[HN Gopher] 460M Indian Internet Users Are Now on IPv6
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       460M Indian Internet Users Are Now on IPv6
        
       Author : anthropodie
       Score  : 235 points
       Date   : 2022-05-19 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.potaroo.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.potaroo.net)
        
       | dncornholio wrote:
       | I disabled ipv6 on my router because I prefer having a static IP.
        
         | bush-bby wrote:
         | Isn't it a lot cheaper to pay for a static ipv6 address?
        
           | hypothesis wrote:
           | Why would you pay for a static IPv6 address? It's harder to
           | memorize and if you're using dynamic dns, then not much point
           | in a static IP, is there?
        
             | WorldMaker wrote:
             | Static IPv6 isn't that much harder to memorize. Admittedly
             | I'm often numerically dyslexic, but I even sometimes have a
             | harder time with memorizing IPv4 addresses than IPv6.
             | Particularly with the big trick that you can elide all the
             | zeroes you want with double colon (::). At that point you
             | just have to remember your subnet prefix and then all of
             | your statically addressed devices you can think of as just
             | {subnet}::N. Your web server can be thought of only as
             | "::1" to you and your database server as "::2" and your
             | combination printer and coffee maker can be "::3" to you,
             | and you just have to remember to include your prefix up
             | front (or copy and paste that part). Even a paltry /64 is
             | just 16 hex numbers to memorize in nice 4 groups of 4 in
             | the worst case that your ISP can't give you a bunch of
             | trailing zeroes in your /64 request. (A /56 which is what
             | most ISPs should give you per convention if you request a
             | static subnet is 14 hex numbers in 3 and a half groups of
             | 4.)
        
             | bush-bby wrote:
             | Well, I would say it depends on the use case? Maybe for
             | accessing a couple services I would be okay w dynamic dns,
             | but if I'm trying to host something where I'd prefer less
             | points of failure and prioritize stability and uptime I
             | probably would rather have a static address. (Please
             | correct me if I'm wrong)
        
             | magicalhippo wrote:
             | The IPv6 prefix I get from my ISP is almost entirely
             | "full", so the :: is only good for the latter 64 bits. I
             | can imagine someone paying to get more zero bits in the
             | prefix, or a more memorable prefix.
             | 
             | For me I've just resigned to the fact that each of my IPv6
             | servers will require DynDNS.
        
             | nybble41 wrote:
             | The point of having a static IPv6 address would be that you
             | can use regular DNS, not dynamic DNS. With dynamic DNS you
             | have to use a short TTL, increasing the load on the DNS
             | server, and even then it will break occasionally due to
             | caching when the IP address changes.
             | 
             | Ease of memorization is a non-issue since you should be
             | using DNS anyway, whether for IPv4 or IPv6.
        
             | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
             | A lot of people/companies still rely on IP filtering
        
           | mort96 wrote:
           | What exactly can you do with a static IPv6 address without a
           | static IPv4 address? Most networks don't support v6 yet, so
           | if you wanna host anything you need v4.
        
             | bush-bby wrote:
             | It was my understanding that had changed at this point.
             | That most networks have the support but still prioritize
             | v4. Is that incorrect?
        
               | mort96 wrote:
               | The only time I ever have working IPv6 is when I'm using
               | the cell network. No place I've worked, and no place I've
               | lived, has had working IPv6. I'm in Oslo, Norway, so not
               | exactly a technological backwater either.
        
               | Hallucinaut wrote:
               | I believe Windows with Hyper-V (used for WSL 2) actually
               | prioritizes ipv6 over ipv4 even. Not well, mind you, but
               | that's a different story.
        
               | WorldMaker wrote:
               | Most consumer devices today use some variant of the
               | "Happy Eyeballs" protocol that prioritizes v6 to one
               | extent or another, but "races" them (if IPv4 is faster to
               | ping for a given DNS host it switches to IPv4 for that
               | DNS host; otherwise it prefers IPv6). Things like NAT and
               | CGNAT naturally slow down IPv4 so many consumer networks
               | very heavily prioritize v6 in the "Happy Eyeballs" races.
        
         | dcow wrote:
         | This doesn't make any sense. Unless you're paying for a static
         | v4 address you're not getting a static IP on your router
         | either. You generally have to be on a business plan with most
         | ISPs in the US for this type of feature. IPv6 and v4 are no
         | different in that regard.
        
         | jrmg wrote:
         | How are these two things connected?
        
           | magicalhippo wrote:
           | I have cable at home. I've had the same "dynamic" IPv4
           | address for 3 years, which is how long I've lived here. It
           | has persisted multiple power-losses, some extended. On the
           | other hand I get a new IPv6 prefix at least once a month,
           | including every power-cycle of the modem and/or router.
        
           | bsnal wrote:
           | I don't know if this is related but I've seen isps that put
           | you behind a cgnat over ipv4 if you have ipv6 connectivity
           | but they give you an ipv4 ip address just for you if you
           | disable ipv6.
        
         | anthropodie wrote:
         | I'm curious why would they not give a static IP range to user
         | by default? It's not like they are going to run out of IPv6
         | addresses.
        
         | mortenlarsen wrote:
         | I was told by someone I met, who is working at my very cool ISP
         | (Fiberby), that I should just as customer service for IPv6. One
         | day later I had a static /56 prefix routed to me on a /64. I
         | had just assumed that it was not an option, because hardly any
         | ISPs have IPv6 here in Denmark.
        
         | zauguin wrote:
         | Theoretically I would expect it to be much easier (and cheaper)
         | to get a static IP with IPv6.
        
           | zamadatix wrote:
           | Theoretically, in practice ISPs have been largely been
           | handing out PDs and calling it a day (for consumers at
           | least). This means you get many networks worth of v6 but they
           | won't statically assign those many networks of v6 to you.
           | That said they don't actively try to make them change and
           | they aren't under pressure to use every last IP like IPv4 and
           | for many carriers it's unlikely you'll ever have your v6 PD
           | assignments change after a boot (ATT fiber is a good
           | example). Of course if you do you're usually just shit out of
           | luck as extremely few carriers provide the option to
           | customers on v6 for whatever reasoning.
        
           | FerretFred wrote:
           | > static IP
           | 
           | And therefore easier to be tracked. If your device has an
           | IPv6 address for life it'll be easy to build up some
           | interesting time/location metadata...
        
             | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
             | Your IMEI already does that.
        
               | cypress66 wrote:
               | IMEI is not sent to websites
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | It is used to track you with passive stingrays.
        
               | zaarn wrote:
               | Use short-lived IPv6 addresses then. IPv6 doesn't force
               | everyone into one or the other. You can operate both
               | short lived, anonymized and permanent IPv6 side-by-side
               | in the same network.
        
             | lloeki wrote:
             | RFC-4941
             | 
             | You can have multiple IPs per interface, e.g typically:
             | a static IPv6 address for inbound connections
             | privacy IPv6 addresses for outbound connections
             | 
             | https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4941
             | 
             | The following operating systems use IPv6 privacy extensions
             | by default:                   All versions of Windows after
             | Windows XP         All versions of Mac OS X from 10.7
             | onward         All versions of iOS since iOS 4.3
             | All versions of Android since 4.0 (ICS)         Some
             | versions of Linux (and for others it can be easily
             | configured)
             | 
             | Sure you could track such IPs by looking at routing
             | paths/the subnet prefix but that's not different than IPv4.
             | If you posit that a dynamic IPv4 is completely random you
             | might be surprised, it's just drawn from a small pool that
             | at some point has to be routed for packets to reach it, and
             | even then it's not updated that frequently (usually on
             | router reboot). Comparatively, privacy IPv6 addresses get
             | rotated very frequently (can't recall but could very well
             | be 15min)
        
         | Aaargh20318 wrote:
         | You know IPv4 and IPv6 can coexist, right ?
        
