5 ms·

I'm a bit of a rookie when it comes to understanding differences between IPv4 and IPv6.. can you explain to me what you mean by this comment?

nathanaldensr 9y ago
The difference is it's a totally different protocol. I'd be willing to guess that most servers on the internet only listen on the IPv4 protocol, which means, effectively, those servers are unavailable to you.
- jandrese 9y ago
  If they went IPv6 only and didn't implement NAT64 at the same time, then someone is going to be fired--probably the CEO. Mobile users won't notice because their IPv4 addresses were NATted anyway, and the phone stacks make it harder for app developers to screw up the v6 support. The v6 switchover should be mostly invisible to the users.
  - stevenAthompson 9y ago
    Very true. Verizon has been 6 only for ages, but they use NAT64 so most non-nerds never noticed. I believe that at the time of the rollout they were the largest IP6 network on the planet. They may still be. It works because smartphone users don't have the same needs as home and business users. There aren't a ton of smartphone users demanding reachable IPv4 addresses in the first place, and the ones who might want them are probably smart enough to figure out how to use IPv6 instead.
    - jandrese 9y ago
      I can't imagine there is much demand for people running internet servers off of their phone over the cell network.
      - stevenAthompson 9y ago
        You might be surprised. For instance, almost every emergency vehicle has a 4G modem of some sort in it now. Also, there are tons of vending machines and assorted manufacturing or mining equipment that use similar devices. Often it's nice to be able to reach out to those devices and check the location, status, or whatever instead of waiting for the device to check in with you. For those purposes though IPv6 is fine... as long as you know what you're doing with IPv6.
        dx034 9y ago
        Doesn't that decrease security? NAT plays a big role in anonymising users and providing some basic security. If every device has their own ipv6 address, scanning devices for vulnerabilities will be much easier. Having secure devices is obviously the better solution but will never happen. That 10 year old vending machine won't get an update anytime soon and hiding it from the outer world could be the best way to prevent it being part of a botnet.
        gsich 9y ago
        Why? Just because you have a global address? This does not mean that all inbound connections are open. Also scanning IPv6 is not that easy as it is in v4.
- yorby 9y ago
  Don't they bridge the traffic from ipv4 to ipv6 to make sure that everything is available?
- gsich 9y ago
  I wouldn't say it's a totally different protocol. It is essentially still the same, with longer addresses.
vorpalhex 9y ago
IPv4 and IPv6 are different underlying protocols that both carry services like HTTP. IPv4 is older, and uses what you likely think of as "standard" IP address (192.168.1.1). IPv6 uses longer hexadecimal addresses. IPv4 is due to run out of possible addresses and has been this way for a long time. However this has been consistently avoided by NATing, essentially hiding multiple devices behind a single router. IPv6 makes many more addresses available and solves this problem. However many data centers, online services, and even popular applications fail to correctly work nicely with IPv6 only users. Since the IPv4 exhaustion has been going on for a while, most developers don't consider it a concern when designing new services.

nathanaldensr 9y ago

The difference is it's a totally different protocol. I'd be willing to guess that most servers on the internet only listen on the IPv4 protocol, which means, effectively, those servers are unavailable to you.

jandrese 9y ago
If they went IPv6 only and didn't implement NAT64 at the same time, then someone is going to be fired--probably the CEO. Mobile users won't notice because their IPv4 addresses were NATted anyway, and the phone stacks make it harder for app developers to screw up the v6 support. The v6 switchover should be mostly invisible to the users.
- stevenAthompson 9y ago
  Very true. Verizon has been 6 only for ages, but they use NAT64 so most non-nerds never noticed. I believe that at the time of the rollout they were the largest IP6 network on the planet. They may still be. It works because smartphone users don't have the same needs as home and business users. There aren't a ton of smartphone users demanding reachable IPv4 addresses in the first place, and the ones who might want them are probably smart enough to figure out how to use IPv6 instead.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    I can't imagine there is much demand for people running internet servers off of their phone over the cell network.
    - stevenAthompson 9y ago
      You might be surprised. For instance, almost every emergency vehicle has a 4G modem of some sort in it now. Also, there are tons of vending machines and assorted manufacturing or mining equipment that use similar devices. Often it's nice to be able to reach out to those devices and check the location, status, or whatever instead of waiting for the device to check in with you. For those purposes though IPv6 is fine... as long as you know what you're doing with IPv6.
      - dx034 9y ago
        Doesn't that decrease security? NAT plays a big role in anonymising users and providing some basic security. If every device has their own ipv6 address, scanning devices for vulnerabilities will be much easier. Having secure devices is obviously the better solution but will never happen. That 10 year old vending machine won't get an update anytime soon and hiding it from the outer world could be the best way to prevent it being part of a botnet.
        gsich 9y ago
        Why? Just because you have a global address? This does not mean that all inbound connections are open. Also scanning IPv6 is not that easy as it is in v4.
yorby 9y ago
Don't they bridge the traffic from ipv4 to ipv6 to make sure that everything is available?
gsich 9y ago
I wouldn't say it's a totally different protocol. It is essentially still the same, with longer addresses.

vorpalhex 9y ago

IPv4 and IPv6 are different underlying protocols that both carry services like HTTP. IPv4 is older, and uses what you likely think of as "standard" IP address (192.168.1.1). IPv6 uses longer hexadecimal addresses. IPv4 is due to run out of possible addresses and has been this way for a long time. However this has been consistently avoided by NATing, essentially hiding multiple devices behind a single router. IPv6 makes many more addresses available and solves this problem. However many data centers, online services, and even popular applications fail to correctly work nicely with IPv6 only users. Since the IPv4 exhaustion has been going on for a while, most developers don't consider it a concern when designing new services.