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The Internet Technology

How Things Will Change Under IPv6 450

Posted by Zonk from the meet-the-new-boss dept.
Da Massive writes "IPv6 Forum leader Latif Ladid provides an insight into the workings of IPv6. He also talks about how peer-to-peer file serving as we know it today will be redundant with the newer protocol." From the article: "Q: What is the most significant benefit that IPv6 offers the world? A: Global connectivity. Currently we have less than 50 percent world-wide Internet penetration, and we have used most of the address space. If you look at the Western world, we have more than 50 percent penetration. In total we have close to a billion people connected to the Internet. So it is a false perception that we have full Internet penetration. We have six billion people on the planet. When the Internet protocol was designed back in 1980 there were 4.3 billion address spaces; it was already insufficient for the population. By 2050 we will be nearly 10 billion people. But there are not only people. There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people."
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How Things Will Change Under IPv6 More

How Things Will Change Under IPv6

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  • But when? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:24AM (#14062624)
    How long will a complete transition to IPV6 take? Many many years IMO, if it ever happens at all. None of the firms I know of or work with have even started looking into migrating yet. Hell they are'nt even talking about it.

    • Re:But when? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jimbolauski ( 882977 )
      I'm personaly hoping that we run out I can't wait see the time share IP address and IP addresses on ebay.

    • Re:But when? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aonaran ( 15651 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:44AM (#14062807) Homepage
      "How long will a complete transition to IPV6 take? Many many years IMO, if it ever happens at all. None of the firms I know of or work with have even started looking into migrating yet. Hell they are'nt even talking about it."

      This is the thing that bothers me, it looks like y2k all over again. No body thinks it's a problem until there's a last minute scramble to get the issue resolved.

      The only difference is this time around there's no clearly defined cutoff date and when the transition happens it'll probably be spread out over months or years as people start to clue in that they are missing half the internet.

      Most of the technological hurdles in connectivity have been overcome, even home users can upgrade their linksys routers in 5 minutes or so to take advantage of IPv6 but for some reason ISPs are holding back and because of that businesses are holding back. Everyone is waiting for somone else to make the first move.

      • Re:But when? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jacksonj04 ( 800021 )
        Start with yourself. Install an IPv6 stack and start using IPv6 servers (Such as for IRC) wherever possible. The 6-to-4 routing can be dealt with on your end (Usually without you needing to change anything awkward) and through one of many open 4-to-6 bridges on the other end. Eventually your IP will notice more and more IPv6 traffic traversing their network using 6-to-4.

        Start turning businesses on internal networks and when it is realised that IPv6 is in fact far nicer, because you're not playing hell tryin

      • Re:But when? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Undertaker43017 ( 586306 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:56AM (#14062909)
        The problem is mostly social. You now have millions of people on the Internet that barely understand what it is, and while from a technical persons point of view IPv6 is "no big deal", from this groups point of view this is a "big scary", and something they wouldn't think of doing on their own. So I suspect the majority of ISP's have realized this and are not ready for the customer service nightmare that changing would cause. Sure you can upgrade your Linksys to handle IPv6, but how many people even know the device CAN be upgraded at all, let alone know how to do it...

    • Re:But when? (Score:2, Informative)

      by puke76 ( 775195 )
      The IPv6 mess [cr.yp.to] (according to D J Bernstein).

      • Re:But when? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jrockway ( 229604 ) * <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:40PM (#14063370) Homepage Journal
        Doesn't qmail need a non-DJB patch to use IPv6? I enjoy Bernstein's writing, but in this case, he is doing a whole lot of talking and not a whole lot of acting.

        Personally, my entire home network is IPv6. If people don't want to use IPv6, that's fine with me. My ISP charges me $10/month for static IPs, but with IPv6, I got 2^64 of them for free. 2^64!!! That's 2^32 more than all the IPv4 addresses in existence.

        I think it's easy to see why people don't want IPv6. Without artificial scarcity, they can't gouge you for IP addresses.
        • I think you miss his point. You run IPv6 on your internal network. Great. But every time you talk to someone outside that network, you'll be using IPv4. Who is going to be the first one to switch to the IPv6 internet? No-one. Everyone needs to change at once. And I think that's why many say it's just not going to happen. Why don't you start using an external IPv6 address and get back to me.

