If I'm the kind of person who is worried about the lack of NAS leading to people tracking me more effectively, why don't you think I'm the kind of person who can handle user-agent-strings (and other browser fingerprinting) and cookies?
IPv6 seems dedicated to preventing me from hiding. Even if my device is randomly hopping among IPv6 addresses, they're all on the same subnet (does that term still apply) meaning they can all be used to id me.
If somebody outside knows your/64 and they run a website, they can use their knowledge of your/64 to block you from getting into their site. But if they want to attack any of your devices, they need to know your entire/128 address, not just your subnet address, and that's where your device hopping b/w the addresses in your range helps.
But cookies would have to use something like your MAC addresses, or some other physical (read layer 2) info in order to have a count of your devices. In layer 3 - the IP layer - IPv4 can be used to track how many devices you are using, but IPv6 can't, due to the security extensions. So IPv4 vs IPv6 is no longer an argument if a foreign host, like Facebook or Twitter, is using something outside layer 3 to track everything about you
I'd imagine that from an ISP's POV, it's more useful to assign one subnet to a single household, and keep it simple. If the guy who's bought the service is a techie, and is running, say, a server of some type at home, it lets him manage the whole thing. If you split it b/w households, that would no longer be feasible, w/o him having to contact every other family on the subnet
Part of this I blame on the design decision to make every subnet 2^64 instead of 2^32. I mean, which subnet needs to have even 4 billion, let alone 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 nodes? Now, that 2^64 is de-facto hardcoded into routers, and one can't have set-ups where much smaller subnets would do.
It would be a billion times more, not as much. The entire IPv4 network is something like 3.2 billion addresses. An IPv6 subnet would be 2^64 addresses. It would take forever to scan one IPv6 subnet, compared to the entire IPv4 internet
No, security involves blocking/dropping hostile packets from a target node. It's the firewall part of the NAT that does that. If the NAT in question does not drop packets, but simply reroutes addresses, then it's not a security feature.
And how does a load balancer - something that divvies up the services being used - even begin to serve as a security device, w/o a firewall being involved?
Stateful Firewalls Provide Security (Not NAT)
NAT does not provide any real network security, it actually prevents many security measures.
Consumer grade firewalls (most of them) built into the modems they get from their ISP -- are often almost useless when it comes to providing real security. Many of them don't even bother to force the administrator to have anything more than the default password.
By your argument -- you would be even happier if your ISP shares your IP address across many households (double NAT'd) -- which mine does.
That's tangential to the argument the GP appeared to be making
The GP was expressing concern about a telco, or anyone else, being able to know how many devices you're hooking up to the internet using your service. In other words, if you are paying Comcast $50 a month for a service, it's none of their business how many devices are hooked on to it. Under IPv4, it's somewhat trivial for them to find out. Under IPv6, if security extensions are being used, it no longer is.
Same thing about who's watching what: if Tamara is on Twitter on the laptop, Rick is watching porn on the Android tablet and Kayla is playing Pokémon Go on the iPhone, nobody watching from outside would be able to tell who's doing what if security extensions are used
> Your ISP probably assigned a/64 to your home - so you can always keep rotating
> IPv6 addresses on your computer(s) if you feel the need to confuse your enemies.
That does *NOT* necessarily help anonymization. A static/64 (or/56) is still a CIDR. You can dick around with the MAC ID ("privacy extensions") and jump around in your CIDR all you want. But once someone identifies a static/64 or/56 with you, you're marked permanently. The big privacy battle with IPV6 will be for dynamic/64 or/56 allocation versus static allocation.
That may be true, but it's only useful if one wants to block your devices from accessing their sites. However, if one wants to attack any of your devices, the/64 ain't enough: one needs the entire/128 address. If they were to try a brute force method of attack, they'd either take forever to exhaust all 2^64 addresses, or they'd need some algorithm to randomly pick addresses and hope that they match
For the same reason that one uses dynamic addresses currently in IPv4: to prevent any attack vectors from pinpointing a device's IP address and then using that to break into the system. In fact, 'security extensions' (which is IPv6's term for dynamic addresses) is the default Microsoft way of assigning addresses to any device: they don't use EUI-64
Doesn't IPv6 hide the anonymization about which device beyond the firewall is using a service. Do I really want people outside my home to know how many devices I have, or which is viewing what?