       | baybal2 wrote:
        
       | BlueTemplar wrote:
       | It would be interesting to know how many Internet users do _not_
       | have IPv4 these days...
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | This is the real key - until there are IPv6 sites/users that
         | _cannot_ access IPv4 we won 't really see a push to move over.
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | There's been some push from the other side: cell phones move
           | too much in physical space to make IPv4 routing efficient
           | (especially with today's scarcity) so today most cellular
           | networks are IPv6 "native" and rely on IPv4-over-IPv6 router
           | proxies for IPv4-only traffic.
           | 
           | Smartphones have been among the biggest leading adopters of
           | IPv6 out of necessity to the network topology.
        
           | pantalaimon wrote:
           | There already are IPv6 only servers and sensor networks.
           | 
           | On client connections most ISPs use DSLite these days.
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | Wired very few and unlikely to change quickly, mobile a good
         | number and often changing without people knowing it happened.
         | 
         | Mobile has a lot of NAT464 where the middle layer is the
         | carrier and all v4 gets translated over v6 which is all that's
         | assigned to the user and then out a gateway service. In wired
         | you'd need to insure everyone had a device which understand to
         | do that (CLAT in 464XLAT jargon) so carriers have been doing
         | NAT444 where there are 2 layers of v4 NAT (home users then
         | carriers) before the carrier's core does the final translation
         | to a real v4. NAT444 is clunky and doesn't even help make sure
         | users get to v6 but it's attractive to carriers because it
         | works without having to have anything change from the customers
         | perspective (beyond their external NAT IP being a 100.64.0.0/10
         | address instead of a public IP). Because of this the tail end
         | of those who truly do not have any v4 on wired is going to be
         | quite high.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | gz5 wrote:
       | the benefits to management, automation and ubiquitous
       | connectivity are well covered.
       | 
       | with that, we get a different security paradigm. let's say i have
       | basic needs - some IPv6 IoT devices on my home network, with a
       | req for SSH and RDP into that network network to various servers.
       | what are the secure-by-design type of recommendations for this
       | new paradigm in which my devices are now default-reachable from
       | the outside world?
        
         | throwaway894345 wrote:
         | > what are the secure-by-design type of recommendations for
         | this new paradigm in which my devices are now default-reachable
         | from the outside world?
         | 
         | And specifically how does that paradigm not only inform the iot
         | device design, but how does a typical consumer insure against
         | insecure iot devices? Do they now need to know how to find the
         | iot manufacturer's address space and whitelist it in their
         | router's firewall rules (and all that for the marginal gain of
         | server-initiated connections)?
        
         | jaywalk wrote:
         | If your devices are behind a router, they are almost certainly
         | not default-reachable.
        
           | gz5 wrote:
           | I should have provided more detail. I am thinking about basic
           | home users - who often rely on their default modem/router
           | setup from their provider - let's say inbound 443 is open, at
           | the very least (statically or can be opened dynamically) so
           | that an attacker can scan my network and find my IPv6
           | devices. What would I recommend that person do instead (that
           | is doable by the average person)?
        
             | CircleSpokes wrote:
             | Scanning a /64, /56, or /48 isn't really feasible though. A
             | /64 which IIRC is the smallest IPV6 block handed out to
             | home users is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 address.
        
             | greenicon wrote:
             | Scanning a /64 or even a /56 (which you ought to get from
             | your provider) is infeasible.
             | 
             | Nevertheless, you have the exact same problem already today
             | with ipv4. Just with a NAT inbetween, which is usually
             | replaced with a firewall for ipv6. Also, when a specific
             | device opens up a port via upnp it better does this on
             | purpose.
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | For static inbound 443 should be dropped by the basic home
             | user's default carrier modem setup, only outbound initiated
             | should be allowed. I'm sure there are some bad home
             | implementations that don't do this by default, as there are
             | on IPv4, but as you say for most users it comes down to if
             | the provider's default config is bad or not. For more
             | advanced users they can check and correct the default
             | config if it is bad.
             | 
             | For dynamic it's not really any different than dynamically
             | opening ports on IPv4, it's convenient for things like peer
             | to peer communications and inconvenient for security but a
             | lot more the former than the latter so most actually want
             | it. For the static case then you get what you ask for, if
             | it's static then you specifically put effort into making it
             | reachable so if you don't want it to statically be
             | reachable to everything then just don't statically make it
             | reachable to everything.
        
           | CircleSpokes wrote:
           | Can you explain why? I'm under the impression they would most
           | certainly would be default reachable. I have limited
           | experience with home routers so maybe someone else can chime
           | in with more insight, but I'm under the impression most relay
           | on NAT and not an actual firewall to limit what can be
           | reached.
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | Home routers are stateful devices. In IPv4 this means an
             | internal device opens an internet bound session and the
             | home router tracks that session, comes up with a NAT
             | mapping, and allows the session bidirectionally until it is
             | closed or times out. In IPv6 this means an internal devices
             | opens an internet bound session and the home router tracks
             | that session and allows the session bidirectionally until
             | it is closed or times out. The only difference between the
             | two is whether translation occurs, not whether inbound
             | traffic is allowed.
             | 
             | In regards to inbound the differences (again, for home) are
             | simply whether there is a static translation and implied
             | allow to inbound initiate or whether there is just a static
             | inbound allow.
             | 
             | In IPv4 just relying on NAT and not statefulness is
             | incorrect, any packet that hits your router's external
             | address with an internal destination will just route
             | through. This failure scenario is a bit worse in IPv6
             | though as it's a lot harder to get a private IP destination
             | very far over the IPv4 internet whereas in IPv6 these are
             | all public. On the other hand you pretty much have to know
             | the IPv6 address you're trying to reach beforehand anyways
             | which means you're either physically attacking (i.e. bigger
             | problems) or the client reached out to you already which
             | limits the scope quite a bit. Either way it's still not
             | secure to just rely on NAT.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nomilk wrote:
       | What is the practical significance? (please explain like I'm 5)
       | 
       | Google says:
       | 
       | > The main difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the address size
       | of IP addresses.
       | 
       | What are the practical implications for internet users and
       | infrastructure maintainers?
        
         | shepherdjerred wrote:
         | IPv6 simplifies networking by freeing us of the hacks
         | surrounding IPv4. These hacks were made to stop us from running
         | out of addresses.
         | 
         | Every device will have a unique IPv6 address. This solves a lot
         | of pain regarding port forwarding and NAT -- an issue I felt
         | often when trying to play video games or host a Minecraft
         | server when I was younger. It'll be easier for regular people
         | to access their local networks which could help make it a more
         | mainstream option for people who want to home host services
         | like file syncing or media servers.
        