          • Re:But when? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by jrockway ( 229604 ) *
            My internal machines don't need to talk to anyone that uses IPv4.

            Admittedly, I do use a web proxy that fetches IPv4 websites for these machines, but I did that anyway. Having IPv6 lets me ssh to my machines without having to ssh to my firewall first. Convenient. And ready for the future.

            People can sit here and whine about how nobody's moving to IPv6, but the fact of the matter is that it's super simple to do, and once you have, you're done. If everyone does this, there will be no "great transition". It

          • Re:But when? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by FireFury03 ( 653718 ) <slashdot@NoSPAm.nexusuk.org> on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:39PM (#14064082) Homepage
            But every time you talk to someone outside that network, you'll be using IPv4. Who is going to be the first one to switch to the IPv6 internet? No-one. Everyone needs to change at once. And I think that's why many say it's just not going to happen. Why don't you start using an external IPv6 address and get back to me.

            I'm afraid you're talking crap - I use IPv6 on my internal network *and* over the Internet, it coexists quite happilly with IPv4. Enabling IPv6 support on a system does _not_ require leaving the IPv4 network. If you have both protocols enabled then IPv6 will be preferred when it is available on both ends (since the DNS lookup you make to find the remote server's address will return both A and AAAA records) but if one end doesn't do IPv6 then the IPv4 address will be used.

            The problem here is an economic one, not a technological one:
            1. Why should the content provider invest in rolling out IPv6 addresses to their servers (there is an administration cost in running an additional protocol) when 100% of their clients have IPv4 addresses (the number with IPv6 addresses is not important here if it is significantly less than 100%)
            2. Why should the ISPs invest in rolling out IPv6 networks if 100% of the content on the internet is accessible over IPv4?
            3. Why should the consumer grade DSL router manufacturers bother to include native IPv6 support in their hardware if the ISPs aren't going to support it?

            Most of the end-users neither know nor care about IPv6, but if the ISPs provided native IPv6 connectivity, the customers' DSL routers provided IPv6 support and their OSes shipped with IPv6 enabled by default (Fedora Core does this, as does OSX... sadly XP doesn't) then the customer wouldn't need to care about it because it would just automagically work - IPv6 does autoconfiguration our of the box.

            So whilest there are economic reasons why businesses won't be inclined to change without everyone else changing, there is no technical reason why anyone can't support IPv6 without everyone else changing.
          • Thanks for posting DJB's piece, it was an interesting read.

            I don't see why everyone needs to change (if by that you mean 'get connected to the IPv6 network without losing your connection to the IPv4 network') at once, however. As long as useful services are provided over the IPv6 network that can't be provided over the IPv4 network, people will start changing over. As long as connecting to the IPv6 network doesn't mean you loose the ability to talk over the IPv4 network, and it doesn't, there is no penalt

    • It doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)

      by keithmoore ( 106078 )
      The notion of a complete transition is fairly meaningless. We're going to be using IPv4 for the web, email, and dedicated appliances like printers that are hard to upgrade, almost indefinitely. However for those applications the limitations of IPv4 addressing aren't such a big deal as there are fairly acceptable workarounds. IPv6 enables many more hosts to participate in peer-to-peer interactions than before, and this opens up potential for many new kinds of protocols and networked applications.

      As for de

  • Welcome Overlords (Score:4, Funny)

    by j_kenpo ( 571930 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:25AM (#14062630)
    "There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people"

    I for one welcome our new.... thingy overlords...

  • untrue (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:25AM (#14062634)
    So it is a false perception that we have full Internet penetration.

    This is completely untrue! There is lots of full penetration on the internet.

  • "Billions and billions" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FirienFirien ( 857374 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:27AM (#14062643) Homepage
    On the comment "Billions and billions of devices that will serve these people", it seems to be unmentioned that (random estimate, not researched in any way) half of them will not be directly hooked into the interweb. Many of those are intended to be that way, since you want your layers of security, and that's why we have however many thousands of addresses in the range 10.0.0.[0-256]; technically they're using the same IP, but it doesn't matter because that IP is kept internally, and not in contact with the web.

