server thing. Another clueful application, although in my opinion generally misguided, is some pretty strange cluster based load balancing designs, although if it makes you feel better you can call your NAT box a "load balancer" instead of a NAT box, they are trying to do their load balancing directly at layer 3 instead of a proxy layer 7 solution or a DNS solution.

Re:NAT

[Spazmania]

That depends. Are your a corporate CEO agreeing to let me "peer" packets with your secretary's PC? 'Cause if you are then I agree that NAT has got to go. ;-)

Re:NAT

[jd]

The Internet is an illusion created by the Matrix.

Re:NAT

[jd]

Hard to say. MobileIP and NEMO allows a computer of one address to receive packets for a different address. Proxy servers (such as Squid) handle most other cases I can think of. Tunnels (IPSec) and Virtual Circuits (MPLS) handle most of the rest. I can think of no useful purpose for NAT given the non-NAT ways of achieving all of the results NAT provides.

Re:NAT

[hedwards]

Because most people are thinking of PAT rather than NAT. And NAT is usually used as an N:M mapping where there isn't a guarantee that the IP on one side resolves to one and only one IP on the other.

Re:NAT

[hedwards]

That's not done anymore, at least not around here. Back in 2000 or there abouts when we first got a cable modem, they included 3 static IPs. These days though, you typically get one IP and it's dynamic.

Re:NAT

[jd]

What's wrong with the clueful using migratory endpoints via MobileIP or NEMO? They were invented for precisely the problem you describe. IPv6 is especially good for this as the early design work concentrated on having an endpoint whose address and routing path could change during the course of a session. (ie: it isn't dependent on the mailbox approach that is sometimes used.)

Re:NAT

[jd]

And you don't use Squid or SOCKS5 why? There's plenty of ways to hide the hosts without using NAT. And hosts that don't need a direct connection to the Internet can be hidden via virtual circuits (MPLS for Linux has been out for some time), if you don't want to use a proxy.

Re:NAT

[FoolishOwl]

I keep seeing this mentioned as a security issue. Is there a specific risk in revealing the number of hosts? Or is it just the precautionary principle?

Re:NAT

[bbn]

There actually isn't any need for NAT with IPV6. Each public address will have 64000 addresses available to do the equivilent of nat'ing.

Wrong. You will have at least 18446744073709551616 (2^64) addresses available for your home network.

Re:NAT

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

the problem isn't that it's a security issue, it's that admins like to lie about how many hosts they have: and NAT let's them pretend they have lots

apparently it's 'cool' to tell people you have a hundred computers at home.

beyond that, it's people honestly thinking that "unless they have firewalls on all those computers, they're all connected directly to the interwebz!! unprotected and there's nothing you can do without nat!" completely failing to understand how routing works.

Re:NAT

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

that's a little more likely, as the SMALLEST subnet you can be assigned is a /64.

though there's technically nothing from preventing an ISP from assigning it's customers a /96 or even a /112. I expect a lot of the smaller private ISP's here north of the US border will likely fail to understand how IPv6 addressing works, and just get a /64 from their provider (instead of a /48 or a /32) then having to assign /80's or smaller and breaking eui64.

and again, many small ISP's honestly think that customers prefer NAT. (and strangly, many do! people honestly just want nat, because it makes them think "my private network is different from the internet! I'm safe!")

Re:NAT

[Abcd1234]

So then firewall them away. Is that *really* so hard? Or are you just incompetent?

Re:NAT

[FoolishOwl]

Comcast is beta testing IPv6 for residential users. IIRC, you're assigned a /64, and that is the minimum assignment for an end user of IPv6. The host address is 64 bits, conventionally based on your MAC address; there's an RFC for generating a host address that's not based on your MAC address, and therefore more anonymous, and that's implemented by default on Windows 7. You can override the assigned host address, and assign an arbitrary address. A /64 means you've got 2^64 addresses to choose from, which is a bit more than four billion times the address space of the entire IPv4 Internet; that should be enough for most home users.

Comcast will dynamically assign IPv6 addresses, not statically; however, they will have 30-day leases. Dynamic DNS services exist that can cope with addresses that change every few hours, so that shouldn't be much trouble for light-duty Web hosting. My dynamically assigned IPv4 address has been the same for the year or so I've had Comcast.

The beta test seems to be going very slowly, which surprises me, but at least it's going, and that's one of the biggest ISPs in the US, so we'll eventually get IPv6. Meanwhile, there's tunnelbroker.net and sixxs.net.

Re:NAT

[mikael_j]

A firewall/packet filter is not the same thing as NAT, you don't need the latter to have the former. In fact, it used to be that the internet was pretty much free of NAT but there were still firewalls (although they tended to be a lot less restrictive in what services were blocked).

Re:NAT

[FoolishOwl]

Dynamic DNS is pretty damned easy to configure.

Re:NAT

[camperdave]

Amongst the clueful, the answer usually revolves around mobile vehicles with substantial LANs that want to talk to numerous fixed station networks, don't want to talk BGP, and don't want to do the proxy server thing. Another clueful application, although in my opinion generally misguided, is some pretty strange cluster based load balancing designs, although if it makes you feel better you can call your NAT box a "load balancer" instead of a NAT box, they are trying to do their load balancing directly at layer 3 instead of a proxy layer 7 solution or a DNS solution.

That's what anycast addresses are for. Multiple machines get the same anycast IP address, and the internet routes your traffic to the "closest" appropriate server.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called defense in depth. why only use one when both is better?

Re:NAT

[jgrahn]

Eventually, every network gets subdivided at some piece of equipment, be it a transparent bridge or router somewhere. The idea of being a "peer" is an imaginary one really - other than boxes plugged into the exact same switch or router on the same subnet, you're doing a network traversal somewhere.

Huh? It's simple. Being peers means that A can contact B and B can contact A, on equal terms as far as the network is concerned. It doesn't matter if you're on the same link or not (thus the "inter" in "internet").

NAT makes this traversal more explicit, perhaps, but evil?

Evil or not, without NAT you have peers, With NAT you don't. That's a fact, not hair-splitting.

Hell, if you really want other "peers", there's all kinds of VPN stuff you can do that will effectively give you the same thing.

What if I want to use the internet as it was intended, with no kludges on top?

Re:NAT

[vlm]

What's wrong with the clueful using migratory endpoints via ... NEMO?

Pre version 12.4(20) or 15.0 IOS cisco routers?

Its always possible to add an endless number of requirements till "it just won't work without NAT".

I want to see NAT go away as much as everyone else (except for large NAT box vendors, which is probably why we have to hear all this).

Re:NAT

[Machtyn]

Ask the typical user... you know, the one that can barely setup and secure their wireless router and laptop, even when the software practically does it for them.

Re:NAT

[Anpheus]

NAT is terrible, and VPN is an abomination. Honestly, if I'm plugged into network A and I want to talk to network B, why do I have be conscious of the fact that it might not work if they use the same subnets? Terrible.

It totally destroys the idea of being able to talk to something directly. IPv4 didn't cause the status quo, with businesses and their servers being the gatekeepers of knowledge and messaging, but if we don't switch to IPv6, we'll never have a shot at a good peer to peer model again.

Or what happens when IPv4 congestion gets to the point that even my broadband doesn't get a public IP, that my ISP starts NATing customers together? Do I call them and ask for port forwards and pray another customer hasn't done that already?

Re:NAT

[vlm]

That's what anycast addresses are for. Multiple machines get the same anycast IP address, and the internet routes your traffic to the "closest" appropriate server.

Works great with, say, a DNS root server in every country. Not so good at a single physical site.

Re:NAT

[Lord Ender]

You can do NAT in IPv6 if you want to. But there is no need to use NAT with IPv6. Doing so is just a sign of incompetence on the part of network administrators... it would be like installing a hand crank on your new car because you fear and misunderstand electric starters.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, firewalls are impenetrable. No need for anything more. Let's all use routable addresses. That's the smart thing to do.

Re:NAT

[dave024]

NAT could also be used in a business if they didn't want to risk needing to give new IP addresses everywhere if they switched ISPs.

Re:NAT

[hsthompson69]

Being peers means that A can contact B and B can contact A, on equal terms as far as the network is concerned.

Which is why we have the VPN "kludges" on top :)

Yes, not exactly ideal, but I'll still assert that even with ipv6, you've still got "kludges" that obfuscate the fact that your network traversal isn't as simple as just knocking on a port on a local subnet. Once you're past that first switch, you may *think* you're on equal terms with your peer, but you're getting routed in a way that is distinctly different than if you were hitting a box on the local subnet, like it or not.

I guess I'm of the cynical opinion that if NAT wasn't "good enough", it would have been replaced already. As cool as it may seem to have an ip address for every screw and nail in my entire house, it just hasn't been nearly as important as the folk who have been playing with ipv6 thought.

Re:NAT

[Wonko the Sane]

That doesn't make any sense.

If those businesses had any sense they would use stateless autoconfiguration to assign addresses in which case there is no hassle of "giving out new IP addresses".

If they were really worried about addresses changing for something like internal DNS then the could always refer to the fe80:: address instead.

Re:NAT

[dave024]

And if they had 500 routers they would all somehow use stateless autoconfiguration? I'm against NAT myself, but a business not needing to reconfigure their network when changing ISPs is a halfway decent argument for it that I have heard.

Re:NAT

[FoolishOwl]

To be fair, part of the reason that people don't understand how routing works is that NAT, and the workarounds and hacks to allow direct peer-to-peer communications through NAT, obscures the design of routing.

Of course, that's why a lot of networking people hope for IPv6 to be a great relief: it's a return to a relatively straightforward model of IP routing from one machine to another.

I've kept seeing it pointed out that any security offered by NAT is a side-effect of its original purpose: sharing a single public IP address among many nodes. That sort of security is better handled by a properly configured firewall, anyway, and routers and modern operating systems ship with firewalls.

I've just been puzzled at the recurring insistence that revealing the number of nodes in a subnet is a security issue. Okay, I've got twelve nodes. What's that tell anyone?

Re:NAT

[Coren22]

I'm about to blow your mind, so you might want to sit down.

www.dyndns.com

and it is free.

Re:NAT

[hsthompson69]

what happens when IPv4 congestion gets to the point that even my broadband doesn't get a public IP, that my ISP starts NATing customers together

Actually, that's a really good point - and I think it's when that happens that we setup a worldwide ipv6 VPN :)

I'm all happy about the idea of ipv6, but as kludgy as ipv4 is, it's still working. Not pretty, not elegant, but workable - and I'm familiar with the ups and downs of how to keep it workable. ipv6, on the other hand, as pretty as it is, I just haven't seen any deployment large enough to convince me that there aren't unintended consequences - i mean, just imagine if malware didn't get stopped at the gates of each NAT it encountered, but instead had direct addressibility to everything in your local network? (yes, yes, I know, don't run windoze...words to live by)

I guess this whole thing kinda smells like the y2k thing - lots of worrying, but I'm not convinced that doomsday will really happen.

