13 ms·

Is it reasonable to hate and avoid IPv6 for fears of further privacy erosion (easier tracking than with IPv4)? With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every r

by singularity2001 8y ago

Is it reasonable to hate and avoid IPv6 for fears of further privacy erosion (easier tracking than with IPv4)? With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every reconnect. With IPv6 you could get one IP for lifetime? While ISP that hand out a static IPv4 can exist, it's much more unlikely, whereas with IPv6 it will become the norm.

claudex 8y ago
Some ISP provide a different IPv6 at each connection (to sell static IPv6 at higher price). Other ISP provide a /56, which means, you can shuffle on a lot of /64 on your own. Morevover, there is the privacy extension for IPv6 that change the local part of the IPv6 at regular interval to avoid tracing.
- tjoff 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it will be trivial to look at a certain IP and query how large pool that particular ISP are allocating for each user.
rnhmjoj 8y ago
In the worst case the ISP will give you a /64 prefix which you can complete to form an IPv6 address via SLAAC. Operating systems will generate many different temporary addresses with a short lifetime and use those for outbound connections to reduce tracking.
lmns 8y ago
You should have a look at the IPv6 privacy extensions. IPv6 doesn't work as you think it does. Your devices use temporary IPs even with a static IPv6 prefix.
- singularity2001 8y ago
  Can't trackers just map the prefix to your id, or do many users share a prefix? will look it up...
  - Arnt 8y ago
    Sometimes, sometimes. Most ISPs give you a new prefix occasionally, such as every night. They don't need to, but so many do it anyway that a tracker cannot assume that 2001:a61:2574:a00/64 is the same customer as yesterday. It may be the same, usually isn't, so tracking is very imprecise.
    - skrause 8y ago
      And technically it would be easily possible with IPv6 to have multiple prefixes at the same time. An ISP could give you one static prefix for incoming connections and then an additional dynamic prefix which rotates between customers every 24 hours (leaving old prefixes actives for a week in case you have long-living connections).
  - azernik 8y ago
    A single user has at least a /64 (which in IPv6 must correspond to a subnet). This is the equivalent of a NATted IPv4 address for privacy purposes. Often, in order to allow customers to use multiple subnets, ISPs will allocate a /56 (256 subnets) to customers. For privacy purposes these have the same behavior as IPv4 addresses, in that they in theory can be rotated between users but in practice have lifetimes on the order of months.
Arnt 8y ago
The short version is: No. Not reasonable. v6 isn't easier to track. Some of the trackability from v4 remains, some goes away. As an example of the latter, if you go to a café with a wlan and stay for an hour, your laptop may use three different v6 addresses in that time.
lmm 8y ago
No, it's not reasonable. Allocation of IPv4 address by your ISP is not a secure process; if your privacy depends on it your privacy is already compromised. And address allocation policy is independent of which protocol you're using anyway.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  As an example, until about a month ago the reverse DNS of the IPv4 address my ISP assigned to me resolved to [modem-mac-address].large-isp.countrycode The forward DNS still exists, and is useful (I have a CNAME pointing to it), but the reverse DNS was probably just a convenient but privacy-leaking configuration that was noticed while preparing for GDPR.
icebraining 8y ago
Are they that unlikely? My IPv4 is stable for months/years, despite being "dynamic". I don't even run a dynamic DNS client, since it's so rare that it actually changes.
- dEnigma 8y ago
  It really depends on the ISP. Back when we were still using A1 (what used to be the Austrian telecom basically), we would receive a new IP address every time we reconnected. Now after switching to Liwest (a very local provider, only serves this city and some small towns around it) our IP is for all intents and purposes static, even though it wasn't advertised as such.
  - pixl97 8y ago
    >we would receive a new IP address every time we reconnected. Some devices like cable modems rarely 'reconnect'. As long as your router and cable modem stay powered you can keep your IP for months.
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      We used to turn them off as soon as we stopped using the internet (this was also before any of us had a smartphone). I think the ISP also cut the connection every 24 hours and changed the IP to prevent people from having a static IP "for free".
okket 8y ago
IP client addresses can and do change, be it that they move from landline to mobile or cafe wifi etc. I doubt many use the IP address to track clients for an extended period of time (one hour? one day?). There are better tools for tracking, like cookies, session IDs, anything that client software voluntarily sends with some request of any kind. Nowadays even with least trackable protocol possible, DNS, as of DNS-over-HTTPS...