    IPv4 does not have enough numbers to give every single device its own unique IP. On the flip side... if we were locked into the system, it would still be workable.
    • It always amuses me that people use the total population of the earth to explain why we need X number of whatever. Do the billion or so babies need an IP address? What about the billion+ sustenance farmers?

      OTH, there is a fair point that it's not about people, it's about devices..

    • Private addresses + NAT is not a security measure, although it looks like one.
      The same issues can be addressed without the need for NAT and private addressing.

      The main reason private addressing is used is because getting public address space is a hassle... whether people realize it or not.
      Just imagine.. if you could just have a million public IP addresses that worked, why wouldn't you use them?

    • Re:"Billions and billions" (Score:2, Informative)

      by TCM ( 130219 )
      half of them will not be directly hooked into the interweb. Many of those are intended to be that way, since you want your layers of security, and that's why we have however many thousands of addresses in the range 10.0.0.[0-256];

      Repeat after me for the 34253456345324th time: NAT is not a security measure. NAT is not a security measure. NAT is not..
      • NAT is a *layer* of security, but not security itself.

        Ok, NAT itself isn't. HOWEVER. MOST people relate NAT with a firewall performing NAT. Which is a level of security.

        Nitpicking that a NAT machine is not a security measure fails to take into consideration that most people, NAT assumes some sort of firewalling taking place between the networks.

    • Re:"Billions and billions" (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      however many thousands of addresses in the range 10.0.0.[0-256]

      Sorry, but I have to completely discount technical analysis and discussion from anyone who writes 2^24 as "however many thousands" when discussing a technical subject in a technical forum. Nothing personal, mind you, but it demonstrates either (a) a lack of basic math skills which are essential, even reflexive, to anyone really knowledgeable in this space or (b) a lack of attention to detail. In either case, your analysis is of much less va

  • What About Private Address Space? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seems that when discussing "the sky is falling" ipv4 schemes, no one ever takes into account private networks. In most cases, especially in the Western world, all devices are not directly connected to the internet. Private address space, when used according to specification, will eliminate the need for costly conversions to a new standard.

    IPv6, in some ways, is not a good thing, and my vote is to continue using the current addressing system, albeit in a more conservative manner.

    • Re:What About Private Address Space? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:34AM (#14062721) Journal
      With IPv6, you still have private address space, if you want, so your reasoning for staying is faulty. The problem is that there is no ip space as more ppl want ip's than are available. Quite honestly, we need to move to IPv6.
      • IPv6 won't solve the address scarcity problem, because nobody wants a public IPv6 address that isn't reachable from the IPv4 network (who wants to turn away customers?). This won't start to change until almost everyone has switched to IPv6. Therefore the non-IPv4-compatible parts of the IPv6 address space are only useful for private networks and point-to-point links, where address scarcity is not a problem.

        NAT, on the other hand, is already solving the address scarcity problem. It isn't necessary for ever

    • Re:What About Private Address Space? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kotj.mf ( 645325 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:37AM (#14062755)
      Private address space, when used according to specification, will eliminate the need for costly conversions to a new standard.

      Actually, it'll eliminate the need for costly conversions to a new standard for a period of time, after which we'll all need to upgrade anyway, when it'll be even more costly.

      Ladid's main point seems to be that NAT-proponents take this kind of short-term, client/server-centric view. There's nothing wrong with client/server, but it's a significant hinderance for independent development of things like VoIP, where peer-to-peer makes far more sense.

      Basically, it's not just that we're running out of address space; it's also that treating NAT like anything other than a (relatively) short-term fix ultimately hinders the development of new uses for the internets.

      • In fact, I would think of the metric issue (Score:5, Interesting)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:15PM (#14063120) Journal
        Back in the 70's, President Carter was going to move us to the Metric system. Road signs were being converted to mph/metric, goods were dual marked, etc. The idea was to make the conversion in 1981. Then reagan came in and stopped it. America was nearly ready, but it was stopped. Now, we are just about the only nation that does not do metric. That means that special labeling is done just for us. That also means, our goods are more expensive. Sadly, at this point, we have raised several whole generations without as much metric as we had in the 60's, and 70's. When we decide to finally change, it will be expensive and hard. reagan's choice was very short-sighted.