         | gopalv wrote:
         | > What are the practical implications for internet users and
         | infrastructure maintainers?
         | 
         | There are technical implications on routing and "what is on the
         | internet" vs "connected to the internet" (the difference
         | between having an address vs a NAT gateway for access).
         | 
         | But for India specifically, the difference is more political &
         | specifically for the internal cloud infra land.
         | 
         | IPv4 was "sold & bought" during the era when US and Europe
         | controlled who got how much.
         | 
         | See the xkcd for an idea of the distribution -
         | https://xkcd.com/195/
         | 
         | If you are a up&coming cloud provider in India, you definitely
         | have a scarcity of ipv4 addresses you can hand out to your
         | customers - you can hand out ipv6 addresses no problem, but if
         | people's devices are on ipv4, then this is behind the scenes
         | and needs a fair amount of complexity.
         | 
         | You can do several tricks on the hosting side with DNS and SNI
         | (so thousands of domain names can map to a group of 10-15 IP
         | addresses and the loadbalancer can use the SNI to route the
         | connections to the right internal ipv6).
         | 
         | So IPv6 adoption for cellphones for instance is not really
         | important for the clients on phones, but it really matters if
         | you want to build out a cloud infra stack hosted in India by a
         | provider (like Reliance) who doesn't own enough ipv4 ranges to
         | scale up things.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | There are a lot of theoretical advantages to IPv6. Every single
         | internet endpoint can have a unique address. You will no longer
         | need any form of NAT. Any two random connected devices can talk
         | to each other with a simple TCP/UDP request.
         | 
         | Practically all of this is still very unlikely, but at least it
         | is a step in the right direction.
        
         | enw wrote:
         | With IPv6 we can host from home without NAT or DDNS.
        
         | dec0dedab0de wrote:
         | The biggest benefit is that there are more public IP addresses.
         | The original solution for public IP addresses running out was
         | NAT/PAT which allows a network to have it's own private IP
         | addresses, but hide all internet traffic behind one public IP
         | address. Think if you have 10 devices connected to your
         | wifi/router, but you're only paying for standard internet
         | connection. By hiding behind one address, it provided a huge
         | layer of protection between individual devices and the
         | internet, but also made some types of traffic a huge pain in
         | the ass (see ICE/STUN/TURN).
         | 
         | With IPV6 we can give every device it's own public address, but
         | one major concern is that it could lead to an explosion of
         | insecure devices accessible directly from the internet. Right
         | now if your printer or refrigerator is insecure, it doesn't
         | really matter because it is inaccessible from the internet. The
         | business answer for this is properly configured firewalls and
         | proxy servers, but that's too much for the average home user.
         | 
         | The biggest downside is systems that assume all addresses are
         | IPv4. These could be legacy hardware thats been sitting in a
         | closet chugging along for 20 years, or brand new software where
         | the developer didn't consider v6 as a possibility.
         | 
         | EDIT:
         | 
         | Some specific benefits:
         | 
         | Cheaply hosting stuff from my house.
         | 
         | Easy Direct secure communication without a middle-man.
         | 
         | More competition for hosting companies
         | 
         | Room for more people
        
           | shrx wrote:
           | > The business answer for this is properly configured
           | firewalls and proxy servers, but that's too much for the
           | average home user.
           | 
           | So what is the alternative for the average home user?
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | The home side is basically the same as the business side: a
           | _good_ router has needed to be a good firewall regardless of
           | NAT anyway, because the router can 't just assume NAT (even
           | if it is de facto everywhere). NATs as first-pass filter of a
           | firewall was always an accidental feature at best.
           | 
           | Obviously we start to see which routers are "good" home
           | routers shake out as IPv6 adoption picks up, but given
           | current statistics homes are _leading_ IPv6 adoption and it
           | is businesses (with their complex surveillance proxies and
           | IPv4 micro-management practices) that are greatly lagging in
           | adoption curves. (Typical IPv6 graphs show a  "bathtub"
           | effect where IPv6 goes up in evenings and weekends as people
           | switch from work devices and networks/VPNs to home devices
           | and home networks.)
           | 
           | Homes are more ready for IPv6 than people want to give credit
           | to. Claiming NATs to be one of the best features of Home IPv4
           | seems _sometimes_ to just be FUD designed to be anti-IPv6 as
           | much as it is a legitimate concern.
        
             | throwaway894345 wrote:
             | > Obviously we start to see which routers are "good" home
             | routers shake out as IPv6 adoption picks up
             | 
             | Experts might, but most security isn't a visible property
             | to most users, or at least they won't readily or reliably
             | attribute router vulnerabilities to the router. This in
             | turn means that security will get worse but the market
             | probably won't correct itself, or at least the correction
             | won't manifest as markedly better routers (the consumer
             | router space sucks as it is because the customers aren't
             | usually experts). I don't think this is a compelling reason
             | to avoid an ipv6 transition, but I don't agree with the
             | implication that ipv6 will have positive security benefits.
        
               | BenjiWiebe wrote:
               | I have yet to see a home router that _doesn 't_ have a
               | default-deny firewall.
               | 
               | I also haven't seen one that has IPv6 support without
               | having a default-deny IPv6 firewall.
               | 
               | They may exist, but certainly aren't common.
        
         | securitypunk wrote:
         | The IPv4 address space is depleted, so remaining on IPv4 means
         | deploying NAT everywhere, with all the downsides that come with
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation#Is...
        
         | anthropodie wrote:
         | You no longer need services like tailscale or zerotier or VPN
         | like wireguard just to connect to your home network. You also
         | do not need static IP.
         | 
         | I host my own task manager, calendar, media center, document
         | server, google drive alternative, google photos alternative on
         | my home network and can reach it from anywhere. It is all
         | possible with IPv6 without paying a whole lot to other
         | services.
         | 
         | In future, I think IPv6 is going to play a crucial role in next
         | generation of hardware devices and software applications that
         | will bring people back from walled gardens to real Internet. We
         | might finally have something where people host their own data
         | like photos, stories at home securely and then they choose who
         | should access or who should not. I know I am being way too
         | optimistic but a man can dream.
        
           | codethief wrote:
           | > You no longer need services like tailscale or zerotier or
           | VPN like wireguard just to connect to your home network. You
           | also do not need static IP.
           | 
           | I disagree. Technologies like Tailscale, zerotier and
           | Wireguard mostly exist to secure your private, distributed
           | network. Tailscale has all kinds of measures to circumvent
           | NATs, sure, but the main point is access control, encryption
           | by default and presenting as little an attack surface as
           | possible (by routing everything through Wireguard).
           | 
           | IPv6 doesn't give you that: IPv6 addresses can still easily
           | be spoofed, and ports can still be scanned. And
           | vulternabilities in applications listening on public ports
           | will always exist. VPNs provide you with an additional layer
           | of security.
        
         | ATsch wrote:
         | > What are the practical implications for internet users and
         | infrastructure maintainers?
         | 
         | For users: the widespread deployment of NAT has eliminated
         | global end-to-end connectivity of the internet. That drives
         | further centralization of the internet, as offering services
         | requires expensive purchases of IPv4 space, big central NAT
         | gateways and makes p2p applications difficult to impossible.
         | 
         | For infrastructure maintainers: the increased address space
         | makes it possible again to allocate addresses as you wish.
         | There's no need to architect your network around IP address
         | scarcity. You can allocate pretty much as many networks as you
         | want, for whatever you want, without worrying it's going to be
         | too small.
        
           | gorgoiler wrote:
           | You get to use 16 bits of the address to chop up
           | hierarchically for your site.
           | 
           | You get a /48 and each of your networks gets a /64, with
           | hosts picking random 128 bit addresses in each.
           | 
           | The 16 bits in between the two subnets mean you have room to
           | breathe for doing whatever you like. Maybe 64k VLANs, or
           | maybe a hierarchy with semantic meaning. You don't need an
           | IPAM tool if the addresses have meaning.
           | 
           | My favourite: you can route a /56 to a Docker host and have
           | 256 separate bridged networks, all globally routeable. You
           | never need anything like that, but the open space is
           | refreshing. Like I said: room to breathe.
        