Re:NAT

[dwye]

The address shortages were caused by ISPs charging for each IP address, not by the fear of the world (but not US/Canada, mind -- inventing the Internet has its perks) running out of address space. Prove that this will vanish with IPv6 and I *might* listen about how NAT is "evil" or needed to serve the Chinese or Africa.

Re:NAT

[Anpheus]

NAT != Stateful firewall. No one is suggesting getting rid of the latter any time soon.

In fact, the Windows firewall can be configured to apply different policies base on the source of the packet, just like any "real" firewall you'd want.

And yes, like y2k it is a drummed up doomsday sort of thing, but unlike y2k, it will happen. It just won't happen all at once, it'll be a slow, painful thing that will cost a lot of money, a lot of time. Do you run IPv6 in your local network? Why not?

I run IPv6 on all my networks, and as soon as our ISP has public IPs available, we will take advantage of that as well. The hardware stack is *all there*, the software stack is *all there*, it's been tested, vetted, and is supported on every operating system. IPv6 is trivial to deploy internally, why not use it?

Re:NAT

[Just Some Guy]

Yeah, because I don't want anyone pinging the 2^64 addresses in my home netblock to see which ones reply.

Re:NAT

[yorugua]

> Can we at least all agree that NAT is evil, and destroys one of the nicest features of TCP/IP (and a free Internet): it creates a network of peers? No. some people with internal networks to "protect" see NAT at the border as a feature to implement a "choke point" and be sure that the internal network can not be routed over the internet. Now having each node in your internal network "routeable" from the internet will make for interesting things to happen if you make a mistake in the border.

Re:NAT

[yorugua]

> And why would you need nat for that? Inbound scans can be blocked by the firewall on the router. Outbound traffic sniffing needs to approximate anyways either by looking at the IP's in use or how fast the ports change in NAT (PAT really). NAT has never been anything but security through obscurity over a standard firewall.

Because being sure that your internal network can not be addressed from the internet as it uses private IP numbers is a way to add security by making sure that if you make a mistake in the border, at least there's no way to address your internal network directly. The people that implement this see this NAT as a feature. If you don't need to use it, please don't.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I've got twelve nodes. What's that tell anyone?

As your ISP, it tells me I'm not charging you enough money.

Re:NAT

[hardburn]

It's a general principle that the less information you give the attacker, the better. The attacker starts with knowing you have 12 hosts, then maybe figures out the open ports or hostnames of those boxes. Knowing the hostnames, they then might be able to use that information for Social Engineering purposes.

But as you say, there's nothing here that technically requires NAT. A good firewall can do exactly the same thing. Plus, if you were relying on the fact that an attacker doesn't know how many hosts you have, then you didn't have very good of security to begin with.

Re:NAT

[hsthompson69]

In fact, the Windows firewall can be configured to apply different policies base on the source of the packet, just like any "real" firewall you'd want.

Yeah, just had an interesting conversation at work about that - am I really willing to assert that each box run its own iptables process, or would I like to have some hardware router take care of that for me? In our case, we're looking at doing our own iptables because we can't get decent support from the guys in charge of the network hardware, but I think in general, we'd assert that having a firewall run interference for an entire subnet is a Good Thing(TM). Now granted, ipv6 doesn't mean I can't have NAT, but it seems that the assertion that *everyone* should be peers does have some other consequences.

IPv6 is trivial to deploy internally, why not use it?

Good question. Probably mostly because I've already got a backlog that'll take me months to get through :)

Now, at home, I actually disabled IPv6 because I was trying to diagnose some VPN issues (yes, I know, yet another hit against VPN technology :) ) - I suppose I could try going completely ipv6 behind my wireless router, but I guess I just haven't thought of it yet.

It just won't happen all at once, it'll be a slow, painful thing that will cost a lot of money, a lot of time.

And I think you nailed it right there - because it's a slow thing, that will take only bits of money spread out over a lot of time, it's always going to be at the bottom of the things to do stack.

Re:NAT

[geekoid]

no, it's not evil.

Re:NAT

[madbavarian]

What is needed is a compelling reason for people to get out from under NAT. Most people are so used to the Microsoft way of doing things with their desktop computer being so functionless that they can only work in conjunction with a remote server to do anything of significance. They can't host their own web pages, they can't get email delivered directly to their computer, they can't make a voice call directly to another computer etc. There are tons of application that could be written if everything was on the net directly. Anyone for syncing all their computers (files, bookmarks, etc?) without having to copy them via a remotely located server? We need to start writing these applications and tell the people hiding behind NAT boxes that they are SOL till they get themselves real, routable addresses.

Re:NAT

[silas_moeckel]

That is all fine and dandy if you feel like breaking things your free to do so. IPv6 is setup to insure nobody can force you to break things and does not work on the assumption that NAT exists in a IPv6 world. Requiring that ISP's hand out large address ranges per connection is a good idea if you feel like only using one of them and some NAT you can just do not expect everything to work. I guess you could use native appletalk for all security related tasks as well for all the good it will do you.

PS if your actually using NAT (not PAT overload) you can still have an allow all inbound just because the real IP and the internal IP are temporary does not make it secure.

Re:NAT

[mjwx]

Actually on the current 6rd deployment of comcast they are giving out more ip addresses for free.

The sixrd deployment?

Re:NAT

[r7]

NAT is only evil if you are a Google, a Government, or some other entity who is effectively prevented from monitoring someone because they do not have a unique IP address. NAT is the most effective privacy tool on the Internet. The only people calling it evil are ILECs, doubleclicks, and spies.

Of course NAT is also good when you want to switch Internet providers, or have more than one ISP. Without it you would have to renumber all your internal hosts to change or fail-over. ILECs have so far blocked NAT in IPv6 because it will provide such good vendor lock-in.

NAT is also incredibly effective in firewalling outside hosts from getting a free pass to internal networks. Of course spies, "aggregators", and spyware vendors don't like this.

The sad part is that few will adopt IPv6 until it has a standardized NAT. ILECs don't really care if this never happens because they will make a bundle reselling addresses in the resulting IPv4 bubble. Not just ILECs of course, but companies like Cisco, HP, and even Allstate Insurance who registered millions of IP addresses decades ago, before the advent of CIDR.

I guess all this is not really so sad when you consider that what's really sad is our (US) government, who can't even see what's coming down the pike.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Each public address already has (over) 64000 sub-addresses available. They are called "ports." When you configure a router to direct traffic on a certain port to a certain host, we call that "NAT" and for some reason people think that's bad, but when you do the exact same thing with IPv6 people think it's okay. I do not understand why the exact same concept in one system is evil, but great in the other. You folks need to make up your minds.

Re:NAT

[cyclomedia]

I don't get it though, surely if you have PING disabled (amongst other things, obviously) no one can tell how many machines you have?

Also if you still have a proper firewall you'd only let traffic in to the IPs + Ports you wanted to expose anyway?

What am I missing here?

Re:NAT

[RichiH]

> mobile vehicles with substantial LANs that want to talk to numerous fixed station networks, don't want to talk BGP, and don't want to do the proxy server thing

1) Why would you use BGP for internal routing? Or does every cell phone get its own AS and PI?

2) Why would the CPEs be allowed to affect routing? The cell towers and their backbone do that.

3) With proper subnetting (most people stay in one region most of the time), this is not an issue

4) If a Telco can scale to a few million routed telephone numbers, they can scale to a few million routed /64.

Roaming and/or switching between upstreams would be a concern in both NAT and non-NAT scenarios.

Re:NAT

[RichiH]

Segregation on layer 1 and 2 is of no concern when looking at layer 3. That is why they invented layers. Subnetting allows for aggregation and easier routing. It is, in theory, not needed for making connections.

So yes, NAT destroys peer structures.

Re:NAT

[Anpheus]

Transitioning to IPv6 means users will have more control over access to their network, not less. No one is suggesting getting rid of stateful firewalls or the combination router/firewall at the edge of your network. Everyone being peers doesn't preclude that, stateful firewalls with public IPs on both sides are able to more intelligently manage traffic than a NAT with a private subnet that appears to the rest of the world as a single IP.

Re:NAT

[simcop2387]

It's a really stupid name that stands for IPv6 Rapid Deployment. that was my first reaction to the name too.

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Most wireless networks I see round where I live are secured with WPA/WPA2, all it takes for that to happen is for it to be the default setting on the router out of the box, same for the firewall, so long as it is on by default I don't see why the average user would have a problem with it.

Monthly reminder

[slaxative]

Coming up next ... our monthly reminder of ipv4's demise. How many stories can you guys come up with that basically dance around the same issue? We know its happening, now we're just waiting for everyone to catch up and get compliant.

Re:Monthly reminder

[Austerity Empowers]

In other news, the sun will soon explode. Obama's technical team is doing nothing about this either.

Re:Monthly reminder

[theaveng]

Some people follow /. less than others and this is the first they ever 'erd of it

Re:Monthly reminder

[TheRedDuke]

We're running out of IPv4 addresses? PANIC!!!!

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[tg123]

Congratulations on the first post. Very difficult to do these days.

IPv4 will probably outlast IPv6

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't doubt that IPv4 fails to run out of addresses before IPv6 is superceded.

Re:IPv4 will probably outlast IPv6

[LiquidLink57]

I might not fail to take the opposite a short amount of time to not quite understand your non-lack of negatives.

What's IPv6? Who's Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an average slashdothead, I am above the curveball, but who is ipv6 and what is obama? These should be explained before?

Already Run Out

[WED Fan]

Weren't all addresses supposed to be gone by now? That's problem with doomsday predictions IPv4, warming, God, it never happens as scheduled and then people just ignore you next time you start predicting. If we were more temperate about our predictions, people wouldn't dismiss them as more of the same "sky-is-falling" crapola.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, if we gave up on all the conspiracy theories, what would I do with my perfectly good tinfoil hat? We're going to run out of IP's on December 21, 2012, as global warming makes the oceans rise over every coastal city in the world, and asteroid Toutatis crashes into every major city in the world, and the [pick a party] will [pick a horrendous act] to the [pick a group]!

    And all I can do is put on my trusty hat, break open a fine bottle of liquor (fine being the closest one), and start singing "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.... and I feel fine.. la la la ... la la la ..."

It doesn't matter much to me,
I'm the one with the Tardis key,
*AND* I know where it's parked.
la la la ...
la la la ...

It's the end of your world as you know it ...
and I feel fine ....
la la la ...
la la la ...

Re:Already Run Out

[theaveng]

You mean like how "they" always assume worst case?

Peak Oil will hit in 2005 they told us, but that year came and went. They should have used a more conservative estimate and said 2030 will be the year, instead of going with worst case. IPv4 will probably run out in 2020 +/- a year or two.

Re:Already Run Out

[kestasjk]

To be honest the whole "addresses are running out" thing is just a way to sell IPv6 to laypeople, because "we have 4 billion addresses and over 6 billion people" is so easy to understand.

In reality it's about getting rid of the restrictions of needing network address translation, allowing devices to be accessible by one address anywhere, unifying different forms of addressing like phone numbers, IPv4 addresses, multicast/anycast addresses, etc all into one address space, making routing more efficient, making autoconfiguration more seamless, getting built-in cryptography, etc, etc, etc.
Addresses running out is, for the reasons you give and more, really not what it's about, but it is a bit heart-wrenching to see tech-savvy people say we shouldn't go for IPv6 because we're not really running out; we aren't, but we still need to go for IPv6, and if tech-savvy people don't have one mind on this issue it'll take far longer than it should.