- JdeBP 8y ago
  It's the part in the lower 64 bits that does not change as one moves around changing prefixes that worries people. And of course ways to pseudo-randomize that already exist, as mentioned already in this very discussion.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - pilif 8y ago
    for the last 10 years or so, every single OS out there randomises the lower bits by default and even rotates it every few connections. The thing that remains static is the prefix you got from your ISP but that works in exactly the same way as your v4 address you get when you connect.
    - JdeBP 8y ago
      Not in the scenario actually under discussion by okket here.
Eech0Shu 8y ago
For the 64bit suffix there are ipv6 privacy extensions. For the prefix some ISPs hand out a whole /56 to the user so their CPE can rotate through multiple /64s over time. And of course just like they can shuffle IPv4s they can also shuffle IPv6s.
pilif 8y ago
> Is it reasonable to hate and avoid IPv6 for fears of further privacy erosion (easier tracking than with IPv4)? no. If an ISP assigns you a dynamic prefix and the various machines in your network use any one of the various privacy features like temporary addresses then the only additional information you leak is some information about how many devices are in your LAN, but as the devices make up additional addresses, it's very fuzzy. > With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every reconnect. With IPv6 you could get one IP for lifetime? Your ISP can hand out a new prefix whenever you connect, or even while you are connected. Most of them do this by default. >While ISP that hand out a static IPv4 can exist, it's much more unlikely, whereas with IPv6 it will become the norm. it doesn't look like it - at least here in Switzerland, all providers that do provide v6 addresses hand out dynamic prefixes by default and most don't even offer the option of getting a static prefix.
- vetinari 8y ago
  Technically, per IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy[1], there's no such things as a static IPv6 address, only address leased for a long enough period to be effectively static. [1] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-552#4 https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-552#4
- _trampeltier 8y ago
  In switzerland we have still no IPv6 on mobile phones at all in 2018 :-( With my provider green.ch it is not possible to get a static IPv6.
- nickik 8y ago
  You can get static IPv6 from Fiber7.
  - pilif 8y ago
    I know. And they even delegate the ip6.arpa domain so you can do reverse lookups with your own DNS server. source: I'm fiber7 customer since 2014 and they offered me to do the delegation when I asked them for the static prefix.
djsumdog 8y ago
Besides what others are saying, you also have to keep in mind that IPv4 exhaustion means that at some point, IPv4 addresses could become very expensive. Many countries are already totally out. I worked in one data center where we were purchasing blocks from companies in Africa. My question is, without continued adoption of IPv6, could we get to the point where there are two Internets? One that is more accessible for companies that can still afford IPv4 addresses for their servers? Or will worrying about IPv4 users be such an edge case that it will be like designing for IE11?
neojima 8y ago
> With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every reconnect. With IPv6 you could get one IP for lifetime? In theory, yes; in practice, most ISPs will give you a new prefix via DHCPv6-PD anytime your DUID changes (plus sometimes when it doesn't!). Your web browser is more liable to erode your privacy than IPv6 is (any more than IPv4, anyway).
detaro 8y ago
I don't hink it's much more unlikely. And in the same vein, some ISPs change your IPv6 prefix regularly. It really depends on the ISP, their technology and their policies.
unethical_ban 8y ago
My IPv4 lease has been static for the past several months. It very rarely changes; I would have to spoof a MAC address on my WAN router to get it to change.
- clord 8y ago
  you don't have to spoof, just leave the WAN device off around the time when your dhcp lease expires. When you come back online, you'll find you have a new lease with likely a new address.
  - supertrope 8y ago
    My ISP no longer issues a new IP address upon router change. I'd probably have to go offline for at least a few hours or simultaneously change modem and router. In the meantime my household would notice, our phones would consume more of our cellular quota, my IP phone wouldn't ring, and even my thermostat would lose remote control functionality. I'm not sure if it's the IPv4 shortage or copyright infringement/government surveillance pressure to maintain tight linkage between IP address, account, and legally liable person or address to raid.
repolfx 8y ago
Bear in mind privacy advocates also tend to like decentralised systems, but p2p networks benefit from IPv6 a lot. We can't have it both ways. Either we have flat connectivity and a global address space like IPv6 and have static IPs, or we have to host all services in the cloud. I'd rather have static IPs.