             | clord wrote:
             | Also in this line of thinking: hosts can be assigned an
             | entire subnet, and applications can get individual /128s.
             | This way, a single host can provide a bunch of independent
             | services, which can be broken out into real machines as the
             | system grows without renumbering.
        
               | gorgoiler wrote:
               | I think the more important use case is tempaddrs. You
               | don't have to use the same address all the time, or even
               | at the same time. You can just make up random addresses
               | for each connection if you like, though in practice the
               | rotation is much slower.
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | Is there a reason to give each host a subnet in that
               | scenario? You don't need to do that just to let a host
               | grab 50 IPs.
               | 
               | Actually, if you want to avoid renumbering, don't you
               | _want_ to have that whole block of servers share a
               | subnet?
        
           | m463 wrote:
           | also privacy (although there are privacy extensions for ipv6)
        
           | throwaway894345 wrote:
           | Can you convince me that end-to-end connectivity is desirable
           | in most cases? I certainly don't want ingress from the public
           | Internet to devices on my home network in the general case,
           | and I think it's kind of nice that the Internet only knows
           | the address of my router rather than that of my physical
           | machine (of course, there are other ways to fingerprint
           | devices, but let's not make it easier than necessary). You
           | definitely want a gateway to implement firewall rules, and
           | I'm not sure whether I care if that gateway is doing NAT as
           | well or not? What can I do with a non-NAT-ing gateway? The
           | only thing I can think of is that cloud IP addresses aren't
           | as carefully guarded (I don't get up-charged for an un-
           | associated elastic IP address).
        
             | nikanj wrote:
             | In most cases no, but then again in most cases you would be
             | perfectly happy with all your traffic going through a
             | http(s) only proxy.
             | 
             | The two biggest use cases for direct p2p connections are
             | multiplayer games and video calling. Latency is unavoidable
             | if your traffic has to bounce around a third-party
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | > In most cases no, but then again in most cases you
               | would be perfectly happy with all your traffic going
               | through a http(s) only proxy.
               | 
               | Not at all--end-to-end encryption is still a very
               | desirable property. I certainly don't want a consumer
               | router decrypting my browser traffic even if it is re-
               | encrypting it to send to my device. I'll tolerate HTTP
               | proxies on the server side when I'm administering the
               | proxy and I need layer 7 routing, but I want to avoid it
               | wherever possible.
               | 
               | > The two biggest use cases for direct p2p connections
               | are multiplayer games and video calling.
               | 
               | You still have to punch a hole in your firewall either
               | way. The only advantage ipv6 has is that you can have two
               | hosts listening on the same port (whereas port-forwarding
               | in a NAT context only works for 1-host-per-port).
               | 
               | Tangentially, I was never a big fan of player-hosted
               | games anyway because they tended to be more vulnerable to
               | cheating and the host always had an unfair advantage (or
               | else a dramatic penalty in the case of lag compensation).
               | Moreover, it's much easier to send a malicious packet
               | directly to another player than it would be to send it to
               | the server and convince the server to proxy it through
               | bit-for-bit (although a poorly written game server might
               | still do just that).
        
               | anthropodie wrote:
               | > You still have to punch a hole in your firewall either
               | way.
               | 
               | No you don't have to do hole punching.
        
               | zekica wrote:
               | You have to do hole punching, but with IPv6, you just
               | send packets from both ends to each other and it just
               | works.
               | 
               | With IPv4 it is much much harder.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | How do you have a direct connection between peers without
               | one of them allowing ingress?
        
               | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
               | >Moreover, it's much easier to send a malicious packet
               | directly to another player than it would be to send it to
               | the server and convince the server to proxy it through
               | bit-for-bit
               | 
               | What prevents you from putting the same validation logic
               | into the client, thus rejecting malicious packets at the
               | destination?
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | I mean, correct validation logic is always ideal, but I'm
               | positing a world in which software doesn't always get
               | intentional validation logic. In particular, an
               | intermediate server might prevent packets from flowing to
               | the target client for any number of reasons which aren't
               | intended as "validation". It's just harder to hack
               | through an intermediary.
        
               | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
               | Ok, but I still don't see why you can't move that
               | intermediary to the client. Spin up a docker container
               | and run the game server there. Ta-da! You have the same
               | security as with a remote server.
               | 
               | My point is that IPv6 restoring the end-to-end principle
               | need not jeopardise the - real or perceived - security of
               | multiplayer games.
        
             | nybble41 wrote:
             | > I certainly don't want ingress from the public Internet
             | to devices on my home network in the general case
             | 
             | This is a job for a firewall. NAT is not a firewall. You
             | can easily filter incoming connections to untrusted devices
             | when using IPv6, with the advantage that when you _want_ to
             | allow a certain kind of traffic in you can do so without
             | messing around with port forwarding or dealing with
             | multiple devices competing for access to standard port
             | numbers on a single public IP address. That 's assuming you
             | actually _get_ a public IP address; if you 're behind CGNAT
             | then port forwarding isn't even an option, since it would
             | need to be configured on the ISP's side and not just in
             | your router.
             | 
             | If you enable UPnP for automatic port forwarding, as most
             | do, then NAT isn't blocking much of anything. The only
             | difference between NAT with UPnP and IPv6 with no filter
             | preventing incoming connections is in whether devices which
             | open ports but _don 't_ set up forwarding can assume that
             | incoming connections _probably_ came from the same local
             | network. However, it 's considered poor practice to treat
             | access to the local network as a means of authentication.
             | (Note that with NAT alone if your router receives a packet
             | addressed to your local network's private IP range, and not
             | the routers public IP address, it will forward it
             | unmodified; preventing that is a firewall function, not a
             | NAT function.)
             | 
             | > and I think it's kind of nice that the Internet only
             | knows the address of my router rather than that of my
             | physical machine
             | 
             | If you use IPv6 with privacy extensions enabled then the
             | Internet will only know your /64 network prefix, which is
             | basically the same thing (unique per subscriber and
             | subnet). The rest of the address will be randomly generated
             | and short-lived, unless you choose to assign an additional
             | long-lived address e.g. for a server.
             | 
             | > I'm not sure whether I care if that gateway is doing NAT
             | as well or not? What can I do with a non-NAT-ing gateway?
             | 
             |  _Doing_ NAT isn 't the problem, _requiring_ NAT is. When
             | the architecture requires NAT devices can 't receive
             | incoming connections without port forwarding even when you
             | want them to. We've gotten rather good at working around
             | NAT's limitations (not without cost), but with IPv6 those
             | workarounds are unnecessary. For example, any peer-to-peer
             | multiplayer game, video chat, or file transfer app where
             | both sides are behind NAT depends on third-party servers
             | for NAT traversal. (Note that the fact that this works at
             | all without actually forwarding all data through the third-
             | party servers shows that NAT is not a reliable system for
             | preventing incoming UDP connections: it can be tricked into
             | thinking a connection is already established.) With IPv6
             | you don't need the third-party servers as the peers can
             | connect to each other directly.
        
               | deno wrote:
               | > With IPv6 you don't need the third-party servers as the
               | peers can connect to each other directly.
               | 
               | This will never happen. NAT gets replaced with a stateful
               | gateway still doing conntrack (look at OpenWRT...) and
               | p2p works exactly the same. UPNP, port forwarding, STUN
               | are still relevant and work the same... Except IPv6
               | hexadecimal addresses are a usability disaster and dual
               | stack will forever be a security disaster. Worst
               | technology ever.
        
