Comment IPv6 Solving Yesterday's Problem (Score 1) 639
One of the key principles of the Internet Protocol in its original usage was the idea that every entity has a unique address. The (Address,Protocol,Port) tuple identified a single connection endpoint.
NAT broke that by hiding many hosts behind a single address. Making it work required port forwarding to steer inbound connections to the appropriate internal host, TCP state tracking to allow many internal hosts to connect to external services and application layer gateways to fix NAT unfriendly protocols like FTP.
IPv6 steps in with its vast address space to save the day. All hosts will once again have a unique address... restoring order and peace to the Internet. Hurrah!
The problem is that now the game is security and privacy. We don't want all our hosts on the Internet. We want NAT and firewall and virus scanning. We don't want a firehose to the Internet we want a spyhole... with everything carefully controlled and protected.
IPv6 addresses a problem that nobody really cares about.
The IPv4 address space is running out... but the IETF and IAB are smart. The sky won't fall if IPv6 doesn't happen.
NAT broke that by hiding many hosts behind a single address. Making it work required port forwarding to steer inbound connections to the appropriate internal host, TCP state tracking to allow many internal hosts to connect to external services and application layer gateways to fix NAT unfriendly protocols like FTP.
IPv6 steps in with its vast address space to save the day. All hosts will once again have a unique address... restoring order and peace to the Internet. Hurrah!
The problem is that now the game is security and privacy. We don't want all our hosts on the Internet. We want NAT and firewall and virus scanning. We don't want a firehose to the Internet we want a spyhole... with everything carefully controlled and protected.
IPv6 addresses a problem that nobody really cares about.
The IPv4 address space is running out... but the IETF and IAB are smart. The sky won't fall if IPv6 doesn't happen.