Absolutely! Since the subnet size is fixed - 2^64, it's impossible for any service to know how many devices there are behind the firewall. Particularly if they are set up with security extensions, which is to have the interface IDs keep changing periodically so that not only can't a device's ID be nailed, but it would also be impossible to find out at the layer 3 level how many devices one has, or who's viewing what
Maybe b'cos DOS was a 16-bit OS optimized for the 80286, which is why it had that 640k memory barrier in the first place. If PC-MOS/386 was optimized for a 386, chances are that it was a 32-bit OS, not 16.
Perhaps they could consider working on a good phone OS and ignoring the "apps"? For example: I'm a grown-up. I don't use "apps". I want the best phone in order to get work done (calls and e-mail). I couldn't give two shits about Twit-Face-Gram-Chat. I have to imagine there are enough people like me out there that generate enough demand to justify working on the OS.
While I agree w/ you that most apps are useless, there are some apps that ought to be there on any phone:
1. Video calling apps: Apple always had it w/ FaceTime, Google got it late, and Microsoft got it after everybody else, w/ WhatsApp's video calling. That's the whole idea of a smartphone
2. Service apps: Apps like Uber, Lyft, the Uber Partner/Lyft driver apps, banking & financial apps, and so on. Like w/ E*TRADE, I have to use the phone to deposit checks, since that bank hardly has any branches.
3. Shopping apps - for places like Costco, Macys, Best Buy and so on. While OneNote allows one to make shopping lists, apps to make it smoother.
4. Exploration apps - like Yelp!, Fandango
5. A few of your favorite games to keep you occupied while you're waiting either in a restaurant or at a doctor's waiting room
But yeah, most of us don't need apps like Snapchat, FaceBook, Twitter, Pokémon Go, et al
Same codebase is a myth: one needs to maintain the different platforms separately, and they fork on their own. Otherwise, Windows NT/RISC had a common codebase w/ Windows NT on x86, but the former went nowhere. Microsoft doomed itself into becoming an Intel only platform, and when Intel punted on a market, like phones, Microsoft had to, as well. Windows on ARM was always a bad idea
Granted there are much better out there but I have family who have stuck with Windows Media Player since Windows 7 because it's all they know and don't want to learn more at their age. I've already heard grumblings of why Microsoft does changes like this to ruin their experience. This won't go over well.
It's not merely habit. It's also that the successors/substitutes that come in Windows 10 lack some important features that WMP had.
Since WMP was a 'one-size-fits-all' application in Windows 7 and prior, one could, aside from songs, even organize music videos into playlist. Imagine that you collected a whole bunch of them from YouTube, or even bought them from somewhere. In WMP, you could organize them into a playlist just like you could w/ just audio music, and you'd be fine: you wouldn't have to have an audio only copy of your music video to have it in a playlist.
In Groove - Microsoft's music player - audio is all you're allowed to do. If one wants to watch a music video, one has to use the Movie app. But guess what: one can't create playlists in movies, since that's obviously not how one watches movies. And in Groove, where one can create playlists, one can't include music videos in them.
On my part, I got an iPod Nano - just days before Apple discontinued the product, and loaded up what I could. I need to process my collection to make it into a format that the iPod can use. While I play it in the car - that's where the playlists are really needed - I can also watch music videos on them when I'm not driving.
When it's spent on a great deal of bureaucratic waste, any currency would lose its value. However, when literally flushed down a toilet, since there is less of that currency in circulation, it should theoretically gain value
Except that in India, it's illegal to reveal to parents the gender of unborn children. So in that doctor's visit, they can show the ultrasound images of the fetus to the parents while getting simultaneously paid - w/o the parents realizing the latter }:-)
Not really true. I can't think of anything I can do with my phone that I can't do otherwise. While it's easy to pay bills with an app, I can still go into my bank or mail a cheque. I can still use a camera, even a film camera if I want to. I can still mail a letter rather than use email.