               | nybble41 wrote:
               | > NAT gets replaced with a stateful gateway still doing
               | conntrack...
               | 
               | Yeah, blocking incoming connections _by default_ is a bad
               | habit and needs to stop. It 's fine for untrusted devices
               | or private VLANs which shouldn't be accepting direct
               | incoming connections in the first place (like cheap IoT
               | gadgets), and should probably be additionally filtered to
               | prevent inter-device connections and access to arbitrary
               | Internet sites, but a laptop, phone, or tablet is
               | perfectly capable of deciding on its own whether to
               | accept or reject an incoming connection, and moreover as
               | a mobile device must assume the network could be hostile
               | anyway.
               | 
               | > Except IPv6 hexadecimal addresses are a usability
               | disaster...
               | 
               | How are IPv6 addresses "a usability disaster" when you
               | never see them? Just use DNS like a sane person.
               | 
               | > ...and dual stack will forever be a security disaster.
               | 
               | That's a new one to me. How is dual-stack (IPv4+IPv6) any
               | worse security-wise than any other situation where you
               | have multiple "upstream" Internet connections, e.g. for
               | failover or load balancing?
        
             | anthropodie wrote:
             | This discussion always comes up in IPv6 threads. Here are
             | some resources
             | 
             | https://www.f5.com/services/resources/white-papers/the-
             | myth-...
             | 
             | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&q
             | u...
        
             | imoverclocked wrote:
             | Being able to talk directly between peers has advantages.
             | Most services today basically require some kind of arbiter
             | who has a public IP address.
             | 
             | While there are ways to poke holes in NAT, it's not really
             | scalable. Also, you might be behind more than one level of
             | NAT and not even realize it today. eg: When I ask a website
             | for my IP, it shows something different than what my
             | hotspot is assigned... and my hotspot is not reporting an
             | RFC1918 address. This means I am already sharing ports with
             | someone else on the public IPv4 address that the world
             | sees. Also, no http proxy in the middle here.
             | 
             | As for obscurity of addresses, NAT is pretty easily guessed
             | in most scenarios today. IPv6 has far more address space
             | per network making it really hard to scan. That combined
             | with privacy addresses that change constantly is a pretty
             | compelling reason to use IPv6 over IPv4+NAT if what you
             | care about is people not being able to guess your IP.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | > Being able to talk directly between peers has
               | advantages. Most services today basically require some
               | kind of arbiter who has a public IP address.
               | 
               | Right, but you can't do this without punching holes in
               | your firewall, and I assert that's not a desirable
               | tradeoff, at least for consumer use cases. As far as I
               | can tell, you still need an arbiter with a public IP
               | address.
               | 
               | > While there are ways to poke holes in NAT, it's not
               | really scalable.
               | 
               | Agreed, but this is a relatively infrequent problem. It
               | seems like there is some belief that IPv6 is going to
               | make p2p stuff painless, but for _most_ use case it 's
               | still going to require poking holes in _something_ ;
               | however, for a few use cases (e.g., 2 game consoles in
               | the same network) it will be significantly better. I
               | definitely agree that there's some benefit to foregoing
               | NAT, but it doesn't seem like it will improve most use
               | cases and it certainly doesn't seem like it will deliver
               | the painless p2p experience that many people expect.
               | 
               | > As for obscurity of addresses, NAT is pretty easily
               | guessed in most scenarios today. IPv6 has far more
               | address space per network making it really hard to scan.
               | That combined with privacy addresses that change
               | constantly is a pretty compelling reason to use IPv6 over
               | IPv4+NAT if what you care about is people not being able
               | to guess your IP.
               | 
               | My concern about obscuring addresses was more about
               | making fingerprinting more difficult (some website can't
               | just see my IP address and associate it with my
               | identity), albeit this isn't a well-founded concern, and
               | it could be mitigated by rotating IP addresses.
        
               | alduin32 wrote:
               | > Right, but you can't do this without punching holes in
               | your firewall, and I assert that's not a desirable
               | tradeoff, at least for consumer use cases. As far as I
               | can tell, you still need an arbiter with a public IP
               | address.
               | 
               | That's true, but setting up these firewall rules
               | dynamically is way easier than setting up NAT mappings
               | (for example, UPnP through two different NATs never works
               | properly).
               | 
               | And even for consumer use cases, gateways could provide a
               | way to allow all traffic to a specific destination, as
               | most operating systems should provide a proper firewall.
               | Of course, there is still work to be done, the UI for
               | these firewalls should be made better (for example,
               | allowing an application to request to accept incoming
               | packets, and letting the user choose if it should only
               | for the LAN, or for the whole Internet, etc).
               | 
               | Indeed IPv6 by itself will not make p2p stuff painless,
               | but it's still a better basis than IPv4.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | Well, the trusted-network ship has probably sailed, but
               | giving up peer-to-peer in exchange for allowing sloppy
               | endpoint security was a terrible trade.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | I'm not sure what this means. Are firewalls "sloppy
               | endpoint security"?
        
               | alduin32 wrote:
               | I think the person you replied to meant that gateway
               | firewalls enable sloppy endpoint security (which I agree
               | with).
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | > Can you convince me that end-to-end connectivity is
             | desirable in most cases?
             | 
             | p2p communications can be nice for latency sensitive
             | communications. Sometimes it's faster to communicate from
             | user A to user B directly instead of going from user A to
             | server Z to user B (although, sometimes it's not faster...
             | if latency is important, you really have to try all the
             | accessible paths and use the best one, keeping in mind that
             | paths may have asymmetric latency, so maybe you want A to
             | send to B directly, but B should send to A through an
             | intermediary; and path latency isn't static, so for a long
             | session, if it's important, you need to probe throughout
             | and change thigns around)
             | 
             | But, maybe you don't want your connection to be a full peer
             | capable of receiving as well as initiating connections, you
             | can run a stateful firewall on your end and drop incoming
             | initiations. You'll still benefit from having end-to-end
             | connectivity because it means your ISP can process your
             | packets with basically no state, so there shouldn't be
             | problems with connection state timing out and your
             | connections being dropped without warning. If you run your
             | own stateful firewall, you may still have that problem, but
             | you might have less state required for a stateful firewall
             | instead of a NAT, so maybe you can manage more connections.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | throw0101a wrote:
             | > _Can you convince me that end-to-end connectivity is
             | desirable in most cases? I certainly don 't want ingress
             | from the public Internet to devices on my home network in
             | the general case_ [...]
             | 
             | In the IPv4 case you have NAT and a firewall. If you have
             | some software that you want others to connect to
             | (communication, gaming, etc) you have to punch a whole
             | through the firewall (via UPnP, PCP) and then the software
             | has to use a bunch of protocols to figure out what the
             | public IP address of your router is: see STUN, TURN, etc.
             | 
             | See "How NAT traversal works":
             | 
             | * https://tailscale.com/blog/how-nat-traversal-works/
             | 
             | * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30707711 (2022)
             | 
             | * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241105 (2020)
             | 
             | With IPv6 you just have a firewall, which you punch a hole
             | through when needed (UPnP, PCP) and you're done (because
             | there's no futzing about with determining the network
             | address). When the P2P session is done the whole is closed
             | and you're protected again.
             | 
             | So if you have a 'home network', it cannot be reached from
             | the Internet by default.
             | 
             | Note: you already have a device that's always on the
             | Internet: your mobile phone. Lots of telcos are IPv6-only
             | and you there's not NAT or firewall between it and the
             | Internet.
        