claudex 8y ago

Some ISP provide a different IPv6 at each connection (to sell static IPv6 at higher price). Other ISP provide a /56, which means, you can shuffle on a lot of /64 on your own. Morevover, there is the privacy extension for IPv6 that change the local part of the IPv6 at regular interval to avoid tracing.

tjoff 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it will be trivial to look at a certain IP and query how large pool that particular ISP are allocating for each user.

rnhmjoj 8y ago

In the worst case the ISP will give you a /64 prefix which you can complete to form an IPv6 address via SLAAC. Operating systems will generate many different temporary addresses with a short lifetime and use those for outbound connections to reduce tracking.

lmns 8y ago

You should have a look at the IPv6 privacy extensions. IPv6 doesn't work as you think it does. Your devices use temporary IPs even with a static IPv6 prefix.

singularity2001 8y ago
Can't trackers just map the prefix to your id, or do many users share a prefix? will look it up...
- Arnt 8y ago
  Sometimes, sometimes. Most ISPs give you a new prefix occasionally, such as every night. They don't need to, but so many do it anyway that a tracker cannot assume that 2001:a61:2574:a00/64 is the same customer as yesterday. It may be the same, usually isn't, so tracking is very imprecise.
  - skrause 8y ago
    And technically it would be easily possible with IPv6 to have multiple prefixes at the same time. An ISP could give you one static prefix for incoming connections and then an additional dynamic prefix which rotates between customers every 24 hours (leaving old prefixes actives for a week in case you have long-living connections).
- azernik 8y ago
  A single user has at least a /64 (which in IPv6 must correspond to a subnet). This is the equivalent of a NATted IPv4 address for privacy purposes. Often, in order to allow customers to use multiple subnets, ISPs will allocate a /56 (256 subnets) to customers. For privacy purposes these have the same behavior as IPv4 addresses, in that they in theory can be rotated between users but in practice have lifetimes on the order of months.

Arnt 8y ago

The short version is: No. Not reasonable. v6 isn't easier to track. Some of the trackability from v4 remains, some goes away. As an example of the latter, if you go to a café with a wlan and stay for an hour, your laptop may use three different v6 addresses in that time.

lmm 8y ago

No, it's not reasonable. Allocation of IPv4 address by your ISP is not a secure process; if your privacy depends on it your privacy is already compromised. And address allocation policy is independent of which protocol you're using anyway.

Symbiote 8y ago
As an example, until about a month ago the reverse DNS of the IPv4 address my ISP assigned to me resolved to [modem-mac-address].large-isp.countrycode The forward DNS still exists, and is useful (I have a CNAME pointing to it), but the reverse DNS was probably just a convenient but privacy-leaking configuration that was noticed while preparing for GDPR.

icebraining 8y ago

Are they that unlikely? My IPv4 is stable for months/years, despite being "dynamic". I don't even run a dynamic DNS client, since it's so rare that it actually changes.

dEnigma 8y ago
It really depends on the ISP. Back when we were still using A1 (what used to be the Austrian telecom basically), we would receive a new IP address every time we reconnected. Now after switching to Liwest (a very local provider, only serves this city and some small towns around it) our IP is for all intents and purposes static, even though it wasn't advertised as such.
- pixl97 8y ago
  >we would receive a new IP address every time we reconnected. Some devices like cable modems rarely 'reconnect'. As long as your router and cable modem stay powered you can keep your IP for months.
  - dEnigma 8y ago
    We used to turn them off as soon as we stopped using the internet (this was also before any of us had a smartphone). I think the ISP also cut the connection every 24 hours and changed the IP to prevent people from having a static IP "for free".

okket 8y ago

IP client addresses can and do change, be it that they move from landline to mobile or cafe wifi etc. I doubt many use the IP address to track clients for an extended period of time (one hour? one day?). There are better tools for tracking, like cookies, session IDs, anything that client software voluntarily sends with some request of any kind. Nowadays even with least trackable protocol possible, DNS, as of DNS-over-HTTPS...