Re:Already Run Out

[AnonymousClown]

If we were more temperate about our predictions, people wouldn't dismiss them as more of the same "sky-is-falling" crapola.

In this day and age of information overload, nobody listens to you unless you make a lot of noise and say outrageous things. There's an incredibly high noise threshold to overcome.

There's no room for calm rational discussions in today's media, either. Hence the popularity of people like Glenn Beck.

Re:Already Run Out

[vlm]

Peak Oil will hit in 2005 they told us, but that year came and went. They should have used a more conservative estimate and said 2030 will be the year, instead of going with worst case.

Peak oil is an interesting example. You see, peak oil in the USA was in something like 1967. Mexico has been in oil production decline since 2006.

Similarly, it will be interesting to watch ipv4 addrs run out. Perhaps ARIN will run out before APNIC, or vice versa. That will be an interesting time to watch.

Re:Already Run Out

[afabbro]

Weren't all addresses supposed to be gone by now?

What will likely happen is that the price of an IPv4 address will rise (it hasn't). As it does, people holding blocks of ipv4 will release them - for example, I think HP has two Class As. Merck has a Class A. Etcetera - the main reason they hold on to them at this point is that they don't want to pay the cost of migrating to a 10.x. At some point, they will become valuable enough that these holders will move (and also Class Bs, etc.)

The price equilibrium will see-saw for a while (price rises, people release, price falls, etc.) but yes, on the far side of all that activity, we'll be at a point where we really are running low on ipv4.

That process hasn't even started yet. We're nowhere near running low on ipv4.

Re:Already Run Out

[interval1066]

Its never been as huge a looming problem as first predicted thanks to NAT.

Re:Already Run Out

[A beautiful mind]

we aren't,

[citation needed]

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. that's an over billing. ip6 no more has built-in
crypto than ip4 does. and sorry. nat is here to stay.

what you're missing is that ip6 is really hatable from
a tech standpoint because it refuses to interoperate with
ip4. if it has done that, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
 

Re:Already Run Out

[hedwards]

For an estimate made in the mid 50s, it was astonishingly accurate. Remember that was prior to the 70s and OPEC or the modern increases in fuel effiency.

Remember, just because you think you know better than the experts doesn't necessarily mean that you do. For estimates that were made when they were, those estimates proved to be quite good. The only reason we haven't run out of IPv4 addresses yet is the rampant abuse of NAT and reuse of various blocks of private IPs.

Re:Already Run Out

[bbn]

Weren't all addresses supposed to be gone by now? That's problem with doomsday predictions IPv4, warming, God, it never happens as scheduled and then people just ignore you next time you start predicting. If we were more temperate about our predictions, people wouldn't dismiss them as more of the same "sky-is-falling" crapola.

No. That is the problem with people getting the warning early. You simply can't handle it. We said in 10 years, but now you keep saying each year, why has it not happened yet?!. Well duh, because the 10 years not over yet!.

The actual date is May 2011. This should be a short enough timespan that even normals can figure out it is going to happen real soon now.

Re:Already Run Out

[minor_deity]

The IP market is not a free market, you can't really sell IP addresses like that. Instead what would happen is that HP would either have to become an ISP (or spin off an ISP division) or release the block(s) back to ARIN. ARIN would then assign them according to their existing policies. Further more, new blocks cost a yearly upkeep fee whereas if you were grandfathered in (like HP was) then there is no fee.

Because of this there isn't really any incentive at all (except perhaps some very very small PR) for returning blocks, and that's not even thinking about the costs associated with moving to a new IP range or the abject stupidity of NAT.

Re:Already Run Out

[bbn]

What will likely happen is that the price of an IPv4 address will rise (it hasn't). As it does, people holding blocks of ipv4 will release them...

No as the price for IPv4 increases IPv6 will get its killer application: It will provide something for free that has a real cost in the v4 world. It will get the ball rolling and soon enough nobody cares about IPv4.

Luckily the big ISPs have already seen this and have IPv6 trials going. In a year it will be an option for everyone.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell that to ARIN:

IP space limiting competition in Canada

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

You still haven't convinced me of any real need for IPv6 besides satisfying IPv6 investors. Please insert 2 quarters to continue.

Re:Already Run Out

[Wildclaw]

Weren't all addresses supposed to be gone by now?

No. Predictions have steadily pointed at 2011-2012 for quite a while. Just look at potaroo.net's ipv4 report that has multiple versions on archive.org.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Instead we have the huge problem that is NAT.

Re:Already Run Out

[mikael_j]

No, the predictions for when the last /8 blocks will be gone have been adjusted a little over the years but no, no one's been saying we'd be completely out of addresses by now (no one with a clue anyway). Every time the issue comes up there does seem to be a whole bunch of people who either say "YOU SAID THEY'D ALL BE GONE NOW!", "WE DON'T NEED IPv6! IT'S A SCAM!" and of course "WITHOUT NAT BOTNETS WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD BECAUSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PACKET FILTERING AND ADDRESS TRANSLATION!!11".

Sorry about the caps but I keep seeing these three "arguments" repeated over and over and over and over and over again. And they always get refuted but at some point I just expect people to actually pay attention and learn something...

Re:Already Run Out

[Anpheus]

IPv6 makes IPSEC a mandatory part of the specification, it's optional for IPv4.

Re:Already Run Out

[Machtyn]

A lot of people complain about NAT. And while I will grant that it does not offer a lot of protection, at least it's not like plugging in the Windows XP SP1 computer straight into that DSL Modem with a public IP address. pwnd faster than the user's tech guy can install a decent firewall and a/v.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anpheus]

How about the ability to finally solve the NAT problem and allow secure connectivity worldwide, without needing tunnels, overlapping address spaces or anything with the letters "VPN" in it any more? If my phone, my laptop, and my business all speak IPv6 and have certificates, it means my phone can talk directly to my mailserver in a secure way. I could access an internal website over port 80 and be completely confident that it was secure, if only IPv6 with IPSEC became a reality.

IPv6 is a huge, huge deal to connectivity. Right now every gaming console, every phone and mobile device relies on hacks upon hacks upon IPv4 to operate correctly and communicate. IPv6 solves virtually all of these problems in one fell swoop.

Re:Already Run Out

[theaveng]

Yes

But the Park Oil estimate was updated in the year 1995, and they still predicted "between 2005 and 2010" as when Global Peak Oil would hit. Not even close to accurate.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anpheus]

As I said to the guy who suggested encoding regular expressions in XML (all the understandability of regex and all the terseness of XML, brilliant!):

Now you have two problems.

Re:Already Run Out

[MorpheousMarty]

I see what you're saying, so let's setup a simple argument for all tech-savvy people on this issue that won't require them to say IPv4 is running out.

How about:
Although we do have workarounds which are quite effective in solving the problem with the limited number of IPv4 addresses, the limited number of addresses is a good represtation of other limitations in IPv4 which IPv6 solves.

Ok, that was a quick shot at this, can someone with some writing skills take a crack at this?

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to personally see any ISP that gives out IPv6 IP's or even an option to have them. That is both residential or datacenter. The closest I've seen are a few IPv6 gateways. They weren't able to handle the load that I had required as a business customer (several GB/s nominally). As a residential customer, I'm given the choice of IPv4 or nothing.

    Having a few organizations playing with the idea is far from an implementation.

    I was using an IPv6 gateway service at home for a while. That was spiffy keen. I had an IPv6 address, which I had to tunnel to their gateway. It was fine and dandy when it worked. I could get to what a handful IPv6 enabled sites? I eventually disabled it after I was very annoyed about the connection going up and down.

    If it's going to be implemented, it needs to be done. The big residential providers need to start handing out IPv6 addresses. They can gate the IPv4 traffic. As businesses start bringing up their IPv6 versions, then the dependence on the IPv4 gateways will dwindle down to nothing and voila, it's done.

    But no. I can't get an IPv6 address at home. I can't get an IPv6 address for my servers. Since it can't happen, it's not going to happen. It's not most of our faults. What am I going to do, call my provider about it. Ya, that gets you an awful long way. Most of the time, the idiots answering the phone don't even understand what an IP is, other than "you're suppose to have an IP", and that it has numbers and dots in it.

    The time has long since passed for IPv6 to happen. I'm as confident in it as I am that Duke Nukem Forever is going to be released. Sure, there was noise. There's been lots of noise for a long time. Noise doesn't bring flying cars, space vacations, the Internet2, nor IPv6.

Re:Already Run Out

[bbn]

You just need to sign up with Comcast: http://www.comcast6.net/

They are only running trials at this exact moment, but they should have general IPv6 availability soon enough.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2008 it was predicted to happen in about 3 years. In 2009 it was predicted to happen in just over 2 years. In 2010 it is predicted to happen next year. You're right, all these crazy nonsensical predictions, they could mean anything...

Or wait, three years from 2008 is 2011. Two years from 2009 is 2011. One year from 2010 is 2011. I think they're trying to tell us something. Wait, I know what it is: IANA address exhaustion will occur in 2011.

Now, IANA exhaustion doesn't mean the Internet stops working over night. But it does trigger "regime change" for address management. Right now the model is "allocate on presumption". If your ISP gets 5000 new customers per month, and gives them one static IP (miserly) then you'll need 60 000 addresses in a year, so we can give you a /16 right now. But next year, when you need space for the next 60 000 customers, there are no addresses to give you. Either you buy IPv6 capable gear and migrate those customers or you start turning them away (Hint: if you do the latter your investors will cash out).

No major ISP has any plans for this. They're all hoping somebody else has a plan, which they can copy. Once it becomes obvious that no-one has a plan, they'll all panic. Expect a LOT of bankruptcies from ISPs, at first explained away as being due to a problem with one specific business, and only later established as a pattern connected to lack of preparation for address exhaustion. Government ministers will wring their hands and say "Next time we will be properly prepared" and then an aide will whisper and they'll repeat that much louder, because the aide has just told them there won't be a next time...

Re:Already Run Out

[yorugua]

> How about the ability to finally solve the NAT problem I'm sure a bank that has a good number of systems at his offices will be delighted to hear that now they are fully available worldwide. The "NAT at the border" is more of a feature than a bug to many of this type of organizations.

Re:Already Run Out

[hardburn]

What protection does NAT give you that you can't get with just a packet filtering firewall on your home gateway?

Re:Already Run Out

[geekoid]

Yes, we actually are running out.

I'm not sure why you think IPv4 is infinite

Re:Already Run Out

[horza]

[Obama] has ignored one of the biggest issues facing the Internet: the rapid depletion of IPv4 Internet addresses and the imminent need for carriers and content providers to adopt IPv6

Not only are we not really running out, but it's nowhere near one of the biggest issues facing the Internet. Bigger ones would include:
* the 95%+ of email traffic being spam
* all the phishing and malware exploits
* net neutrality
* the shift to video as a medium, and bandwidth
* media companies prosecuting random citizens
* governments starting to cut people off from the Internet (US, France, UK)

IP6 is good for the reasons kestasjk mentions, but hyping it up as such a crisis loses the author credibility.