             | chongli wrote:
             | _I certainly don 't want ingress from the public Internet
             | to devices on my home network in the general case_
             | 
             | This is ultimately an operating system issue. For most of
             | the history of the web, we've used NAT routers and
             | firewalls as a fig leaf over the operating system issue.
             | What is it? Operating systems are extremely promiscuous
             | about listening for traffic on a multitude of ports.
             | Operating systems are promiscuous about including a vast
             | number of daemons running in the background handling a
             | variety of tasks. Operating systems are promiscuous about
             | running a bunch of daemons that phone home all the time.
             | 
             | All of this stuff is completely opaque to the user. All of
             | it occurs on a default opt-out basis. All of it requires an
             | extraordinary amount of knowledge for the user to feasibly
             | withdraw consent. This is the operating system problem.
             | 
             | In another world, I can envision computers running
             | operating systems which are totally transparent and easily
             | understood by their users. All running services would be
             | opt-in and users would be fully aware of exactly what's
             | happening on their machines. That would be the world where
             | end-to-end internet connectivity is highly desirable.
        
               | jherico wrote:
               | I don't think it's just an OS issue, because people often
               | _want_ promiscuity within their home network, but want a
               | moat and drawbridge keeping the rest of the world from
               | that network. There 's too much value in home / office
               | situations where you want discoverability enabled, but
               | only to other devices behind your gateway to the internet
               | at large.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | Personally, I'd prefer not to have this isolation. I'd
               | rather be able to access my home computer, printer, and
               | other devices from anywhere in the world, not just when
               | I'm at home. Moats and drawbridges are an anachronism
               | from the Middle Ages.
        
               | teawrecks wrote:
               | Think doors and keys then. Or "smart locks" and
               | "biometric scanners" if that's still not modern enough
               | for you. There's a cost to convenience. Yeah, it'd be
               | really convenient if your house didn't have any walls,
               | you could just walk into any room from anywhere else. But
               | so could any untrusted party.
               | 
               | Bugs and therefore vulnerabilities are inevitable. The
               | larger your attack surface, the more likely some rando is
               | to find a vulnerability and exploit it. No walls is real
               | convenient up until someone unexpected walks right in and
               | trashes the place.
        
               | jherico wrote:
               | Right, but you don't want anyone in the world to have
               | access to your home computer and printer, right?
               | 
               | You're talking about a different problem: How can I
               | extend the concept of my "home network" to the devices
               | that I use and trust regardless of where I am? I'd argue
               | that this is something that suggests that VPN
               | functionality should get built into gateway devices.
               | 
               | Regardless, I don't want scammers in Malaysia port-
               | scanning my 10 year old printer that's never going to get
               | a security update.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | I want anyone in the world to have access to my home
               | computer and printer when I authorize it. Right now, to
               | do that I have to configure my router as well as my
               | operating system to allow it. But what if I'm not at
               | home? I might be on someone else's network. Now I am at
               | their mercy to configure the router so that my computer
               | is accessible. In all likelihood, they will refuse to
               | help me.
        
               | teawrecks wrote:
               | Why would I opt for a network topology that restricts
               | what devices/operating systems I can safely use on my
               | network? Especially when I already have a solution that
               | doesn't restrict me in this way?
               | 
               | It's like saying, if a person walking around at night
               | gets mugged, it's a "them" problem for not carrying a
               | weapon to defend themselves. Uh, no, let's create an
               | environment where even a completely unprotected child is
               | safe. Oh wait, we already have.
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | > In another world, I can envision computers running
               | operating systems which are totally transparent and
               | easily understood by their users. All running services
               | would be opt-in and users would be fully aware of exactly
               | what's happening on their machines. That would be the
               | world where end-to-end internet connectivity is highly
               | desirable.
               | 
               | Even then, you have the issue of bugs - not just in the
               | programs themselves, but also in the kernel-mode stack
               | and even in the hardware. As long as something is
               | reachable from the Internet, it _will_ get scanned and
               | assaulted from the Internet - and the lower your attack
               | surface is, the better.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | _operating systems which are totally transparent and
               | easily understood by their users_
               | 
               | I sort of glossed over this part so now I have a chance
               | to elaborate. Alan Kay has put a ton of thought into this
               | issue [1]. He firmly believes that we can build an
               | operating system and application software with an
               | extremely small footprint (LOC's) so that a single person
               | can understand the whole thing.
               | 
               | Since he gave that talk, we've moved further and further
               | away from Kay's vision. We've made things more and more
               | complex, opaque, centralized, and difficult to change.
               | We've given away our future to big tech companies. Heck,
               | we've even given away the past. We've lost much of the
               | freedom we had back in the 90's, let alone the 70's and
               | 80's when Kay did so much of his work. We're going to
               | have to work incredibly hard just to regain what we've
               | lost.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | > This is ultimately an operating system issue.
               | 
               | It's ultimately an issue at every layer, hence "defense
               | in depth". Every layer does its part for security, we
               | don't punt because some other layer ought to handle it.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | That's one way. Another way is to remove some layers. You
               | don't need to secure nonexistent layers.
        
               | thfuran wrote:
               | You don't need to secure non-existent layers but you
               | probably shouldn't remove your front door to prevent
               | people from picking its lock.
        
               | throwaway894345 wrote:
               | The IP layer exists whether you're using v4 or v6.
        
               | chongli wrote:
               | I realize the OP is about IPv6 but my comment puts the
               | blame on operating systems. Between the operating system
               | running on the server, through the routers of the
               | internet and a user's home router, through the consumer
               | operating system running on the user's laptop, and all of
               | the firmware and microcode along the way, there are many,
               | many more layers involved what is specified in the OSI
               | model.
               | 
               | And so many of these layers exist for legacy reasons,
               | business expedience, and market failure. They don't
               | actually make things better.
        
         | guntars wrote:
         | Something else that isn't often mentioned is that NAT requires
         | keeping track of connection state on the router and anyone that
         | writes code knows that state is the devil. That's state for
         | every connection and for every device on the network. A
         | perfectly implemented NAT router with unlimited memory is just
         | as reliable as an IPv6 router that just forwards packets. In
         | reality, the consumer grade devices have 16MB or so of memory
         | and fall far short of this ideal.
        
           | fouronnes3 wrote:
           | I'm completely out of the loop, but last time I checked "IPv6
           | will kill NAT forever" was basically a lie, and there is NAT-
           | hell in IPv6 too. Is that so?
        
           | yardstick wrote:
           | IPv6 router firewalls still should be stateful (Ie allow
           | connections initiated from my LAN to the Internet, but don't
           | allow connections initiated from the Internet to my LAN).
           | 
           | Sure, if you are speaking about core routers, they don't care
           | about state. But for homes and offices, traffic direction
           | matters for security.
        
             | guntars wrote:
             | That's fair, I can see how any kind of more advanced
             | filtering than "just block incoming SYN packets" would
             | require state, but at least it's optional.
        