        Right now, is the time to switch. In the future, it will only be more expensive esp. as small devices get IPs. They will also have to be switched. Finally, a new wave of software development could take place with IPv6, that is more difficult to do with IPv4. Not siwtching is very short-sighted.
    • Connecting those devices indirectly to the internet requires NAT or some other kludge. While it works to a degree, it has a lot of shortcomings and is not a viable long term solution.
    • Its funny how preception changes with risk. A few years ago everyone was screaming that we needed IPv6 even though NAT had been invented. Now we are finally realizing the security advantages of NAT and are starting to accept that we don't all NEED a publically addressable space.

      At one time we wanted to be able to connect directly to our fridge from work, now we are happy and prefer to connect directly to our home server which will route request to our fridge based upon security clearances.. Because serious

      • Re:What About Private Address Space? (Score:4, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:08PM (#14063013) Journal
        Rubbish. NAT is not a security measure. If you have port {whatever this week's virus uses} forwarded, you are just as vulnerable as if you don't use NAT. Similarly, if you have a public IP and a firewall between you and the Internet which doesn't allow anything through on that port, you are secure.

        A public IP with everything other the VoIP and (for example) BitTorrent blocked is much more useful, and no less secure than NAT.

  • Oh, penetration (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:27AM (#14062654) Homepage Journal
    Q: Besides the obvious thing about address space, what other advantages does it have?

    A: Penetration! Because we don't have everybody connected yet!

    Q: And how does IPv6 increase penetration? Does it build wires to people's houses or make provide satellite dishes to third-world countries?

    A: No, but it does make sure we have enough addresses once they have some money to buy the actual hardware stuff!

    Look, I know that eventually we're going to have to transition off IPv4 because of the address space issues, and that we might as well start now, but articles like this make it more like a marketing stunt to sell new hardware RIGHT NOW.
    • I agree, I think the reasoning in the story description is flimsy at best. Besides, people don't need IP addresses, computers and other electronic devices do. Even then, most devices don't need publicly accessible IP addresses.

      I need a better argument than "NAT is a hack" and such to convince me. I suspect many others aren't accepting that argument for face value either. In short, not enough people are pushing for IPv6 because the proponents of IPv6 aren't convincing enough people to demand a switch, es

      • Re:Oh, penetration (Score:3, Insightful)

        by leonbev ( 111395 )
        Exactly... No one in their right mind would want to give the appliances of their home network a public IP address. The last thing I want to worry about is having my microwave or refrigerator being hacked and wrecking my food because I haven't installed the latest security patch to whatever embedded OS they're running.
    • Furthermore, most of those people that aren't hooked up yet don't need internet. They need food.

      Whatever idiot was being interviewed sounds more like a marketing exec than a techie. It's so brimming over with bravado and best-thing-since-sliced-bread it's hard to stomach. It's an interview for and by executives; nothing for nerds to see here, move along.
    • Think about it. Almost every broadband ISP offers a "home network" package where they charge you extra for extra computers on the connection. However everyone else on the planet is selling easy to use broadband routers to do it on the cheap. If every device gets an IPv6 address then you can bill them very easily for all those extra computers on that DSL line.

  • IPv6 Changes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrtroy ( 640746 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:30AM (#14062683)
    What people dont seem to realize is that IPv6 is not only about adding more addresses.

    They also improve the packet structure (by doing things like removing the fragmentation flag)

    And we should be looking at making wireless roaming easier (consider forwarding mechanisms when changing WAP's)

    But more addresses is a key benefit. And there is no real harm, just the cost of transition which can be minimized due to the backwards compatibility provided through tunneling, etc. So if everyone just starts installing IPv6 hardware, everything is happy. Why is this issue being rehashed?
    • What i'd like to know if exactly why the author thinks web services won't require a central server. From TFA: "I want to send a piece of music directly to a friend. I don't want to pay someone else to do it for me." and "I need an ISP, I just don't need someone else like Skype to offer me additional services over my connection as I will be able to do it all myself. "

      So the IPv6 protocol includes a chat client and direct P2P application in the stack?