Phillip.

Re:Already Run Out

[horza]

Neither is IPv6 infinite.

Phillip.

Re:Already Run Out

[samson13]

The limited address space is the real problem and the shortage has been leading networking issues for years. IPv6's extra space, the minimum subnet of /64 and the large rfc1918 eqivalent space will make things lots easier.

How often has somebody allocated a /30 for a routing/firewall segment that then needed HA some years later (2 real addresses and a floating). The /30 is then wasted because its to small to be useful without making a mess of routing.

In around two years it will be impossible to get portable address space allocated. If I have the next big killer application I'll be tied to whatever single ISP wants to rent some address space to me. If they have routing problems I won't be able to fail my routes over to somebody else.

I've seen a client fill a B class network. They built their addressing scheme many years ago when Bs were still given out and in the years since grew in ways they hadn't predicted. Of course some of their server farms turned out much bigger, some of their locations turned out smaller than planned wasting space. Basically they ended up with a mess that was difficult to clean up. IPv6 won't get to that sort of fragmentation since /64s will always be useful.

I've seen many situations where large organisations use 10/8 for their internal networks. They then merge, split or go partnership with somebody that requires private links between the organisations. I've seen situation where application servers that needed to talk to each other were on the same 10.x.y.z and the NAT nightmare between them sucked. Every device had a different address depending on who you talked to.

People talk about IBM should give back their A. Without that A there would be a NAT nightmare between everybody that IBM connects to for their management services. Imagine how many 10/8 networks IBMs NOC talks to and imagine what it would be like if they were also 10/8.

I can imagine all the big companies moving to public v6 address space for their private networks but never advertising it to the Internet. The outbound traffic will be NATed/proxied at the gateway. This will make the corporate merge/split/peer cycle easier to deal with.

Re:Already Run Out

[pandaman9000]

IPV6 will allow any properly secured device, even your TV or refrigerator to be directly accessible from most parts of the world. This will usher in a new era of programmable and remotely controllable houses and devices to automate many aspects of our lives. Imagine resetting your alarm clock, coffee maker, and thermostat settings to accommodate your plane arriving late..... while on the plane! It could be done from any web-capable laptop, phone, kiosk at the airport, or many other internet- enabled devices.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Production is decreasing in the west because it is easier make a profit by getting sandniggers on the other side of the globe who can be blown up with no remorse to get your oil than it is to get people who have families that live in countries that allow for wrongful death lawsuits and can talk to the press and hurt your share price.

Re:Already Run Out

[Anonymous Coward]

it's about getting rid of the restrictions of needing network address translation, allowing devices to be accessible by one address anywhere

Maybe that's a wrong goal. Maybe it's a privacy nightmare. Maybe sane people don't want this to happen.

Re:Already Run Out

[cyclomedia]

NAT is a PITA, and like other posters said without NAT you can still have a firewall router between your LAN and the cable modem.

The difference is that you can route directly to any machine on your LAN (again, firewall rules permitting) from anywhere on the planet without any hacks. Ever tried to FTP to something through NAT? Try it. You have no idea how liberating it is not to have to fuck with NAT and dyndns until you don't have to do it anymore.

I once had the pleasure of working in a web dev + hosting company with a full x.y.z.0 to x.y.z.255. 253 addresses was plenty for us to play with and it meant that every machine in the building had an actual real global IP Address, even the print server. And the only time we were ever were hacked was a flaw in IIS, which was a public facing web server anyway. None of the XP machines (or the print server) saw any damage. We had a linux mail server and that got a lot of opportunistic telnet and ssh hits, but I had it locked down so no one but us could get in. Being a dev company it was really liberating to be able to build up a test machine, host a bunch of services on it, develop and test against it and when it came time to demo it to the clients - in THEIR office - all I had to do was bung in its IP address into their web browser, and there it was. (though with IP6 i guess I would have to have copy/pasted it, rather than just remembered it, :-)

Re:Already Run Out

[mldi]

Weren't all addresses supposed to be gone by now? That's problem with doomsday predictions IPv4, warming, God, it never happens as scheduled and then people just ignore you next time you start predicting. If we were more temperate about our predictions, people wouldn't dismiss them as more of the same "sky-is-falling" crapola.

On the other hand, the times people were more temperate about the predictions and something horrible happened, there's mass blame on the organization/person that was supposed to warn us saying we weren't prepared because some jackass didn't do their job.

Re:Already Run Out

[mldi]

Neither is IPv6 infinite.

Phillip.

But for all practical purposes, it might as well be.

IPv4 = roughly 4.3 billion addresses possible, and that includes private IPs and the like.
IPv6 = Well... 3.4x10^38 possible. That's a crazy huge number.

Re:Already Run Out

[kestasjk]

And we're also running out of coal.. but when we're running out so slowly and there are other reasons to switch from coal you don't argue "we should stop using coal because we're running out".

I never said IPv4 is infinite I said we aren't running out; the vast majority of addresses are not yet allocated.

Cool, I can't wait...

[thestudio_bob]

Gee, I hope while they are at it, they can make sure they can track all the content, every citizen and device that get's "plugged" into the internet.

Hopefully, they are bringing in the vast collective knowledge of the **IA's to ensure that the rest of the world is represented as well.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[mvojtko]

Well they are working on Internet wiretapping, which I would expect, would make tracking down the bad guys a little easier, but it probably is going to raise some concerns about big brother watching everything that you are doing. I don't have a problem with that type of monitoring, but I am sure others will have major issues with it. I compare it to the current phone wiretapping. Just my two cents. Mark

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[alta]

Interesting point... getting rid of nat is going to put a lot of machines out on the internet that are currently hiding behind NAT. Once that's done all those NSA backdoors are now available where before there was no route to host... Before they had to own the NAT device, then the machine. Not as though that's a problem for them, its just an inconvenience.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[nj_peeps]

Umm... isn't that what they make firewalls for? To block any unwanted incoming/outgoing traffic? (unless of course the firewall it's self has a backdoor, in which point it would be pointless to use it in the first place)

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Beetjebrak]

..and so your point is??

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[nj_peeps]

That a firewall would stop the "NSA backdoors" from being opened on a networked device.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[AndrewNeo]

It's too bad there isn't a way to put more emphasis on the quotes around "NSA backdoors".

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[dpilot]

Consider that today if anyone owns our NAT devices, it's China. If there are any hidden backdoors on them, they're Chinese. Or did you think that the electronics inside that slick, cheap plastic box were US made? Last I heard, the most common commodity router gut-maker was Xyxel, a Chinese company. Makes you wonder how often the NSA goes to Best Buy, gets a NAT box, and reverse-engineers it, just to see what's really happening inside. Then it makes you wonder about the idea of pre-owning only a fraction of the NAT boxes, to reduce risks of forementioned checking.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[alta]

Lets see, the last 5 wireless routers I've seen installed in people's houses had the default password still there, no encryption set and their SSID was something like Linksys or Netgear.

When I asked the owner about it, the response was either
1. I don't know how to change that.
2. I know how to change it, but I just stopped screwing with it once I was connected.
3. My house is far from the street, I don't think anyone can get a signal, I barely can.

as for 3. with the huge range on N routers and laptops, then add the range you get with a good external/directional antenna, and I can sit in my house and get a dozen hits, and I'm in a rural area. I digress.

Now consider how lazy these people are, how many of them are going to get a dedicated or personal firewall installed once their ISP drops in a router that lets every computer have it's public IP that's completely routeable. None of them. All they know now is their torrents are going to start working and their slingbox is going to start working at the office without any of that confusing port forwarding.

Yeah, NAT isn't security, but it sure did help. Imagine how bad the virii/worms are going to be once they have direct access to EVERY UNPATCHED WINDOWS MACHINE ON THE INTERNET.

So many people are currently protected by NAT and it's 'good enough.'

Sure, you can argue that it's their problem, and it won't affect you, but that's false. Once these computers are opened up, they ALL become servers. Virus hosting, spam sending servers. Do you know what that's going to do to the available bandwidth?

Imagine this when NAT is gone
http://isc.sans.edu/survivaltime.html

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Rising Ape]

Is that likely to be an issue any more? IPV6 by default only came in with Vista, and Vista also brought along an on-by-default firewall.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Defaults will save us. The default for IPv6 on customer boxes must be: outgoing connections only, block incoming. Which gives exactly the same as NAT does now. Only with IPv6 there will be no problem with multiple devices using the same fixed TCP port and no guessing of where to fix the embedded ip address in the stream, or special coding to determine the outgoing "real" address and all that NAT crap.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[TheNarrator]

Just wait till you can't logon to the internet without your own biometric identifier in the bottom 64 bits of your IPv6 address. IPV6 is just as much a part of the surveillance state program as all the other privacy destroying initiatives he's been pushing.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Machtyn]

Read "un-patched" version of windows. Yes, MS Windows has a great firewall that lets just about everything out. There are a few applications that will allow stuff in, the firewall allows that, too (user nearly always clicks on "Allow"). One of those un-patched applications has a serious flaw, or a zero day, and the computer is hosed, firewall or not.

I agree the issue you refer to isn't that big of a deal anymore. It's been years since I've walked into a customer's home and found their WinXP SP1 computer directly connected to their DSL modem. (One that does not also contain a router with NAT and firewall.)

Hmm, after re-reading my first paragraph, I realize I am referring to something else entirely. However, suppose a flaw is found in Microsoft's firewall software. The system in question is still unpatched.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Rising Ape]

Read "un-patched" version of windows. Yes, MS Windows has a great firewall that lets just about everything out. There are a few applications that will allow stuff in, the firewall allows that, too (user nearly always clicks on "Allow"). One of those un-patched applications has a serious flaw, or a zero day, and the computer is hosed, firewall or not.

True, but the same will happen right now thanks to UPnP.

The unpatched XP won't be a problem with IPv6 as IPv6 is off by default in XP.

However, suppose a flaw is found in Microsoft's firewall software. The system in question is still unpatched.

That could happen theoretically, just like it's possible for your NAT box or separate firewall to be hacked and configured to forward traffic inwards. But is it a big enough risk to limit functionality by denying incoming connections? I like being able to do peer-to-peer, VoIP games etc.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

NAT != firewall.
Firewall != NAT.

You can still have your home firewall.
Furthermore, you can still deploy at NAT if you wished with v6. Seems stupid to do so when you can use TOR or a firewall, though.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[alta]

found their WinXP SP1 computer directly connected to their DSL modem

My point is, by doing away with NAT and allowing all of their computers to have a public IP, it'll be like walking in a customers house and finding all their computers, their DVR, their printer, their fridge, their picture frames, their appleTV, their iPod, sonos, PS3, Wii, Xbox and toilet connected directly to individual DSL modems.

That scares the shit out of me.

Re:Cool, I can't wait...

[alta]

No shit, not saying it is.