         | kazen44 wrote:
         | another point which makes ipv6 easier to handle for network
         | operators is the fact that subnetting is (practically) a thing
         | of the past.
         | 
         | Customers are supposed to get a /56, and the global routing
         | table consists of /32's or at maximum a /48 in regards to
         | subnet length.
         | 
         | This greatly reduces the global routing tables size because
         | aggregation is actually doable, compared to IPv4.
         | 
         | Also, ipv6 has some neat features like duplicate address
         | detection, link-local addressing and Stateless
         | autoconfiguration.
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | > _What are the practical implications for internet users and
         | infrastructure maintainers?_
         | 
         | You don't have to futz around with NAT and figuring out how to
         | do connect P2P:
         | 
         | * https://tailscale.com/blog/how-nat-traversal-works/
         | 
         | You have your home router firewall, you punch a hole in it
         | (UPnP, PCP) on an as-needed basis, do your P2P thing. When
         | you're done, the firewall hole is closed.
         | 
         | No magic/fancy protocols trying to figure out what your "real"
         | address is.
         | 
         | Instead of having to chat or talk your some provider's central
         | server, the software on your device can talk directly to the
         | software on the other person's.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | It means that instead of "1.2.3.4" you now have to deal with
         | "f0fd::8a8a:99:::://4::88ff::deca:dead:beef::/16" or something
         | like that, and remember how many colons go where and you now
         | have to remember hex numbers instead of decimal.
         | 
         | What's the Google IPv4 DNS? 8.8.8.8. It's beautiful enough to
         | be a decoration to frame and hang above a fireplace.
         | 
         | What's the Google IPv6 DNS? Heck if I can remember, it has some
         | 4's, 6's, 8's, 0's, 2's, and some colons and double-colons
         | liberally sprinkled like a salt shaker that had its cap fall
         | off as you were shaking it.
         | 
         | I'm basically a walking DNS server of the company I work at, I
         | know all the IPv4 addresses of pretty much every machine, and I
         | couldn't do that with IPv6. I also know all the IPv4 addresses
         | of every single IOT device in my home.
         | 
         | It's really no wonder that the world is very slow to transition
         | to IPv6.
        
       | makkesk8 wrote:
       | My isp don't offer ipv6 either but I've worked around the issue
       | using tunnelbroker.com from hurricane electric (free) to get a
       | /64, it works really great. Route48 is another such free service.
        
         | xen2xen1 wrote:
         | Used to use the same, killed it when my wife's Google things
         | worked better without IPv6. Everything Google worked better on
         | her phone the second I turned it off.
        
         | eminence32 wrote:
         | I used to run a HE tunnel, but certain IPv6-enabled sites like
         | Netflix would complain loudly. I guess from Netflix's
         | perspective, it appeared I was using a VPN to get around region
         | locks, maybe. But since I've recently canceled Netflix, maybe
         | it's time to revisit that HE tunnel...
        
         | anthropodie wrote:
         | Why are they offering it for free? What are they hoping to
         | achieve?
        
           | dsr_ wrote:
           | It's good will, technical education and marketing of
           | complementary services. HE sells Internet connectivity and
           | datacenter colocation, B2B. Increasing the number of
           | technically sophisticated people who like and appreciate HE
           | produces more opportunities for sales.
           | 
           | Also, it doesn't cost them much in exchange for lots of good
           | will.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | It also gets them some IPv6 traffic that they can use when
             | negotiating transit, which is good for them.
        
           | zinekeller wrote:
           | They're focusing on the enterprise segment (in general, the
           | company running this is a known tier-1 corporation), which
           | will pay $$$ for a reliable and uncongested connections.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | I believe hurricane electric's IPv6 tunnel program was a
           | strong factor in them becoming the de facto connectivity hub
           | for IPv6, helping them establish peering relationships with
           | other large carriers for v6 at least and sometimes they get
           | v4 peering as well, but at least they get a relationship.
           | You're not really on the v6 internet unless you have
           | connectivity with he.net, so most carriers will connect with
           | them for that.
           | 
           | That connectivity makes it easier to sell their transit
           | services, etc. If you're a BGP speaking network and connect
           | with them for v6 transit because it's good, you may as well
           | try their v4 transit too, because you already established a
           | relationship, right?
        
         | nybble41 wrote:
         | Hurricane Electric is great. These days my ISP offers IPv6 via
         | 6rd, but since it's a dynamic prefix (tied to the dynamic IPv4
         | address) I still maintain the HE tunnel for a static IPv6
         | prefix while routing most traffic over 6rd. The routing tables
         | get a bit complicated since I can't send packets with the HE
         | source address through the ISP's 6rd tunnel or vice-versa, so I
         | have to route based the source and not just the destination,
         | but overall it works fairly well.
         | 
         | I'm still hoping my ISP eventually offers native IPv6 with a
         | static prefix but it doesn't seem to be a priority for them. On
         | the other hand they haven't gone to CGNAT yet for IPv4--which
         | would break the HE tunnel--so it's not as bad as it could be.
        
           | puffoflogic wrote:
           | Depending on what you're actually running at your IP,
           | consider if dynv6.com will work for your dynamic IP. I
           | switched and I've never noticed a difference really. Only one
           | machine on the /64 (or /60 or whatever you have) has to
           | actually ping dynv6 service; it automatically updates the
           | prefix for all other AAAA records. Moreover I've got it set
           | up with a dead simple shell script using curl, no service-
           | specific binaries needed.
           | 
           | Indeed, at this point my only problem is my ISP router will
           | not route the WAN ipv4 address to the appropriate host when
           | the source is on the LAN, meaning I _have_ to use ipv6 to
           | access my public facing server while at home.
        
         | thetinguy wrote:
         | Most people on ipv6 are there on their phones. Wireless
         | carriers need ipv6 where most landline operators don't.
        
       | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kringo wrote:
       | That's because most of the people got online via mobile phone. It
       | only grew significantly faster due to Covid and Indian market
       | flooded with cheap smartphones made locally as well as from
       | China.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | I believe we should thank Jio[1] for this one. I get IPv6 on my
       | Jio connection, but neither with ActFibernet[2] nor Airtel[3]
       | (another major ISP in India).
       | 
       | 1. https://www.jio.com
       | 
       | 2. https://www.actcorp.in
       | 
       | 3. https://www.airtel.in
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Yep, Jio launched their network in 2016ish, and didn't get many
         | IPv4 addresses (probably didn't want to spend the significant
         | amount of money to aquire addresses, maybe couldn't find large
         | enough blocks for sale), as a result they require their branded
         | devices to work with IPv6 and pressure their partners to do
         | IPv6 as well.
         | 
         | I have no stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the
         | largest single action driving v6 adoption ever.
        
         | kburman wrote:
         | I'm using act fiber and got ipv6 address
        
         | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | anthropodie wrote:
         | I get IPv6 on both Jio and Airtel. Have you updated APN
         | settings in your phone?
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | Hmmm! I had to searched up and read up on "APN settings". I
           | had absolutely no idea prior to this. I looked up in my iOS
           | Preferences, could don't find them and honestly I don't want
           | to touch those.
        
             | anthropodie wrote:
             | I am not sure what it is called on iOS but on Android it's
             | called "Access point names". In that there are bunch of
             | access points basically for data, mms. For Airtel you have
             | to go into settings of "airtelgprs.com" APN and change
             | bearer from IPv4 to IPv6 or IPv4/IPv6.
             | 
             | In most cases it should happen automatically.
        
         | eager_noob wrote:
         | We can expect IPv6 adoption to improve among all wireline
         | providers in coming few years.
         | 
         | https://dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/Revision%20in%20IPV6%...
        
         | txtsd wrote:
         | Came here to say this!
         | 
         | I don't know of any ISPs that provide IPv6. Only Jio. So almost
         | all IPv6 users from India are on mobile.
        
           | Brajeshwar wrote:
           | No idea about Mobile (I'm on Airtel). I have all the three
           | connections bonded/balanced for my home connection using a
           | very simple router. I stumbled on Jio being IPv6, so decided
           | to check the others and they weren't.
        