      Sure you can write apps that go directly point to poi
      • The point is that P2P is harder in IPv4 than in IPv6 since you have to deal with NAT. In IPv6, you could communicate directly with somebody without going through NAT and therefore that part of the communication would be trivial. No fancy stuff would be required to account for NAT between the two peers. You'd still need an application to do the communication, but it would be pretty trivial.

  • Why don't we start today? Tunnels! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nichotin ( 794369 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:31AM (#14062693)
    If you just want a broker that is quick to get started with, go to btexact [btexact.com] and sign up. For those "permanent" set ups, go to (you will get a tunnel initially, but have to save uptime enough to get a subnet and such).

    So, what can it be used for? Well, at the moment I do not really use it to browse the web, but I use it for reverse dns on irc (efnet, freenode and most other ircnets have ipv6 enabled servers). In other words, I can have a range of customized hosts (very handy since many friends have shell accounts here) on irc, like @doomtech.net or cust-523452.nix.net.ru. The first one is my own domain, but the second is from afraid freedns [afraid.org]. Afraid has a huge range of public domains, which you can add AAAA and PTR records for.
    After thinking up a host, please go to spamcalc [spamcalc.net], if you don't have the brains yourself to see if your host is dns spam or not. A host like doomtech.net is not dns spam, but something like i.am.god.and.i.live.in.the.cave.with.osama.bin.lad en.info is.

    Sixxs and btexact have pretty exact instructions on how to set this up on a range of operating systems. With the aiccu client from sixxs, the tunnel should work behind most NAT setups as well.
    • With sixxs, you get a /48-subnet, which should be sufficient for your quadrillion machines. The address I have looks something like this: 2001:770:11e::1, which is a short for 2001:0770:011e:0000:0000:0000:0000:0001. Luckily those zeroes can be shorted to just ::, which makes these addresses pretty easy to remember, actually. You can also have a bit fun, if you wish, by having e.g. 2001:770:11e:FFFF:DEAD:BEEF:DEAD:BABE :)

      If you are bored some day, give the tunnel stuff a try, instead of sitting in your u

  • But not everyone will need IP addresses (Score:3, Informative)

    by WebHostingGuy ( 825421 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:32AM (#14062696) Homepage Journal
    While it is nice to say we don't have enough IP address to cover everyone now, be realistic. Not everyone will need one. There are a lot of people like me who will have lots and lots of them with all the toys I accumulate. However, there is also going to be a lot of people who won't.

    While we will need more in the future saying we have to have more IPs because we have more people is not necessarily correct. Whereas NAT is being used a lot in corporate networks it is also being used in the home as well. I know, this doesn't solve everything. However, I can say right now there is a generation of people (my parents) who do not know what an IP is, nor do they care. Including them in the big list saying we need IPs for them is a fallacy--they will never use it or want it. And how about babies? Unless you are tagging them with remote tracking chips when they are born chances are they don't need one. Moreover, right now there are entire places in the third world which do not have systematic running water or electricity. Including them in this count is ridiculous as well. They need a lot more basic needs before they all need individual cell phones running IPv6.
    • Most people don't want to or care to vote. Lets not transition to democracy.

      I am only being a little fecetious here. Its about the technological innovation and its about the philosophy of the Net. The internet was designed and intended to be with the philosophy that all devices on the Net are equal in its end-to-end architecture. Your desktop PC is no less or more a valid member of the Net than the big web servers at IBM. Just because the majority of people on the Net don't know about or don't care abo

  • Why is NAT so bad? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mightypenguin ( 593397 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:33AM (#14062708)
    I understand that NAT is considered a hack, but isn't the fact that a device's real address is hidden a security feature for the user? Wouldn't it be that much harder for malicious users to track my internet usage? This would be especially true if I had a mobile device, since moving from one NAT system to another would make following my movements remotely more difficult. So I'd think NAT would be considered a privacy boon. The article doesn't really address this effectively. Also, since most mobile devices have limited bandwidth, I'd think that having a constantly changing IP address, or hiding behind a NAT would mean that DOS attacks against them would be more difficult. If most big mobile device ISPs like the blackberry and sidekick folks offered NAT based access in the future, I'd think that we'd be relatively safe from IPv4 address exhaustion. So stating the main reason for IPv6 being address exhaustion I think is crap. It IS very useful for other reasons though, and I think those reasons warrant it being switched to.
    • NAT is the one of the best "hack" that has ever been made for networks. I don't want to have every computer publicly accessible. Is there NAT on IPv6? How many addresses are available for v6? Using NAT, the maximum number of connected devices (sorry for not having the figures in front of me) on IPv4 = Total # of public addresses x Total # of addresses in a class A private network (10.x.x.x).