What I'm saying that thanks to NAT a shitload of computers are currently HIDDEN on the internet. When they suddenly become exposed the amount of hackable targets will explode.

Read my post where I say that almost no consumer is going to bother with a firewall once they finally get their device connected. Their goal is to be CONNECTED, not to be CONNECTED SECURELY.

Classmates.com and such

[broKenfoLd]

Get rid of the crap services out there and recover those IP's.

Again?

[xipxero]

"Some observers are hoping the Obama Administration will use the workshop to issue a deadline or all federal agencies to support IPv6 on their public-facing Web sites." Wait, didn't we try this before?

Re:Again?

[bonch]

The Obama Administration plans to increase the amount of Hope and Change budgeted for federal agencies in the hope that it will spur IPv6 adoption.

High-profile

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have high-profile executives working on IPv6 now."

"Who?"

"High... profile,,, executives."

Re:High-profile

[Beetjebrak]

The Klingon ambassador.. he has quite a high profile, on his forehead.

Re:High-profile

[xipxero]

I was thinking more like this http://ipv6.com/articles/general/US_Government_IPv6.htm June 30, 2008

that only took

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

ten years? don't you love governments: moving at their own speed even while the world races ahead of them.

part of me is surprised that they haven't explicitly prevented agencies from getting too far ahead of the curve.

guess all that ipv6 compatible equipment will finally come in handy!

Re:that only took

[geekoid]

What? varies agencies have been moving to, or have moved to, IPv6 already. Some are slower to adopt and need a reason to make changes to a budget. Getting congress to get behind this mean those agency will have the legal means to change budgets, and/or request an increase.

And most agency you don't want ahead of the curve. You want them just at the falling edge. That means most of the technology kinks are worked out and they can get solid systems that run for years. Ironically when you have a system that has been running for 40 year, paid for it'self many time overs, people like you point and call the government 'slow' as if it would be better if they always bought new technology.

Always something

[theaveng]

- First they obsoleted my VCR so I got a DVR.

- Then they turned-off analog broadcast, so the DVR was obsoleted too.

- Now I have to upgrade my browser to get IPv6 (whatever that is).

- Next I guess somebody will tell me the New Internet Explorer doesn't work on my XP netbook, or that I have to upgrade my radio to Digital Audio Broadcast

Re:Always something

[pclminion]

Yeah, progress fucking sucks, those guys should knock that shit off!

Re:Always something

[Mitchell314]

Welcome to technological progression.

Re:Always something

[hjf]

Even Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP supports IPv6. I tried it first in 2003 (maybe 2002).

Re:Always something

[theaveng]

Progress is okay if it's ACTUAL progress, and not regress, or just the same thing in a new package. For example DAB is actually inferior to the old AM and FM radio. And from what I've seen Windows 7 isn't any better than the old Vista - just a new color arrangement.

Re:Always something

[theaveng]

Progress is okay if it's ACTUAL progress, and not regress, or just the same thing in a new package.
For example DAB is actually inferior to the old AM and FM radio.
And my new DVR feels no different to me than my old VCR.

Re:Always something

[dkleinsc]

Except that your browser won't have to upgrade at all. Unless you run a really really old operating system, IPv6 will work with your system as is. There may be some configuration work to do, but that's it.

Re:Always something

[silas_moeckel]

Well DVR over a VCR was progress, MythTV is much better than any VCR I ever worked with. In the analog days with consumer level gear it's picture quality was awfull. Quality analog broadcast looks about that same as quality digital TV (OTA 480i/p) the camble co's are stepping on the quality every chance they get.

You really should stop using internet explorer on anything, there are several good alternatives.

Now DAB like cable can be better than FM it supports 256kbs bitrates that sound better than FM. Broadcasters are stepping on the bitrate to get more channels the same as cable companies. DAB+ uses better encoding and error correction to do more with less and have better weak signal performance.

The problem with a lot of the recent media progress is they worked in the ability to step on the signal till it's just tolerable, often to try and get you to pay more for a better version.

Re:Always something

[powerlord]

And my new DVR feels no different to me than my old VCR.

Yes, its exactly like my VCR except:

- the tape is longer than 8 hours without swapping in a new tape
- the recording quality doesn't degrade with after a few recordings or watchings
- I can randomly skip around in the recording (which still keeping a crystal clear picture to make sure I don't miss something interesting)

(leaving out TiVo/"high end" type functions like
- Dual Tuner
- Season Pass - get all episodes of a given program
- Suggestions - get content you MIGHT like in the unused portion of your "tape"
- Download Netflix/Blockbuster/Amazon Video On Demand
- Left home and forgot to set a recording? Program it from any internet enabled device (assuming your DVR is wired to the internet)
) ... Yeah ... just like my old VCR

Just because YOUR DVR is just like your old VCR, doesn't mean they all are.

Re:Always something

[Anonymous Coward]

Read a book dude.

Re:Always something

[Anonymous Coward]

Please try ri understandf how the US government works before putting onsense in your sig.

Here is the break down:

Republicans had the power to make what they wanted via Veto.
Clinton got them to change the bill to include middle class families
Clinton signed the bill.

He know that if he didn't sign the bill it would happen anyways , but he still managed to get some bargaining in.

There are thing Clinton actually backed that I don't like.

What you, and a hell of a lot of people don't realize is: The President is not a king. He has to go through congress for most things.

Re:Always something

[camperdave]

You don't need to touch your browser. What's changing is OSI level 3. The browser resides at OSI level 7.

Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Manip]

If I was in the US Government I would lean on mobile vendors like Apple, Google, AT&T, etc to ONLY support IPv6 for mobile devices (e.g. Android, iPhone, etc). That way you start to carve out a real consumer base with IPv6. If web-sites want to get iPhone users to their service they better support IPv6 ASAP.

Microsoft already has strong IPv6 support in Windows as does Linux. So there is no reason why ISPs couldn't switch over at any time but the issue is a chicken and egg problem with it being expensive and no consumers caring.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick solution: Facebook to be ipv6 only.
*tongue in cheek*

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

"there is no reason why ISPs couldn't switch over at any time but the issue is a chicken and egg problem with it being expensive and no consumers caring"

well, technically there's nothing stopping IPv6 support, but there are load balancers that need to to ipv6 to ipv4 translation properly. For protocols like IMAP, SMTP and POP, there is no standard yet.

The main issue is dealing with client address tracking for abuse prevention, authentication, and logging -- all of these are not something you can just configure on a router and let-it-rip.

It will take focused effort to get a good ipv6 system up and running -- over the next year, it will start happening...

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[AndrewNeo]

Carrier support comes first. Making AT&T, Verizon do it will force phone/OS manufacturers (Apple, Google, etc.) to implement it on their OSes. It won't work the other way around. In either case, apparently Verizon is requiring IPv6 for LTE devices.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Mitchell314]

At least it would help with motivation.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[hjf]

www.v6.facebook.com (Yes, really. Look what it resolves to :)

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

If web-sites want to get iPhone users to their service they better support IPv6 ASAP.

While it's best to prepare for the future, it's ridiculously alarmist to say they need to support iPhone v6 now. They haven't even revealed iPhone 5 yet.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[A beautiful mind]

There is no need for the US govt. to step in, the mobile carriers are already pushing pretty hard. Let me quote T-Mobile USA's Cameron Byrne:

Our users are going to access your content over IPv6. The only relevant question is 'will we make the AAAA record or will you'?

Here's their motivation:

T-Mobile USA makes heavy use of NAT44 and bogon addresses. Going forward, this isn't sustainable. So they've decided that future cellular deployments will be IPv6-only, with NAT64 to access the "legacy" IPv4 Internet. (...) T-Mobile USA suspects they can run 50% of their cellular data traffic over IPv6 by the end of 2011.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

so lets say I run a medium sized local business. My business involves some sort of web based service that people use on mobile devices. Ok, with me so far?

Okay now suppose mobile vendors are forced to only support IPv6. You say I should move to IPv6 ASAP if I want to keep my customers, but I run my own servers and buy my business network connection from the local telecom company (I'm actually in the UK, so the "local telecom company" is basically BT, the only telecom company. It's the same sort of scale as a state with only one or two companies offering network services I'd expect).

I'm now at the mercy of the telecom company. If they don't have IPv6 infrastructure, even if I upgrade all my software and network gear I'm stuck on the wrong side of the crappy ISP pipe.

Everyone needs to switch at the same time, or no-one ever will. They'll just wait for the other side to switch. No IPv6 support because there are no users on IPv6, no users on IPv6 because there's nothing compelling the ISPs to do it.

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

when I started deploying IPv6 infrastructure, I saw that and laughed out loud.

then, for just a second, I though to myself: there's NO WAY they really have a machine with that MAC. :P

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using IPv6 on T-Mobile currently (on my N900), works good so far, plus I can SSH into my phone over the internet since it is not behind NAT. Bonus. :)

Re:Why not go mobile IPv6?

[geekoid]

Yep, and the government isn't stepping in. Obama is trying to get congress to mandate federal agencies need to go to IPv6.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[spazdor]

I was gonna be first but my 6to4 layer adds too much latency.

agreed

[circletimessquare]

and you see this in all sorts of problems in life, from coworker's agendas, to politicians and their bombast:

you can win attention in the short term by describing a threat in worse language than it actually is

but by doing that, you pay the longterm cost of people just not trusting what you say anymore

Re:agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

There once was a boy who thought it was funny to raise alarm over the presence of a wild, four-legged carnivore. And then one day...

Proving once again that nearly everything you need to know in life, mom taught you before you left home.

Re:agreed

[h4rm0ny]

but by doing that, you pay the longterm cost of people just not trusting what you say anymore

Well now that's why you swap presidents / parties every now and then. It gives you a chance to sweep away everybody's accumulated distrust in the old let and put in a clean new hope for everyone to start again with.

Of course, that could wear thin eventually, in which case you'd probably get a generation that had no faith in the entire political system. But let's hope that doesn't happen.

Re:agreed

[Type44Q]

...but by doing that, you pay the longterm cost of people just not trusting what you say anymore

I thought their memories typically don't go back that far.

Re:What's IPv6? Who's Obama?

[Austerity Empowers]

IPv6 is Microsoft's latest internet operating system, which isn't selling well because Google doesn't like it.

Obama is the infamous terrorist hiding in Afghanistan, who may or may not have been born in America, but is our President, unless you're a republican.

The Routing Tables!

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't someone think of the routing tables!

"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[John Hasler]

Not bloody likely. There's little chance that he has the foggiest notion what an IP number is (well, he may have a foggy notion, but it is almost certainly wrong).

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[AndrewNeo]

Since when was subject knowledge a requirement to politicians?

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[j h woodyatt]

The original article actually points out the real problem that the headline misrepresents. The real problem is that the Obama administration is almost comically clueless about Internet engineering issues related to governance.

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out some old caches....

The Obama team was extremely tech savvy right up until 24 hours before they brought Joe Biden on board. I'm not kidding! Go look it up! I think it was even covered here on Slarshdort.

My old buddy Joe is very very deep in the pockets of Hollywood and the RIAAA, and that requires at least a pose of tech cluelessness (in Joe's own case, this is not a pose, believe me! I've talked to him about it a few times).