             | nojonestownpls wrote:
             | > I have all the three connections bonded/balanced for my
             | home connection using a very simple router.
             | 
             | Can you give some pointers (to someone who has practically
             | no networking knowledge) on how to set something like this
             | up? I have an ACT connection and am considering an
             | additional Jio one; I'd assumed that the mess of having two
             | routers and two Wifi networks was inevitable, didn't know
             | this was an option.
        
         | newman314 wrote:
         | There was a podcast a while ago discussing with Jio the reasons
         | for going IPv6.
         | 
         | https://blog.apnic.net/2022/03/03/podcast-taking-ipv6-by-the...
        
           | anthropodie wrote:
           | That was an interesting read. Thank you for sharing.
        
         | jjoonathan wrote:
         | Likewise, we should shame hyperscalers that continue to treat
         | IPv6 as a distant second class citizen. AWS, I'm looking at
         | you.
        
           | pantalaimon wrote:
           | Azure belongs there too
        
       | aj7 wrote:
       | Am I on ipv6? https://test-ipv6.com/
        
         | mindcrime wrote:
         | 10/10 here in Chapel Hill, on Spectrum.
        
         | js2 wrote:
         | 10/10 both with and without iCloud Private Relay enabled. I'd
         | forgotten I was even using private relay. ISP is AT&T.
        
       | russellbeattie wrote:
       | I have AT&T Fiber at home and have IPv6 turned off at the router
       | because I don't believe consumer grade firewalls are as good as
       | plain ol' NAT traversal for basic security. IPv6 seems to want
       | everything directly connected to the Internet which I find crazy.
       | 
       | Update me - am I crazy? Is this old info or a bad take?
        
         | rie_t wrote:
         | NAT is not a security feature, nor is everything publicly
         | exposed to the internet on IPv6. With most routers you would
         | have to explicitly forward a port in the router to expose that
         | to the client anyways.
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | The only difference between NAT traversal and zone based state
         | firewalling is whether you translate the address before you put
         | it in the state table. The security functionality is roughly
         | identical, NAT itself is not actually the security layer it
         | just forces having the concept of tracking what is outbound
         | initiated to work.
         | 
         | In pure academic sense you can have NAT without disallowing
         | inbound initiated sessions to internal addresses but that's
         | insecure because it's just hiding the routing information not
         | actually blocking inbound sessions.
         | 
         | The only thing to worry about with the gateway they give you
         | for AT&T fiber is if you have the crap model that has an
         | extremely limited session table (4k) and if so you should ask
         | for the new one (16k). This applies regardless of IP version
         | preference.
        
           | russellbeattie wrote:
           | > _an extremely limited session table_
           | 
           | Interesting. You're right - I just found a reddit thread from
           | a few months ago and ATT fiber seems to still have horrible
           | IPv6 support, for that reason and others. I think I'll leave
           | it off.
           | 
           | https://www.reddit.com/r/ATT/comments/stuzjy/switched_to_att.
           | ..
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | The conntrack table on the BG320 is 8k regardless if it's
             | doing NAT with v4 or plain session tracking with having
             | IPv6. You just want to make sure you don't have the older
             | model with the 2k limit as that'll cause problems for even
             | light usage households.
             | 
             | The way the IPv6 rollout is broken on ATT is the same as
             | their IPv4 rollout is broken, they don't support bridge
             | mode. Passthrough IP doesn't quite work the same as
             | traditional bridge mode and still hits the conntrack
             | limits. DHCPv6 and PD work fine though, I have it
             | configured right now.
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | > _Is this old info or a bad take?_
         | 
         | Yes. With IPv6 there are still stateful firewalls on routers.
         | An app/service still generally needs to do firewall hole
         | punching via UPnP or PCP. The main thing that goes away is the
         | rigamarole of figuring out the public IP address:
         | 
         | * https://tailscale.com/blog/how-nat-traversal-works/
         | 
         | With my Asus RT-AC68U I can ping my IPv6 address:
         | 
         | * https://www.subnetonline.com/pages/ipv6-network-
         | tools/online...
         | 
         | But cannot connect to SSH from the Internet (but localhost
         | works), or port 80 (if I launch 'nc -l 80'):
         | 
         | * https://www.subnetonline.com/pages/ipv6-network-
         | tools/online...
         | 
         | Firewalls do not stop working with IPv6.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | PhantomBKB wrote:
       | Looks like BSNL is still on ipv4
        
       | Pidaymou wrote:
       | Ipv6 was long ago became the internet standard and India being
       | home to 1.6 billion people it should be based on Ipv6.
        
         | BlueTemplar wrote:
         | It took a while to finalize the standard - only happened in
         | 2017, a decade and a half after deployment started !
        
           | pantalaimon wrote:
           | What happened in 2017? I'm pretty sure I had IPv6 before
           | that.
        
             | LeonM wrote:
             | Internet standards are not created by a single organization
             | or person (well, not anymore). Everybody can help design
             | the standards.
             | 
             | I'm greatly simplifying, but roughly it goes like this:
             | 
             | 1. Someone proposes a change.
             | 
             | 2. If there is enough interest in the proposed change, an
             | RFC (Request for Comments) is created, in draft stage.
             | 
             | 3. Stakeholders can comment, if agreed upon the changes are
             | placed in the RFC. Rinse and repeat.
             | 
             | 4. Once enough stakeholders are happy, the RFC is accepted
             | and it becomes an internet standard.
             | 
             | An RFC in step 3 may already be mature enough to be used in
             | production, though just not yet finalized (step 4).
             | 
             | Before 2017, IPv6 was already being deployed because the
             | RFC was already quite mature. However, with IP being such
             | an important protocol for the internet, it took a long time
             | before the RFC was finalized, though not much was being
             | changed. In 2017, the RFC was finalized and thus it was set
             | in stone (until a new RFC is created) that that is how the
             | protocol must work.
             | 
             | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments
        
         | rg111 wrote:
         | > home to 1.6 billion people
         | 
         | Where did you get _that_ number?
        
       | kuroguro wrote:
       | The king is dead, long live the king!
       | 
       | I used to be hyped about IPv6 but now that it's actually (slowly)
       | getting adopted I'm going to miss the clunky old ways. No more
       | sitting behind three badly configured NATs. No more scanning the
       | entire internet in 5 minutes T__T
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | I still get giddy whenever I use another PD assignment at home.
         | You used to have to be BGP peered to have that ability!
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Don't despair. Your ISP will replace those with 3 badly
         | configured firewalls.
        
           | greenicon wrote:
           | Even then, hole punching should get significantly easier, as
           | you know the IPs and ports of both parties. Multi-layer NAT
           | with port guessing is usually a nightmare when establishing a
           | direct connection.
        
       | colinmhayes wrote:
       | Does anyone know why they skipped IPv5?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | IPv5 was an experiment (by Apple, NeXT, and Sun) never intended
         | for wide deployment. Known as "Internet Stream Protocol" or
         | "ST" it was focused on a video/voice streaming network.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | > The Internet Stream Protocol (ST) is a family of experimental
         | protocols first defined in Internet Experiment Note IEN-119 in
         | 1979, and later substantially revised in RFC 1190 (ST-II) and
         | RFC 1819 (ST2+). The protocol uses the version number 5 in the
         | version field of the Internet Protocol header, but was never
         | known as IPv5. The successor to IPv4 was thus named IPv6 to
         | eliminate any possible confusion about the actual protocol in
         | use.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Stream_Protocol
        
       | webmobdev wrote:
       | I guess I am that one indian still stuck on IPv4 ... why mess
       | with something that works fine ( _aka_ feel lazy to study up on
       | IPv6).
        
         | junon wrote:
         | We're out of ipv4 WAN address space.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-19 23:01 UTC)