      According to my calculations, using Class A private NAT with each address in a Class A public network come

    • Why NAT is so bad (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TallMatthew ( 919136 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:10PM (#14063036)

      If you've ever tried to implement an IPSEC VPN with numerous endusers that have DSL/CableModem gateways that default to 192.168.1.x, you'll know why NAT is so bad, particularly if you're using that address space internally already. Granted, there are workarounds to this.

      That's dicey, but what's even more dicey is trying to interconnect corporate networks that use the same private address space. Companies that run virtual trading floors, for example, offer private line connections. You end up with multiple IP subnet conflicts and it's an incredible headache. That having been said, there are workarounds to that, too.

      When NAT became popular way back when, I was part of a few really painful reIPing projects. The reason we went to NAT was because there was no way to get portable IP space and our ISP was being a complete dick, jacking their prices and refusing to run BGP with us. Moving to NAT meant portability and portability meant our ISP couldn't dick us. If I was to move away from NAT and put v6 addresses in my corp network, that's what I'd worry about more than anything.

  • When we actually run out of numbers .... (Score:4, Funny)

    by bizitch ( 546406 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:33AM (#14062714) Homepage
    The closer we actually get to REALLY running out of IPV4 numbers - the more IPV6 will become adopted

    This is known as "Market Forces" - this is a foreign concept to many but it is the reality of this situation.

    When NAT becomes insuffiecient to handle the demand - IPV6 will be ready to roll. Then every man, woman, child, insect and grain of sand will have its own PUBLIC address which we can then begin to exploit - YAY!
    • That's kinda like saying Microsoft will code a new OS once the patch level of their current system gets overloaded.

      MS has done amazing things with their OS, but 2k and XP are essentially built off of NT4. Win NT4 --> Win NT5 --> Win NT5.1

      My understanding is that Vista is based off Windows Server 2003 but we've seen that as Vista gets closer to release, features are dropping like flies.

      Its much easier to keep adding hacks than to announce "i'm making a big change. deal with it" Plus, this is the intern
    • Nah. It's more fun to cry about how we're all going to die from lack of IP addresses and peak oil.

  • Just think of the number of systems that rely on IPv4 right now: networks, routers, cell phones, etc. There really isn't a lot of room left at the current rate of expansion. But let's face, that's how we get: complacent. The current system is working -- why bother with a new one? I believe the Romans got that way toward the end...

    I read the article and it was insightful, but I didn't have a lot of background on IPv6, so I searched for some background and found this on the details [csuchico.edu] and this on implementing [tldp.org]

  • But what does it give me... Now... That I don't have already?

     
    • a whole lot of things.

      Right now on the internet, "no one can tell you're a dog."

      With IPv6, we'll be able to tell that you are "Spot, a lab collie mix owned by Fred C Mugwump of 123 Fourth avenue, Anytown USA" and that you should not be trying to email anyone about viagra.

      Think of it as the death of Spam.
  • I'll finally have access to the extended and color version of ASCII Star Wars via telnet at towel.blinkenlights.nl.

  • I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nmg196 ( 184961 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:40AM (#14062784)
    Why does IPv6 make P2P any easier to implement?

    Why does it remove the need for servers?

    Why does it mean that we "won't need providers such as Skype anymore because we'll be able to do it all ourselves"?

    I don't see how IPv6 lets you do ANY of these things. You'll still be firewalled, you'll still need servers and software vendors like Skype. In fact the only thing about IPv6 that would seem to me to help P2P is that slighly more people might end up not being NATed but that won't affect anything much.

