5 ms·

"An IPv6 address is basically a UUID." This is the reason why I can't believe we're not all on IPv6 yet. You would think that the online advertising industry w

"An IPv6 address is basically a UUID." This is the reason why I can't believe we're not all on IPv6 yet. You would think that the online advertising industry would have done everything in their power to push IPv6, at any cost. 90%+ of people on IPv6 will literally have a unique identifier FOR LIFE on every device they own. Marketers can now pinpoint down not just to an IP address that identifies a single NAT interface, but each individual device. I hope that operating systems and/or routers will provide the option to rotate each IPv6 address on a routine basis. It would also be nice if ISPs would rotate the block that is handed out to each customer, but this is unlikely to happen. Every phone, every tablet, every PC, every thermostat, every door lock, every fridge... uniquely identifiable from the day it is hooked up to a network. :(

jlgaddis 11y ago
Related: "Why the FBI wants IPv6: It's better [than CGN] for tracking criminals" [0]. [0]: http://gcn.com/articles/2012/06/07/fbi-wants-ipv6-hard-to-track-ipv4-with-nat.aspx?m=2 http://gcn.com/articles/2012/06/07/fbi-wants-ipv6-hard-to-tr...
mjcl 11y ago
Good news, privacy addressing (ex. RFC 4941) exists and is enabled by default on OS X (10.7+) and Windows 7. Privacy addressing rotates the host section of the IP address by default once a day, leaving IPv6 host detection similar to IPv4+NAT. It seems like Linux may be a mixed bag (by distro) w/r/t it being enabled as default. I could definitely see cheap embedded devices based on a current Linux distro not bothering to change defaults to enable it.
jlgaddis 11y ago
> I hope that operating systems and/or routers will provide the option to rotate each IPv6 address on a routine basis. This is an issue when using SLAAC, yes, but a workaround ("Privacy Extensions") were developed years ago; cf. RFC4941 [0]. You can also assign static addresses or use DHCPv6 -- on your own networks, at least; you obviously can't control how your ISP decides to issue addresses. [0]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4941 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4941
api 11y ago
There are already so many ways to fingerprint a browser, it's really not something they need.

jlgaddis 11y ago

Related: "Why the FBI wants IPv6: It's better [than CGN] for tracking criminals" [0]. [0]: http://gcn.com/articles/2012/06/07/fbi-wants-ipv6-hard-to-track-ipv4-with-nat.aspx?m=2 http://gcn.com/articles/2012/06/07/fbi-wants-ipv6-hard-to-tr...

mjcl 11y ago

Good news, privacy addressing (ex. RFC 4941) exists and is enabled by default on OS X (10.7+) and Windows 7. Privacy addressing rotates the host section of the IP address by default once a day, leaving IPv6 host detection similar to IPv4+NAT. It seems like Linux may be a mixed bag (by distro) w/r/t it being enabled as default. I could definitely see cheap embedded devices based on a current Linux distro not bothering to change defaults to enable it.

jlgaddis 11y ago

> I hope that operating systems and/or routers will provide the option to rotate each IPv6 address on a routine basis. This is an issue when using SLAAC, yes, but a workaround ("Privacy Extensions") were developed years ago; cf. RFC4941 [0]. You can also assign static addresses or use DHCPv6 -- on your own networks, at least; you obviously can't control how your ISP decides to issue addresses. [0]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4941 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4941

api 11y ago

There are already so many ways to fingerprint a browser, it's really not something they need.