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[John Hasler]

The real problem is that the Obama administration is almost comically clueless about Internet engineering issues related to governance.

Let's keep it that way.

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[Machtyn]

That's okay, I hear Al Gore is available for speaking engagements.

Re:"Obama Highlights IPv6 Issue"

[John Hasler]

He probably knows less about the subject than Obama does. I doubt that Obama imagines that he understands it while Gore likely knows a whole lot that isn't true.

tech-savvy

[slapout]

tech-savvy != good leadership

Re: tech-savvy

[Dan667]

how does delusional hoping for the rapture do for leadership?

Re: tech-savvy

[Anonymous Coward]

By that, you don't mean the IPv6 switch, do you?

Re: tech-savvy

[Local ID10T]

how does delusional hoping for the rapture do for leadership?

It worked for Bush!

Re: tech-savvy

[Mitchell314]

touché

Re: tech-savvy

[mjwalshe]

tech-savvy != apple fan boy

Re: tech-savvy

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of strawmen, it works great!

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[digitalsushi]

If you dont go through a 6to4 relay, you don't have any extra latency at all, aside from the fixed time it takes to strip the v6 packet out of a v4 packet.

stuff that really matters unhighlighted

[Anonymous Coward]

the search continues;
google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=weather+manipulation

google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=bush+cheney+wolfowitz+rumsfeld+wmd+oil+blair+obama+weather+authors

meanwhile (as it may take a while longer to finish wrecking this place); the corepirate nazi illuminati (who believe thar we came from monkeys, & they ?didn't?) is always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck (while sucking DOWn/destroying/wasting immeasurable amounts of stuff/other people's lives, while telling us (monkeys) to tighten our belts/learn to go hungry etc...). if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?

greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)

"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."--

"The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson

no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 10,000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.

consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited sup

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[Mitchell314]

Huh? Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of all these roaring latent packets.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Out of curiosity, what would you call the "fixed time it takes to strip the v6 packet out of a v4 packet" ?

Why do websites span over multiple domains?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen unnecessary domain registries and IP addressing expand across the networks that I think this is the case for waste. Consider the fact that AOL and Yahoo and others will have their primary websites with a subdomain here and there yet then they require you to allow 3rd-party interaction with something like AOLCDN or whatnot. It's as though that they own the domains, but introduce theirselves as a 3rd-party in addition to having context on the webpage in their original domain. From a security standpoint, this is ruckus in any other way than to simply direct the client to process data on it's own through the available network bandwidth through the client whereas these domains should be implementing a Peer backend network that didn't go through the public networks. The entire matter proves that this inefficieny is most-likely the cause of the government needing these intricate redundant webs just so they can properly filter all the data as a 2nd-party to the data allocation schemes rather than just allow these websites to go line-of-sight in a more reasonable and efficient topology.

Indeed, this is many proofs that the government has always been maintaining a tiered "Internet" that is slowly etching deeper boarders to define the difference between their unregulated network of the government and the overregulated network of the people both of which payed-for by the people but depriving the people their rights to use either. Notice that I haven't even covered Virtual Private Networks yet, and that's probably one of many reasons why the government requires so-much eavesropping because in theory it simply can't coexist with other private regulation becuase itself is in-fact a private person like all the other privateers that don't have "Government" in their legal name.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[blair1q]

Infinitesimal on decent hardware.

Re:What's IPv6? Who's Obama?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you high?

Sigh...

[blair1q]

Where's Jon Postel when you need him...

Re:Sigh...

[juriise]

Jon Postel is dead, but Vint Cerf is still going strong at 67.

If Al Gore had won in 2000

[jameskojiro]

We would all be flush with IPv10 and Al Gore would have a harem of massage women. Woo Hoo

Re:If Al Gore had won in 2000

[Amorymeltzer]

Yes, because if there are two things this planet needs urgently, they are definitely 10^2048 IP addresses and images of Al Gore sleeping with women.

Re:If Al Gore had won in 2000

[CyprusBlue113]

Yeah but think of the alternatives, we could have had that Bush kid win, and gotten in 2 wars, a huge deficit, lost a great number of personal freedoms in the name of security, etc.

Just look at what the onion predicted! http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/

I shudder to think of what it could have looked like.

(Yeah I had to much kharma, and couldn't resist.)

Re:If Al Gore had won in 2000

[John Hasler]

I think that the point is that with Gore we would have had a different but not necessarily better set of fuckups (I think we still would have been better off, though. I detest him, but unlike Bush he isn't stupid.)

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[Anonymous Coward]

Join comcast then, they have high performance local 6to4 gateways.

The real issue

[Daniel Phillips]

The real issue is that IPv6 was horribly badly misconceived and misdesigned right from the start, in such a way that it was doomed to become the epic fail we know and love today. I am very skeptical that ipv6 can be fixed.

Re:The real issue

[supersloshy]

The real issue is that IPv6 was horribly badly misconceived and misdesigned right from the start, in such a way that it was doomed to become the epic fail we know and love today. I am very skeptical that ipv6 can be fixed.

I'd love to believe you but you give no evidence as to why I should. You could very well be right, but how do I know that? [citation needed]

Re:The real issue

[Anonymous Coward]

This is correct. I attempted to set it up, but it wasn't easy. And good luck getting normal people to get it right. The addresses are confusing, having an ipv6 intranet (NAT), setting up a router for ipv6, and having all of the ISPs a guy who uses library, coffee shop and NeighborFi isn't easy.

If they want to do anything, it should have been a random dynamic addressing from the ISP. If you needed a fixed address, then you could sign up (or probably pay with our current ISPs) for it.

Re:The real issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you tell us how it is "horribly badly misconceived and misdesigned"? Just saying does not make is so.

Re:The real issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, a +4, insightful with no insight. The problem with the US Constitution is it was horribly badly misconceived and misdesigned right from the start, in such a way that it was doomed to become the epic fail we know and love today. I am very sceptical that the US Constitution can be fixed.

See how easy it is to criticize something when you're completely ignorant about it? If you have any complaints about IPv6, what are they? Until you provide such a time, the millions of us who are already using IPv6 with zero problems will just continue to do so.

Re:The real issue

[balbeir]

Could you tell us how it is "horribly badly misconceived and misdesigned"? Just saying does not make is so.

Well it should have been an IPV4 extension that lets IPv4 and IPv6 intercommunicate so people can move when they are ready.

Instead it's just another protocol with bad interoperability between V4 and V6. If I'm a V6 client I can't talk to a V4 server without some ugly "help". So how do they expect to move every one to V6 if it can't be done gradually ?

Re:The real issue

[Just Some Guy]

Instead it's just another protocol with bad interoperability between V4 and V6. If I'm a V6 client I can't talk to a V4 server without some ugly "help". So how do they expect to move every one to V6 if it can't be done gradually ?

If only every OS sold in the last 5 years came out of the box with the capability of connecting to IPv4 and IPv6 networks at the same time so you could begin using IPv6 services as the DNS records for them became available. Boy, how convenient that would have been!

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time not being sarcastic when people keep trotting out that same dumb argument. Every host I use at home and work is dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and I have none of the hypothetical problems that people keep inventing to panic over.

Re:The real issue

[Daniel Phillips]

Junta summarized it satisfactorily. I could elaborate, but what would be the point? Oh well. For example going to 128 bit addresses was in a word idiotic. It failed to ameliorate router loading issues as hoped, and in fact made things worse by imposing a bigger cache footprint than necessary. It also broke every network library to a much worse extent than necessary by exceeding the 16 bytes allowed from the dawn of time for socket addresses, which design point was chosen by people who knew what they were doing as opposed to the people who ended up on the IPv6 committee.

The big fail is that IPv6 and IPv4 hosts cannot communicate in any way that could remotely be described as natural. What commercial web site wants to cut over to an IPv6 address today, or any time in the foreseeable future?

Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

People are foolish to believe that IPv6 will ever be widespread any time in the next decade, possibly two decades. This same conversation was happening in 2000. The Internet will not cease to function when IPv4 space runs out. It will simply open up the market for private transactions of route deaggregation or tunneling, and will put pressure on router vendors to accommodate larger and larger routing tables as a result. None of that will speed up deployment of IPv6.

Without backwards address compatibility, IPv6 will likely remain a footnote on a Wikipedia article.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[digitalsushi]

It would not add to your ping time, since it's measured in milliseconds. Let's say that and call it good enough.

IPv6 should have embraced NAT front and center.

[Junta]

I know that NAT breaks peer-to-peer nature of internet that architects intended, and the 'powers that be' wanted to be pure about IPv6 and thus avoided any recommendation that would have *required* NAT (verging on not wanting it to exist at all in some cases), but if IPv6 people had leveraged NAT, the current chicken and egg situation of v4->v6 could be *greatly* mitigated.

IPv6 was done as an entirely separate network space. To assure communication to all of the 'internet', one *must* have an IPv4 address and the v6 address is optional, but not sufficient to reach much of the internet which is v4-only. They should have enabled the ISPs of the world to give out only IPv6 addresses and do carrier grade NAT to IPv4 servers. The truth of the matter is that 95% of users are 'clients' and that would have placated the masses. The other 5% being able to serve only to IPv6 clients wouldn't be so painful, if the ISPs mostly did this. Sure they may feel a little gypped, but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the tunnel doesn't seem as long. Getting out of having to manage a limited resource would be great incentive to get ISPs to actually deploy v6.

As it stands, IPv4 to the edge is realistically a requirement, and an ISP has nothing to save for the foreseeable future by adding IPv6, since they can't eliminate their IPv4 management infrastructure. v6 is more work without immediate payoff so long as many servers exist on v4 only. Many servers will not go v6 so long as their clients' ISP won't go v6...

Re:IPv6 should have embraced NAT front and center.

[metamatic]

They should have enabled the ISPs of the world to give out only IPv6 addresses and do carrier grade NAT to IPv4 servers.

I imagine before long client OSs will support 4over6, and they'll be able to do that.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[digitalsushi]

nice! they do! the last time i checked, they routed to telia.net, a year ago.

64000 fold expansion in addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs say "Goody more addresses to sell - You only get one address for you DSL connection unless you pay us for business level DSL"

Ha couldn't get a better captcha ! "RETAIL" like what you pay for each IP address you use!

Re:64000 fold expansion in addresses

[Bengie]

The IPv6 routing standard assumes a /64.

You ISP doesn't actually hand out an IP like ABCD:ABCD:ABCD:0001. It hands it out like ABCD:ABCD. It doesn't care what IPs you using in that range because *all* packets that start with ABCD:ABCD will get routed to your Cable/DSL modem. All modern OSs would get confused if your ISP tried to assign an IP. Unless your ISP decides to give you a custom IPv6 network stack.

You will get a /64 with 2^64 IPs to play with, each IP with 2^16 ports.

screw NAT.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[Bill_the_Engineer]

My point was that it appears you didn't catch the humor of the parent post, and despite the negligible delay if you could measure it you would call it latency.

