[nycbug-talk] IPv6 Followup

[Alex Pilosov]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007, Miles Nordin wrote:

> It's a lot of extra work, complexity, and user-support to set up
> something like that with IPv6---custom infrastructure, built for the
> ``experiment,'' just to assign in this strange way.  The registry's
> address handout rules give no incentive for assigning longer than /56. I
> can't think of any reason NTT would work so hard, unless they
> intentionally want to stop home users from having reachable global
> addresses.  Maybe there's some other reason I can't imagine.  but, it is
> really a lot of work for no obvious benefit to them.
What Miles said. Note that with IPv6, the last 64 bits are the host 
address and only first 64 bits can be routed on. So, it makes no 
sense to limit customer to /128, when nobody can use the rest of /64. 
What is really happening is ipv6 autoconfiguration assigns a random 
last-64-bits of the address so customer looks like they have /128 address. 
That, however, doesn't mean they can't have any other address in /64: they 
can just assign it manually.

Given the chance of NTT being that strict with IP utilization, or random 
BSD user in Japan being simply confused because he got a /128, I'll take 
latter.

> In view of the above, I'd say you have it backwards.  I think the
> imagined and unimagined usefulness of it to home users is exactly the
> reason it's _not_ happening.  It's threatening to the biggest ISP's,
> though I don't know why.  Imagined reasons:
Conspiracy is overrated. There isn't any. There's just natural resistance 
to change.

>  * The one we care about: they sell static addresses and sell port
>    unblocking for huge per-profit fees, like double what Interweb
>    users pay.  They don't want a second-class v6 hosting option to
>    exist.
a) additional IPs is a tax on users who want something special, and likely 
to tax our support by doing something special. It isn't really a big 
profit center.

b) We can still block incoming ipv6 so you can't run servers anyway and 
charge you extra money to unblock, so that's not really impediment ;)

>  * They want a clear distinction between hosting and browsing, so the
>    browser ISP Level 3 can charge the hosting ISP Cogent for their
>    users?  
What does that have to do with v6.

>  * They don't want filesharing to work without setting up complicated
>    port-mapping mumbo jumbo?  (probably more the cable company than
>    the phone company though)
What does that have to do with v6.
I don't think any filesharing protocols are v6-enabled anyway ;)

>  * They're afraid of a plug-in ``hosting appliance?''  
What does that have to do with v6.

>  * They want to mediate your communication by making sure everyone
>    meets each other on some web ``property'', youtube, itunes,
>    myspace, iDisk.mac.com, gmail---no direct communication between
>    houses?  
What does that have to do with v6.
> 
>  * They have long-term plans to move your data off your computers and
>    onto theirs, and then rent it back to you?  
What does that have to do with v6.

>  * They're blindly afraid of applications they can't imagine
>    threatening their own web ``properties''?
What does that have to do with v6.
<snip>

> Next, an earlier slide said the plan for the last stages of the v4
> crunch is a cap-and-trade system like carbon emissions.  Your
> number-rental fees will go up and down each month like the price of a
> kilowatthour.  There could be speculation, international trade, a
> heavily-regulated market full of complicated tricks for sophisticated
> players.  I think Alex's ``important'' people find this sort of thing
> infinitely more exciting than IPv6.
If we get to this point, it will *suck*. For everyone. Nobody wants it. It
will be lame, annoying and ridiculous. Many carriers *do* realize that we
are on a train going full speed ahead and there's a brick wall 3-4 years
from now.  However, nobody wants to blink first and get off v4 train onto
v6 train.

>     ys> "IPv6 all connects the electric stuff at your home together!
>     ys> TVs, ACs, and lamps..."
> 
> in reality it connects together all the many ``boxes'' the cable
> company gives you as they slowly take over everything in your home.
> phones, stereo, three televisions, all your computers.  There aren't
> enough rfc1918 addresses, and they want to retain central control of
>
> all your appliances even after you buy them.  It complicates things for
> them to reuse addresses between homes.  The devices might not even be on
> the Internet, but their own corporate/customer network is so big---as
> single companies buy up the infrastructure of entire nations and
> continents, the real technical need is for a convenient way of assigning
> bigger blocks of numbers than a /8 to a single entity.
There's more than one way to do things, v6 not required to enable it. The 
real pressing problem is the v4 space exhaustion.