There are however uses of the phone that one can't exactly simulate w/ discrete cameras, stamped letters or even to an extent, computers due to the Swiss army knife functionality of cellphones
I used to bank w/ E*TRADE bank, which used to have branches nationwide, but which closed all but one of them. So the only way of depositing checks there, if one doesn't have direct deposit, is to use their phone app: scan both front & back w/ the camera to get the deposit in. It worked for me, but I was forced to pick another bank when I found out that there was no way to get cashiers checks from them: one had to ask them to wire money to the target account, which not all rental properties could work w/
There have been cases where I'd like to be serviced in person, but am directed to use an app: however, what's worse is the app doesn't work. Case in point: My Verizon. So I pretty much drove to the store to get my issue fixed, rather than just sit on the chair and resolve it there.
Simple reason: all places in the US don't have 4G coverage, so in those areas, a Verizon phone would have to have a fallback to a 3G/2.5G/2G, whichever is available. So if one wants a phone to be passed by Verizon, not only must it work on their 4G band, but it must also work in the previous generation bands. So it goes through its paces in testing, and once Verizon is satisfied, it qualifies it and then offers it in its stores.
Reason it's not an issue w/ GSM carriers is that it already conforms to GSM fallback standards, and therefore doesn't need a separate qualification
The above 2 responses describe why SD cards are useful, even if your phone has 256GB. In case something happens to it, it's easier to move it to another phone and just reconfigure it from there. While there may be phones w/ 128GB of storage, the free cloud storage one gets is usually limited: 15GB for Google, and 5GB for Apple. With the latter, one has to regularly back up on a PC or Mac if the content exceeds 5GB.
There is a lot to be said for not having to reconfigure a phone from scratch just b'cos one gets a new one, and particularly when the OS is now flexible enough to allow you to run from a SD card. One could buy an entry level Android Marshmallow phone w/ just 16 or 32GB of storage, pop in the 128GB card, define it as the primary storage, and just use it for the life of the phone. Phone dies, pop out the SD card into a new phone, and lather, rinse, repeat...
Checking out their FAQ, they are a slight improvement on Android phones in that their mission is supposedly to 'play well w/ others' and actually belong to you. However, they do lack expandable storage (although their main storage of 128GB may well be adequate), dual SIMs and replaceable batteries. However, their bootloader can be unlocked.
One major beef I have w/ Android phones is that since Marshmallow, I haven't seen a single Android phone that comes w/ SD card - precisely b'cos Marshmallow allows one to get around a limited storage by putting in, say, a 128GB or more SD card and defining it as the primary storage.
Microsoft, while maintaining its commitment to Windows,...
What commitment to Windows? These days, Windows has become exceedingly slow on my laptop while logging in, and also while opening and closing programs. Windows 10 Mobile has been badly crippled - WiFi is now undetectable.
While this laptop is currently working w/ Windows 10, when it dies, I'll get a mac. I have the TrueOS laptop as well, but updating it has so far proved elusive
Is RIM/Blackberry's failure a symptom of any larger Canadian malaise, or something unique to that company? They had a great product, but failed to transition in a lineup of smart phones that would have kept them competitive with Android and Apple. Heck, I know hindsight is 20/20, but had Microsoft formed their partnership w/ RIM, rather than Nokia, and let RIM build on a suite of office applications to complement what Microsoft already had, like Office, OneNote, et al, that could have been a viable offering to RIM's customer base.
That, and RIM could have used Microsoft's help in having enough cloud backup for their services, so that they didn't go down so often
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I have Comcast at home: it's the only carrier available at my residence. No IPv6
If I'm the kind of person who is worried about the lack of NAS leading to people tracking me more effectively, why don't you think I'm the kind of person who can handle user-agent-strings (and other browser fingerprinting) and cookies?