    Does this person actually know what they're talking about or are they from marketing?
    • because instead of these aggrigation servises, each box on teh intarweb will be able to have its own address, and thus you'll be able to connect to them all individually. I think that P2P and skype and the like are more than just programs that say connect to that person over there, but it does allow for the removal of an extra layer of abstraction. Whether or not one would want that layer gone is another question.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by it0 ( 567968 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:53AM (#14062877)
      I always understood that ipv6 has the ability to send 1 packet to mupltiple persons at once. So for example if you use bittorrent, and there are 7 people connected then you only have to send out 1 packet to reach to 6 people in stead of 6 packets with ipv4.

      The rest I don't know

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anakron ( 899671 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:48PM (#14063440)
      Why does IPv6 make P2P any easier to implement?
      It allows you to make direct connections from any computer to any other computer connected to the Internet. The way it was supposed to be. I'm guessing most peer to peer applications contain a lot of code that is designed to work around NAT.
      Why does it remove the need for servers?
      It doesn't. Not servers in the sense we normally think of them
      Why does it mean that we "won't need providers such as Skype anymore because we'll be able to do it all ourselves"?
      I believe what he is referring to is the fact that Skype tries to set up a connection between two users who are both behind NAT boxes by using another computer that is not NATed. That part wouldn't be necessary. We'd still need the Skype software, though.
      you'll still need [...] software vendors like Skype
      Right. It's just that Skype wouldn't need to use the kinds of ugly kludges they do now to get around NATed users.
      In fact the only thing about IPv6 that would seem to me to help P2P is that slighly more people might end up not being NATed
      The hope is that nearly no one will have to be NATed. Please don't start that security story again. NAT is NOT about security. NAT boxes usually also perform firewall duty (and usually not very well). That's it
      but that won't affect anything much
      I disagree. I think it will help a great deal. Network administrators and creators of network-aware applications spend a great deal of time trying to make sure that NATed users won't see much of a difference (and it needs to be reinvented for every application). If they no longer need to spend time trying to work around such a broken concept, we can hope to see real innovation.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)

      by kwalker ( 1383 )
      Because two nodes on an IPV6 network wouldn't be stuck behind closed NAT firewalls and not able to communicate directly. Currently, if you're using Yahoo IM and want to send someone a picture, you have to relay it through Yahoo's servers, which causes a bottleneck because thousands of other people are doing the same and everything bottlenecks through Yahoo. With IPV6, both ends could have a public (possibly static) IP address, so person A could connect directly to person B and bypass the traffic jam at th

  • IPV6 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zlib pt ( 820294 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:49AM (#14062843)
    In other news, a door in germany refuses to open because some script kiddie got it's IP address and crashed the door. Officials are trying their best to open the door but they suspect the door has to be rebooted.

    Are this going to be the news from the future?

  • Why IPv6 Is Coming (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tony ( 765 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:52AM (#14062871) Journal
    To all o' you people asking, "What does it give me?"

    It gives you nothing. You're already on the internet.

    IPv6 is going to give India and China and other high-populous countries connectivity. As it is, they don't have enough IPv4 addresses even to *nat* their country, let alone to provide real services with which NATing interferes.

    And that's why you and I have very little say about the adoption of IPv6. It's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen soon (say, the next 5 years, tops). Pretty soon, those of us who remember IPv4 are going to be like 3-digit /. users-- old, out-of-date, and constantly reminiscing about the old days.

  • Maybe I'm just a Sick Twisted Freak (Score:4, Funny)

    by krgallagher ( 743575 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @11:53AM (#14062881) Homepage
    When I read "But there are not only people. There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people." I immediately invisioned billions of internet enabled sex toys.

  • Address space not the biggest feature (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jgold03 ( 811521 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:01PM (#14062940)
    Address space isn't why we should gloss over IPv6. Yeah, its nice that we can get rid of NAT, but the bigger deal is virtual circuits. IPv4 can't handle streaming data, keeping us from high-broadband technologies like TV-over-IP. IPv6 was designed to optimize routers for doing high-broadband transfers. That should be the biggest selling point of IPv6.