Get IPv6 on your clients now, servers for later

[FranckMartin]

IPv6 is easy to implement, it takes 5 mn to setup a tunnel (Tunnel Broker) and switch on IPv6 (you don't need to wait for your ISP to provide you with IPv6). And yes tunnel is the recommended way of getting IPv6 (the OECD in a report about IPv6 says so too). So get a tunnel, switch it on and enjoy IPv6. What is more difficult is to get your servers on IPv6, but client side is is done in no time. So get your users on IPv6 today then when they are more familiar, you can start to migrate your servers to IPv6.

We have 7% of ASN (the backbone Internet) which are IPv6, we need 1,000 more to reach 10% of ASN, then snowball effect will took place.

Any other attitude is procrastination, FUD, and misconceived ideas.

A blog about IPv6 and other issues in the Pacific Islands and the rest of the world

Re:Get IPv6 on your clients now, servers for later

[Anonymous Coward]

So get a tunnel, switch it on and enjoy IPv6.

What, precisely, will I be enjoying that is new?

Nothing, you say? Oh well, wake me again in 6 months when the IPv6 lovers again say the world is ending OMG KITTINS WILL DIE.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[ArcherB]

Congratulations on the first post.

Very difficult to do these days.

First Post is easy. A GOOD first post is hard. This guy nailed it.

If it had been first...

[Junta]

It seems mostly ok as a protocol if you ignore the context of being in an IPv4 world.

That said, with the IPv4 world, what problems are glaringly obvious. One is that generally, the v6 people threw out a whole lot of babies with the bathwater when they went clean slate. Also, generally, those are coming back in. In the beginning they said 'DHCP is obsolete, mDNS and stateless addressing', now they have a DHCP that is approaching the capability of DHCPv4 almost. They still need to have an interface identifier to go with the host identifier to let the DHCPv4 people get comfortable and give them all the capability they had in DHCPv4.

The other completely botched thing was providing no way for an IPv6-only host to ever talk to an IPv4-only host. They'll say it's impractical as that is a many to fewer mapping of address space and clients cannot be uniquely identified while keeping the pure vision of peer-to-peer or nothing at all in mind. However, having IPv6 hosts that are clients and only clients getting to IPv4 only servers via designated NPT (Network Protocol Translation) gateways would have enabled a great great mass of clients to shuffle right over to IPv6 without a horrible experience. I propose that this is still quite possible if the right people drove it.

The first is a matter of general maturity, but currently things are good enough for most. The rest require adoption to really drive change. The second aspect I also don't view as unfixable, it can still be done today, if the IPv6 leaders extract their heads from their asses and compromise on 'vision' for praticality, comforted somewhat by the knowledge that IPv4 would eventually atrophy away in that scenario.

Re:If it had been first...

[Daniel Phillips]

All agreed, except that IPv6 leaders won't extract their heads from their asses, I have seen this first hand. This does not negate your argument, it just says that the IPv6 leaders are not the right people to fix the problem.

Re:If it had been first...

[Wesley Felter]

The other completely botched thing was providing no way for an IPv6-only host to ever talk to an IPv4-only host.

This has finally been fixed with NAT64+DNS64.

Re:If it had been first...

[Anonymous Coward]

In a few more years all the IPv6 leaders will be dead of old age.

Re:If it had been first...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with DHCP is in the mindset. "We've managed our networks with DHCP for so long that we can no longer imagine any other method. We must have DHCPv6 work precisely like DHCP or we don't know how to deploy IPv6. (And besides, if we stop force-feeding each pair of client ID and IP address into the DHCP server as we obviously must to keep our networks secure and under control, management will take away three of my minions.)"

lol ipv6 again is that time of the month

[mjwalshe]

real techies know that ipv6 is still a solution looking for a problem to solve i remember back in 94 there where scare sorties about ipv4 running out then.

Re:lol ipv6 again is that time of the month

[Anonymous Coward]

real techies know that ipv6 is still a solution looking for a problem to solve i remember back in 94 there where scare sorties about ipv4 running out then.

Yes and we implemented NAT to give us more time with the remaining IPv4 addresses. Look at all the problems that caused. Now we really are almost out of IPv4 addresses and the only solution is IPv6. IPv4 address exhaustion is at 94-95% with estimates of 6-12 months remaining. India & China alone have 1-2 billion potential users that we don't have IPv4 addresses for.
The big issues right now are IPv6 compatible hardware (especially customer premises equipment) and the 20 million techs that need to be trained. Judging by some of the ill-informed comments on here to date there is still a lot of work to do on that front.

Still hobbyist...

[Junta]

The problem here is that IPv6 doesn't buy the client anything other than a dancing turtle. So long as everyone *must* have an IPv4 address to meaningfully participate in the internet, IPv6 will be nothing more than a hassle for everyone down the chain, only offset by academic curiosity. Giving people tunnels that require IPv4 to operate does nothing to address the base adoption problem.

Your subject line though could've described a much more attractive strategy, ISPs not having to give out IPv4 addresses to houses, just IPv6 and having those addresses be able to reach pure IPv4 servers via some sort of NAT (really NPT since IP != IPv6 in more than just addressing). If Joe average could get slapped with an IPv6 address and never know the difference, that's a huge potential cost savings for the ISPs.

Re:Still hobbyist...

[FranckMartin]

The whole of Google servers are on IPv6, Facebook is IPv6, Netflix is IPv6, back to mac uses IPv6 when it can...

There are no more dancing turtles... There is non-negligible IPv6 traffic once you enable it on your network. Studies have shown it...

Indian Removal

[KingAlanI]

Indian Removal Act - hey, at least the name of the bill was honest about what it did.

BTW, I have long since seen a lot of the whitey-v-Indian stuff as a rather ugly war as opposed to genocide. Not the best behavior, to be sure, but not the Holocaust either.

The article title is trolling

[imidan]

Actually, the article is trolling, too, I think. The issue here is not whether Obama is personally interested in IPv6. As someone above (who got modded troll) mentioned, Obama, himself, probably knows very little about TCP/IP, IPv4, NAT, and IPv6. It's the NTIA that's running this workshop. Printing a headline that says 'Obama' is highlighting IPv6 is just begging to turn the conversation into a bunch of partisan bullshit re: 'hope and change', Obama's personal technical competency, etc. Looking at the thread, this is exactly what happened. And that's trolling (or maybe flamebait).

Then again, it seems like we've pretty much run the whole 'IPv4 addresses running out ZOMG' topic into the ground, too. I guess it's nice to see that the feds are approaching the issue. But there's not really any controversy in 'Federal Government Explores Adopting Updated Technology'. So we make it into a partisan political issue in order to provoke responses? Bleagh.

Rome didn't fall in a day!

[bussdriver]

FEW nations fall quickly; especially democracies and large empires don't fall that quickly either.

It'll be gradual and involve most the population being at fault beforehand.

Obama could be the straw that breaks the camel's back; however, that back was arguably broken already and we are have been seeing a mirage. Obama could be the messenger of doom who is falsely blamed as well. Repair takes a lot of strain, we also may not be up to the task of going the right direction... Lots is possible but what is not possible is for us to return to the previous decade in just 4 years.... if EVER (1 in a million shot at best. you have to be clueless to think it can return to those days.)

Re:Rome didn't fall in a day!

[Surt]

Who wants to return to the previous decade, that decade sucked. Give me the one two back instead, please.

The US was supposed to switch to metric in 1976

[FoolishOwl]

I was visiting my father-in-law in Canada, and we were driving through northern Ontario. I'd gotten used to all the street signs in metric by then, and I was surprised to see an old highway sign with a distance in miles. My father-in-law pointed out that Canada had converted to the metric system in 1977, based upon the US plan to convert to the metric system in 1976.

I worked for a blueprint printing company for several years. One issue that often came up was difficulties in rescaling blueprints for different page sizes, as the arbitrary sheet sizes that were standard each had different ratios of length to width. As a political activist, I also often designed flyers; scaling flyers to half-size always came out ugly. One day, I happened to read up on ISO paper sizes, and how they were all based upon ratios of one to the square root of two, which meant that ratios were uniform and rescaling was easy. Apparently, ISO paper sizes are the standard used everywhere but in the US and a few countries in Latin America; Canada prints in US sizes because of the scale of the US market. The ratio of one to the square root of two was proposed early in the history of printing, centuries ago.

As I understand, all modern operating systems have native support for IPv6, and have had such support for years; part of the impetus is that the US Federal government had, at some point, announced a policy requiring any software it used to support IPv6. From what I can make out, it's the ISPs that are dragging their heels on implementing technology that's been tested and ready to deploy for years.

I can understand hesitancy to deploy radical new ideas. However, I don't understand the hesitancy to deploy ideas that have been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely.

Re:The US was supposed to switch to metric in 1976

[hawaiian717]

However, I don't understand the hesitancy to deploy ideas that have been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely.

Money.

Re:The US was supposed to switch to metric in 1976

[Blakey Rat]

I can understand hesitancy to deploy radical new ideas. However, I don't understand the hesitancy to deploy ideas that have been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely.

Because the stuff they already have also has been tested exhaustively, deployed, and used widely. And they don't have to hire more staff, or buy more equipment, to keep using it.

I'm always amazed when I meet people like you so ignorant of basic economics. Just, whenever you have a question like that, think to yourself: "what's in it for them?"

Re:The US was supposed to switch to metric in 1976

[FoolishOwl]

It's money? Does money not matter outside the US? Than why did almost every other country in the world switch to metric, and switch to ISO paper sizes?

How much business does the US miss out on, because it produces commodities in non-standard sizes that aren't used elsewhere? (Not entirely a rhetorical question, by the way.)

It seems to me that the common thread here is that these are classic cases of a gram of prevention being worth a kilogram of cure.

How much money will businesses lose, when they find the prices of IPv4 addresses are skyrocketing, and they need IPv4 addresses to transition to IPv6?

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[mcneely.mike]

Stripper time?

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[jpyeck]

You need to upgrade to the "29 or" version of your "6 to 4".

BONUS: You're more likely to get laid if you use this in your college dorm.

Ah, Obama

[Rob_Bryerton]

Is there anything you can't (claim to) do?

Re:Ah, Obama

[uncanny]

well, inventing the internet has already been claimed, so i guess he can't try to take that one.

Crap... just when I memorized my IP address

[SlaveToSoftware]

192.168.1.1 :-(

With any luck

[codepunk]

With any luck the Obama administration will be doing the same thing the rest of America is doing the next few years (looking for a job).

Re:With any luck

[Microlith]

I know, we should have elected McCain and gone to war with Iran, with Palin cheering us to our deaths. Our bad.

Why not just switch .mil over to IPv6?

[WillAffleckUW]

If we really care about security, why not just switch all .mil over to IPv6 and deny all Chinese servers connection at root levels on the sats and trunk lines?

Wouldn't be hard.

Then tell China when they stop with the trade barriers and spying on our military, we'll let them onto the new IPv6 web.

Re:Why not just switch .mil over to IPv6?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese are one of the primary users and proponents of IPv6. The IANA gave them only 3 class A address spaces (~48 Million addresses) for all of China in the IPv4 world.

IPv6 will make .mil MORE compatible with Chinese networks.