IPv6 seems dedicated to preventing me from hiding. Even if my device is randomly hopping among IPv6 addresses, they're all on the same subnet (does that term still apply) meaning they can all be used to id me.
If somebody outside knows your /64 and they run a website, they can use their knowledge of your /64 to block you from getting into their site. But if they want to attack any of your devices, they need to know your entire /128 address, not just your subnet address, and that's where your device hopping b/w the addresses in your range helps.
But cookies would have to use something like your MAC addresses, or some other physical (read layer 2) info in order to have a count of your devices. In layer 3 - the IP layer - IPv4 can be used to track how many devices you are using, but IPv6 can't, due to the security extensions. So IPv4 vs IPv6 is no longer an argument if a foreign host, like Facebook or Twitter, is using something outside layer 3 to track everything about you
I'd imagine that from an ISP's POV, it's more useful to assign one subnet to a single household, and keep it simple. If the guy who's bought the service is a techie, and is running, say, a server of some type at home, it lets him manage the whole thing. If you split it b/w households, that would no longer be feasible, w/o him having to contact every other family on the subnet
Part of this I blame on the design decision to make every subnet 2^64 instead of 2^32. I mean, which subnet needs to have even 4 billion, let alone 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 nodes? Now, that 2^64 is de-facto hardcoded into routers, and one can't have set-ups where much smaller subnets would do.
It would be a billion times more, not as much. The entire IPv4 network is something like 3.2 billion addresses. An IPv6 subnet would be 2^64 addresses. It would take forever to scan one IPv6 subnet, compared to the entire IPv4 internet
No, security involves blocking/dropping hostile packets from a target node. It's the firewall part of the NAT that does that. If the NAT in question does not drop packets, but simply reroutes addresses, then it's not a security feature.
And how does a load balancer - something that divvies up the services being used - even begin to serve as a security device, w/o a firewall being involved?
Stateful Firewalls Provide Security (Not NAT) NAT does not provide any real network security, it actually prevents many security measures. Consumer grade firewalls (most of them) built into the modems they get from their ISP -- are often almost useless when it comes to providing real security. Many of them don't even bother to force the administrator to have anything more than the default password. By your argument -- you would be even happier if your ISP shares your IP address across many households (double NAT'd) -- which mine does.
That's tangential to the argument the GP appeared to be making
The GP was expressing concern about a telco, or anyone else, being able to know how many devices you're hooking up to the internet using your service. In other words, if you are paying Comcast $50 a month for a service, it's none of their business how many devices are hooked on to it. Under IPv4, it's somewhat trivial for them to find out. Under IPv6, if security extensions are being used, it no longer is.
Same thing about who's watching what: if Tamara is on Twitter on the laptop, Rick is watching porn on the Android tablet and Kayla is playing Pokémon Go on the iPhone, nobody watching from outside would be able to tell who's doing what if security extensions are used
> Your ISP probably assigned a /64 to your home - so you can always keep rotating
> IPv6 addresses on your computer(s) if you feel the need to confuse your enemies.
That does *NOT* necessarily help anonymization. A static /64 (or /56) is still a CIDR. You can dick around with the MAC ID ("privacy extensions") and jump around in your CIDR all you want. But once someone identifies a static /64 or /56 with you, you're marked permanently. The big privacy battle with IPV6 will be for dynamic /64 or /56 allocation versus static allocation.
That may be true, but it's only useful if one wants to block your devices from accessing their sites. However, if one wants to attack any of your devices, the /64 ain't enough: one needs the entire /128 address. If they were to try a brute force method of attack, they'd either take forever to exhaust all 2^64 addresses, or they'd need some algorithm to randomly pick addresses and hope that they match
For the same reason that one uses dynamic addresses currently in IPv4: to prevent any attack vectors from pinpointing a device's IP address and then using that to break into the system. In fact, 'security extensions' (which is IPv6's term for dynamic addresses) is the default Microsoft way of assigning addresses to any device: they don't use EUI-64
Doesn't IPv6 hide the anonymization about which device beyond the firewall is using a service. Do I really want people outside my home to know how many devices I have, or which is viewing what?