  • Big Brother? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by thealsir ( 927362 )
    <begin irrational? fear> Implanting an RFID chip in everybody with a unique address makes it a very easy way of tracking people...and explains why IPv6 is being pushed so hard even though it is unnecessary. Sure, NAT will handle boatloads of expansion to come, but it offers a layer of anonymity to computers behind the NAT...security through obscurity...how many 192.168.x.x addresses are out there? This way, a unique IP can be given to each computer, more unique even than MAC addresses. And it can be r

  • Billions and billions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:04PM (#14062967) Homepage
    "Billions and billions of devices that will service these people."

    Ah yes, in the immortal words of Carl Sagan

    gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • The most important change will be the fact that, when we finally actually do start transitioning to IPv6...

        Hell will have frozen over.

        Widespread adoption has been 'any time now' for years now..

        Blah.. Just think, ipv6 gets adopted, and suddenly, all those girls who looked at the fat guys will regret saying, 'When hell freezes over'..

  • Most important change (Score:3, Funny)

    by Phronesis ( 175966 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:17PM (#14063149)
    Under IPv6 the internet will surf you.

  • Consumer Driven (Score:5, Insightful)

    by el_womble ( 779715 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:19PM (#14063166) Homepage
    Of course companies and academics don't want IPv6 they already have the only real advantage it provides - per machine addressing. Why would they invest money to get something they already have?

    IPv6 benefits individuals. It benefits P2P, VoIP, photo sharing, blogging and email (yes email - you don't need a third party server if you have a permanent web presence). Yes you can have all of that with IPv4, but its held together with hacks like NAT, port forwarding and man-in-the-middle servers. That's fine, if like me, you hold a degree in computer science and arn't put off by the nuances of network security, berkley ports and subnet masks but if you're a noob who just wants to share their Christmas pictures with friends and family its a pretty steep learning curve.

    I'm a pretty typical nerd. My home network has 4 computers that regularly connect to the internet. Of those, 2 offer services such as SSH, bittorent, email and my testing web server. After christmas that will probably extend to a new XBox360 and a PSP (admittedly passive net users). Next Christmas it might be my mobile. The Christmas after that my espresso machine will probably be consulting a distributed database to see what is the best way of brewing Co-op's Fairtrade Java.

    You can buy a computer the size of a pack of gum with a complete Linux operating system and enough horse power to run a web server for ~$200. That's too expensive to be ubiquitous but in 2-3 years time that figure will be in the region of $20 and it will be a WiFi network. It's going to happen.

    IPv4 forces our devices to be passive because configuring a NAT Router and Firewall is hard for Joe Public. IPv4 means that we have to poll to get system updates. IPv4 means that I can't just ask my fridge what its contents are without configuring a seperate box. IPv4 means that I'm happy when a third party agrees to handle my communications - I actually ask them to listen in and they 'promise' not to read my mail or listen to my conversations. IPv4 means that when I get an email from my girlfriend at 195.95.195.94 I have no method of authenticating that.

    IPv6 means that I buy bandwidth and nothing else. I don't get 100MB of web hosting, or a whopping 5 emails addresses, I get to use my over powered desktop machine with 200GB of 'web space' and as many email addresses as I please. IPv6 means that I can start to build a web of trust, so that I can start to authenticate the messages I receive against a web of my peers - not a single verisign certificate. IPv6 means that consumer electoronics can be connected to my data pipe and that the manufacturer can be responible for its up keep - including firewalls and virus protection.

    In short IPv6 allows people to own a bit of the internet and say it's theirs rather than renting an inch and getting kicked off that inch every 4 hours.

  • Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:11PM (#14063702) Homepage Journal
    IPV6 could well be DOA, because it solves the wrong problem.

    IPV6 solves the problems of the Internet, as originally conceived - egalitarian and end-to-end.

    Nobody in power wants that any more. I'm sure that those in power would mostly prefer that the Internet would just go back and hide under the rock it came from, but they DO like the benefits it gives to THEM. If IPV6 goes forward, it'll only be because it has enough momentum as the "logical successor," and because TPTB can't propose what they'd really like.

    If IPV6 were being designed TODAY:
    It would have DRM built-in for the ??AA, as well as router-based monitors and controls for peer-to-peer networking.
    It would have built-in provisions for wiretapping, even at the opportunistic VPN level, for government TLAs.
    It would have content and traffic filtering provisions, for China and the Religious Right.

    Of course IPV6 really runs counter to all of these "design criteria."

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