Re:Why not just switch .mil over to IPv6?

[WillAffleckUW]

But if they're using the full secure IPvSec extensions for .mil, IPv6 is still more secure than IPv4 is.

spare addys

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv4 still has a long way to go if we force those (me included) to give up their unused space. I have two blocks one /28 and one /29. Where I only need 12 total (4 on each end for HSRP and NAT). So i could give up 12 my self with a little reconfig (14 if we all go classless) :P

Any one else have unused spares?

This is a good start

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/ipv6mess.html

IPv6 was a microsoft plot

[Anonymous Coward]

The original impetus behind IPv6 was that Microsoft had trouble penetrating the NAT used by most organizations to go with DHCP, thus they couldn't identify specific machines reliably, and had trouble figuring out just how many licenses your company owed them for. This allowed cheapskate companies to merely buy the Windows license that came with the PC, and not pay to re-license the PC when they put their corporate configuration of Windows on it the way Microsoft demands. SO Microsoft has hired dozens of sock-puppet companies to run around waving their hand in the air screaming that the sky is falling, in the hopes that they can panic people into putting unique permanent IPv6 addresses on every PC. Thus Microsoft will finally be able to charge you a new license fee every time you re-image your hard drive (after all, why do you think they subsidize the Chinese to circulate all those viruses anyway- so you have to buy Windows again every three months, duh!). Unfortunately for Microsoft, NAT is the best internet security tool ever devised, and no one in their right mind is going to give it up just to help MS collect the Microsoft tax.
BUT the federal government is the most gullible organization in the universe, and they bought into IPv6 hook line and sinker. Forgetting the fiasco that happened when they mandated GOSIP, Federal compliance with IPv6 was mandated back in July of 2008. ALL federal agencies are *capable* of speaking IPv6 now. The problem is that only one half of one tenth of one percent of the customers out there speak IPv6, so the Fed might as well have rewritten their web pages in Esperanto for all the use it will get. For those of you who don't work for Microsoft who still foolishly believe that IPv6 will actually get used some day, I suggest watching the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch. IPv6 died about five years ago, give up and move on. And when you write IPv7 - make sure it's backwards compatible with IPv6 so that there is at least a snowballs chance in H#LL that it will get used by SOMEONE.

Re:Always something or why CP/M is the best

[WillAffleckUW]

Why do you hate those of us running CP/M on our old 8 bit computers so much?

Besides, we run without virus problems. Haven't seen a virus for a long time.

Why would I want to spend forever using a tunnel?

[Marrow]

What possible motivation would the ISPs have to switch over to native IPv6 if they can force (and charge) their users for using tunnels. Why am I procrastinating if I dont want to incur the overhead of a tunnel that I dont have to use now?

The ISPs are never going to switch to native IPv6 once everyone is tunnelled. They have too much to lose by doing so.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[theaveng]

"(Score:4, Funny)"

Yep.

- First they obsoleted my VCR so I got a DVR.

- Then they turned-off analog broadcast, so the DVR was obsoleted too.

- Now I have to upgrade my browser to get IPv6 (whatever that is).

- Next I guess somebody will tell me the New Internet Explorer doesn't work on my XP netbook, or that I have to upgrade my radio to Digital Audio Broadcast

Not bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the one eyed king in the land of the blind bills himself as the most seeing political team ever too...

Here we go YET AGAIN...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

You can have a border firewall without NAT.

Well, duh!

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Eventually, every network gets subdivided at some piece of equipment, be it a transparent bridge or router somewhere. The idea of being a "peer" is an imaginary one really - other than boxes plugged into the exact same switch or router on the same subnet, you're doing a network traversal somewhere.

Yes, and this is precisely the illusion that TCP/IP was designed to provide.

Google IPv6 Implementors Conference

[ptudor]

Video and slides from this summer's Google IPv6 Implementors Conference are available. Besides the things I knew (Google runs IPv6 inhouse, most providers are whitelisting DNS for AAAA because .5% of users are simply broken in v6) there was a ton of interesting detail on mobile IPv6.

T-Mobile has been supporting dual-stacked v6 on some Nokia models since this summer (there's a group tmoipv6beta) and their guy says interesting things --- He estimates half their traffic will be IPv6 by the end of 2011 simlpy because most of the traffic is to v6 ready content providers like Facebook and Google, the beta is helping to fix sites like Myspace but a prime problem remains hard-coded IPv4 literals in place of hostnames, particularly when embedded within returned data. They've met with vendors to ensure all phones will be IPv6 native within this current product life cycle (two or three years is what I took away).

Verizon exemplifies the massive need for the massive address space of IPv6. They overlap all of the RFC1918 address space at each of forty sites. Can you imagine? And yet a simple /48, even a /56, would end that, nevermind /32s. I mean, with a single /32 an organization has as many free bits as the entire Internet today. And then there's the DoD's /13.

Do I need to draw out the bits? Do I need to explain better that NAT is not a firewall? Please, tell your upstreams you want native IPv6. And meanwhile if you're in LA or NYC talk to me about how to bring your network online.

Re:Google IPv6 Implementors Conference

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I need to explain better that NAT is not a firewall?

No, you need to explain why you are knocking down strawmen.

"A penny isn't a dime." OK, whatever.

NAT is completely useful, it does provide certain types of security, and the desire to get it (i.e. a home router) means lots of people end up with a firewall even if they never realize it. That doesn't mean you are saying anything useful with "Do I need to explain better that NAT is not a firewall?"

But you like IPv6 so <waves hand dismissively>.

Re:Why would I want to spend forever using a tunne

[FranckMartin]

Tunnels are free, ISPs do not charge for them, in fact this is to by pass your ISP lack of native IPv6.

Take an Apple Airport Extreme, and it takes just on tick to enable IPv6 in advanced settings and you are set.

IPv6 and encryption

[anwyn]

Does not the IPV6 specification support end to end encryption? Is going to interfere with the FBI's plan to force all ISPs to help bug everyone's internet connection for the FBI?

If there is end to end encryption, the connection can not be bugged at the ISP except for traffic analysis. Is that right?

Re:IPv6 and encryption

[John Hasler]

Does not the IPV6 specification support end to end encryption?

It does, but so does IPV4. IPSec .

The problem isn't lack of IPv6 sites..

[Junta]

The problem is that every one of those sites is IPv4 accessible. IPv6 doesn't have any *exclusive* content. You can do google, facebook, netflix, and back to mac in an IPv4 only scenario. There is, however, tons of IPv4 only traffic.

So I reiterate, if I take my IPv4 connection and go through the trouble of a tunnel broker to get IPv6 as well, I haven't gained anything additional of significant value, except going through more contorted internet routes than I would for IPv4.

Thanks a whole lot.

[Junta]

Had not heard of that at all, and after some reading, it really looks like the right way to go. I'd be perfectly content with that if it works as promised and trade my IPv4 address in for a /56 in a heartbeat (I really really want at least a /56, I'm just that greedy, even though I'll probably only use one /64 out of laziness)

Tunnels are free while your ISP support IPv4

[Marrow]

But what if your ISP puts you on a private 32bit address. One which allows you connectivity to their tunnel broker, but does not let you outside. It seems like there will be a transition phase where the IPv4 addresses will be given up for "servers" to use. And the client addresses will have the brokered IPv6 address space. But your only broker would be your ISP.

You are saying "lets go to IPv6", but what you really mean is "lets go to IPv6 by using IPv4 to get there". What happens when they take away the IPv4 and leave you with the ISPs tunnel broker and no native IPv6?

I dread that is what we will be left with.

But then my IPv4 space isn't so special

[drwho]

I've got an unused class B (65535 addresses). I want to make money using it. So, I am against IPv6.

Re:Deadline (congrats first post)

[pandaman9000]

....25 or ....

Why should the govt do this?

[fluffy99]

Given that the US govt holds a pretty small percentage of the IPv4 allocations, converting them won't do much to prevent exhaustion. In fact, you'll find that large chunks of DOD are moving towards NAT and using rfc private addresses (example would be NMCI using 10. numbers). Lets face it, we have way too many problems as a result of govt agencies using publicly routeable addresses.

I would much rather see the industry take the lead and financial burden of working out the kinks with IPv6. Besides, don't you realize that IPv6 addresses make perfect cookies?

It's the hardware!

[pedestrian crossing]

The problem isn't OS support. That gets changed once and then distributed everywhere, and people tend to upgrade their OS once in a while.

The real problem is the little home router that most people have. Those all need to be replaced with little home routers that support IPv6. Ditto for the little DSL modem/router that most folks got from their ISP back when they got DSL 10 years ago.

Unfortunately, if you look at the typical home router sitting in a box on a store shelf, you can't tell if it supports IPv6. Manufacturers are not touting their products as being IPv6-ready. I've looked, and it's really hard to tell. Most of the ones I've seen don't say either way.

And no one has incentive to replace their DSL modem/router, either. The ISP isn't going to pay for it, and it's one of those things you set and forget. Even if you could talk everyone into buying a new one, installing and configuring it would be very disruptive to the average user. There isn't a compelling enough reason for the home user to bother.

Someone above joked about making Facebook IPv6-only. It's going to take something like that to provide the 'incentive' for the typical user to make the change, and you know that just isn't going to happen. Inertia makes an IPv6-only Internet a non-starter.

Re:It's the hardware!

[Bengie]

why care about the routers? Just buy a switch for $30 or use your router as a switch by plugging into a LAN port instead of the WAN port.

If I unplug from my router and plug strait into my cable modem, I can access every IPv6 site out there. I don't have to config ANYTHING.

Luckily my router runs on Linux and eventually DD-WRT will correctly support it and then I'll just use it as a IPV4-NAT and an IPv6 Firewall.

fyi, if your DSL modem is 10 years old, go to your ISP and trade in for a new one. I did that with my modem and got an IPv6 compatible one.

Re:It's the hardware!

[pedestrian crossing]

why care about the routers? Just buy a switch for $30 or use your router as a switch by plugging into a LAN port instead of the WAN port. If I unplug from my router and plug strait into my cable modem, I can access every IPv6 site out there. I don't have to config ANYTHING. Luckily my router runs on Linux and eventually DD-WRT will correctly support it and then I'll just use it as a IPV4-NAT and an IPv6 Firewall. fyi, if your DSL modem is 10 years old, go to your ISP and trade in for a new one. I did that with my modem and got an IPv6 compatible one.

Fine for us geeks who even know/care about IPv6/switches/routers/modems.

What about the other 95% of Joe six-packs out there? They don't know/don't care.

That's where the inertia is.

I seem to recall...

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to recall many US states having a three strikes law. Only in that case you go to jail. For life.

In summary: Get off your high horse you fucking moron.

Re:Why would I want to spend forever using a tunne

[Bengie]

My ISP, which is notorious for horrible customer service, already has native internal IPv6. They do go through an IPv6 broker though. If I do a trace route, I get a few hops from within my ISP, then the ping sky-rockets and hits some broker.

My definition of "sky rockets" is going from 8ms to 50ms. ipv6.google.com is about 120ms away from me, but the ipv4 version is only about 30ms.