Absolutely! Since the subnet size is fixed - 2^64, it's impossible for any service to know how many devices there are behind the firewall. Particularly if they are set up with security extensions, which is to have the interface IDs keep changing periodically so that not only can't a device's ID be nailed, but it would also be impossible to find out at the layer 3 level how many devices one has, or who's viewing what
Maybe b'cos DOS was a 16-bit OS optimized for the 80286, which is why it had that 640k memory barrier in the first place. If PC-MOS/386 was optimized for a 386, chances are that it was a 32-bit OS, not 16.
Perhaps they could consider working on a good phone OS and ignoring the "apps"? For example: I'm a grown-up. I don't use "apps". I want the best phone in order to get work done (calls and e-mail). I couldn't give two shits about Twit-Face-Gram-Chat. I have to imagine there are enough people like me out there that generate enough demand to justify working on the OS.
While I agree w/ you that most apps are useless, there are some apps that ought to be there on any phone:
1. Video calling apps: Apple always had it w/ FaceTime, Google got it late, and Microsoft got it after everybody else, w/ WhatsApp's video calling. That's the whole idea of a smartphone
2. Service apps: Apps like Uber, Lyft, the Uber Partner/Lyft driver apps, banking & financial apps, and so on. Like w/ E*TRADE, I have to use the phone to deposit checks, since that bank hardly has any branches.
3. Shopping apps - for places like Costco, Macys, Best Buy and so on. While OneNote allows one to make shopping lists, apps to make it smoother.
4. Exploration apps - like Yelp!, Fandango
5. A few of your favorite games to keep you occupied while you're waiting either in a restaurant or at a doctor's waiting room
But yeah, most of us don't need apps like Snapchat, FaceBook, Twitter, Pokémon Go, et al
Same codebase is a myth: one needs to maintain the different platforms separately, and they fork on their own. Otherwise, Windows NT/RISC had a common codebase w/ Windows NT on x86, but the former went nowhere. Microsoft doomed itself into becoming an Intel only platform, and when Intel punted on a market, like phones, Microsoft had to, as well. Windows on ARM was always a bad idea
I believe that iXsystems owns FreeBSD and TrueOS, and pays the people who work on it. Apple too employs a few
Granted there are much better out there but I have family who have stuck with Windows Media Player since Windows 7 because it's all they know and don't want to learn more at their age. I've already heard grumblings of why Microsoft does changes like this to ruin their experience. This won't go over well.
It's not merely habit. It's also that the successors/substitutes that come in Windows 10 lack some important features that WMP had.
Since WMP was a 'one-size-fits-all' application in Windows 7 and prior, one could, aside from songs, even organize music videos into playlist. Imagine that you collected a whole bunch of them from YouTube, or even bought them from somewhere. In WMP, you could organize them into a playlist just like you could w/ just audio music, and you'd be fine: you wouldn't have to have an audio only copy of your music video to have it in a playlist.
In Groove - Microsoft's music player - audio is all you're allowed to do. If one wants to watch a music video, one has to use the Movie app. But guess what: one can't create playlists in movies, since that's obviously not how one watches movies. And in Groove, where one can create playlists, one can't include music videos in them.
On my part, I got an iPod Nano - just days before Apple discontinued the product, and loaded up what I could. I need to process my collection to make it into a format that the iPod can use. While I play it in the car - that's where the playlists are really needed - I can also watch music videos on them when I'm not driving.
You mean like 'supply & demand' laws? They apply to currencies as well!
When it's spent on a great deal of bureaucratic waste, any currency would lose its value. However, when literally flushed down a toilet, since there is less of that currency in circulation, it should theoretically gain value
Except that in India, it's illegal to reveal to parents the gender of unborn children. So in that doctor's visit, they can show the ultrasound images of the fetus to the parents while getting simultaneously paid - w/o the parents realizing the latter }:-)
Not really true. I can't think of anything I can do with my phone that I can't do otherwise. While it's easy to pay bills with an app, I can still go into my bank or mail a cheque. I can still use a camera, even a film camera if I want to. I can still mail a letter rather than use email.
There are however uses of the phone that one can't exactly simulate w/ discrete cameras, stamped letters or even to an extent, computers due to the Swiss army knife functionality of cellphones
I used to bank w/ E*TRADE bank, which used to have branches nationwide, but which closed all but one of them. So the only way of depositing checks there, if one doesn't have direct deposit, is to use their phone app: scan both front & back w/ the camera to get the deposit in. It worked for me, but I was forced to pick another bank when I found out that there was no way to get cashiers checks from them: one had to ask them to wire money to the target account, which not all rental properties could work w/
There have been cases where I'd like to be serviced in person, but am directed to use an app: however, what's worse is the app doesn't work. Case in point: My Verizon. So I pretty much drove to the store to get my issue fixed, rather than just sit on the chair and resolve it there.
More precisely, a CDMA thing.
Simple reason: all places in the US don't have 4G coverage, so in those areas, a Verizon phone would have to have a fallback to a 3G/2.5G/2G, whichever is available. So if one wants a phone to be passed by Verizon, not only must it work on their 4G band, but it must also work in the previous generation bands. So it goes through its paces in testing, and once Verizon is satisfied, it qualifies it and then offers it in its stores.
Reason it's not an issue w/ GSM carriers is that it already conforms to GSM fallback standards, and therefore doesn't need a separate qualification
The above 2 responses describe why SD cards are useful, even if your phone has 256GB. In case something happens to it, it's easier to move it to another phone and just reconfigure it from there. While there may be phones w/ 128GB of storage, the free cloud storage one gets is usually limited: 15GB for Google, and 5GB for Apple. With the latter, one has to regularly back up on a PC or Mac if the content exceeds 5GB.
There is a lot to be said for not having to reconfigure a phone from scratch just b'cos one gets a new one, and particularly when the OS is now flexible enough to allow you to run from a SD card. One could buy an entry level Android Marshmallow phone w/ just 16 or 32GB of storage, pop in the 128GB card, define it as the primary storage, and just use it for the life of the phone. Phone dies, pop out the SD card into a new phone, and lather, rinse, repeat...
It's means 'it is'. Possessive of it is its! While we're on the pedantic exercise, and talking of annoying
Checking out their FAQ, they are a slight improvement on Android phones in that their mission is supposedly to 'play well w/ others' and actually belong to you. However, they do lack expandable storage (although their main storage of 128GB may well be adequate), dual SIMs and replaceable batteries. However, their bootloader can be unlocked.
One major beef I have w/ Android phones is that since Marshmallow, I haven't seen a single Android phone that comes w/ SD card - precisely b'cos Marshmallow allows one to get around a limited storage by putting in, say, a 128GB or more SD card and defining it as the primary storage.
Microsoft, while maintaining its commitment to Windows,...
What commitment to Windows? These days, Windows has become exceedingly slow on my laptop while logging in, and also while opening and closing programs. Windows 10 Mobile has been badly crippled - WiFi is now undetectable.
While this laptop is currently working w/ Windows 10, when it dies, I'll get a mac. I have the TrueOS laptop as well, but updating it has so far proved elusive
Is RIM/Blackberry's failure a symptom of any larger Canadian malaise, or something unique to that company? They had a great product, but failed to transition in a lineup of smart phones that would have kept them competitive with Android and Apple. Heck, I know hindsight is 20/20, but had Microsoft formed their partnership w/ RIM, rather than Nokia, and let RIM build on a suite of office applications to complement what Microsoft already had, like Office, OneNote, et al, that could have been a viable offering to RIM's customer base.
That, and RIM could have used Microsoft's help in having enough cloud backup for their services, so that they didn't go down so often