JdeBP 8y ago
It's the part in the lower 64 bits that does not change as one moves around changing prefixes that worries people. And of course ways to pseudo-randomize that already exist, as mentioned already in this very discussion.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pilif 8y ago
  for the last 10 years or so, every single OS out there randomises the lower bits by default and even rotates it every few connections. The thing that remains static is the prefix you got from your ISP but that works in exactly the same way as your v4 address you get when you connect.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    Not in the scenario actually under discussion by okket here.

Eech0Shu 8y ago

For the 64bit suffix there are ipv6 privacy extensions. For the prefix some ISPs hand out a whole /56 to the user so their CPE can rotate through multiple /64s over time. And of course just like they can shuffle IPv4s they can also shuffle IPv6s.

pilif 8y ago

> Is it reasonable to hate and avoid IPv6 for fears of further privacy erosion (easier tracking than with IPv4)? no. If an ISP assigns you a dynamic prefix and the various machines in your network use any one of the various privacy features like temporary addresses then the only additional information you leak is some information about how many devices are in your LAN, but as the devices make up additional addresses, it's very fuzzy. > With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every reconnect. With IPv6 you could get one IP for lifetime? Your ISP can hand out a new prefix whenever you connect, or even while you are connected. Most of them do this by default. >While ISP that hand out a static IPv4 can exist, it's much more unlikely, whereas with IPv6 it will become the norm. it doesn't look like it - at least here in Switzerland, all providers that do provide v6 addresses hand out dynamic prefixes by default and most don't even offer the option of getting a static prefix.

vetinari 8y ago
Technically, per IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy[1], there's no such things as a static IPv6 address, only address leased for a long enough period to be effectively static. [1] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-552#4 https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-552#4
_trampeltier 8y ago
In switzerland we have still no IPv6 on mobile phones at all in 2018 :-( With my provider green.ch it is not possible to get a static IPv6.
nickik 8y ago
You can get static IPv6 from Fiber7.
- pilif 8y ago
  I know. And they even delegate the ip6.arpa domain so you can do reverse lookups with your own DNS server. source: I'm fiber7 customer since 2014 and they offered me to do the delegation when I asked them for the static prefix.

djsumdog 8y ago

Besides what others are saying, you also have to keep in mind that IPv4 exhaustion means that at some point, IPv4 addresses could become very expensive. Many countries are already totally out. I worked in one data center where we were purchasing blocks from companies in Africa. My question is, without continued adoption of IPv6, could we get to the point where there are two Internets? One that is more accessible for companies that can still afford IPv4 addresses for their servers? Or will worrying about IPv4 users be such an edge case that it will be like designing for IE11?

neojima 8y ago

> With IPv4 my ISP has to shuffle IPs with every reconnect. With IPv6 you could get one IP for lifetime? In theory, yes; in practice, most ISPs will give you a new prefix via DHCPv6-PD anytime your DUID changes (plus sometimes when it doesn't!). Your web browser is more liable to erode your privacy than IPv6 is (any more than IPv4, anyway).

detaro 8y ago

I don't hink it's much more unlikely. And in the same vein, some ISPs change your IPv6 prefix regularly. It really depends on the ISP, their technology and their policies.

unethical_ban 8y ago

My IPv4 lease has been static for the past several months. It very rarely changes; I would have to spoof a MAC address on my WAN router to get it to change.

clord 8y ago
you don't have to spoof, just leave the WAN device off around the time when your dhcp lease expires. When you come back online, you'll find you have a new lease with likely a new address.
- supertrope 8y ago
  My ISP no longer issues a new IP address upon router change. I'd probably have to go offline for at least a few hours or simultaneously change modem and router. In the meantime my household would notice, our phones would consume more of our cellular quota, my IP phone wouldn't ring, and even my thermostat would lose remote control functionality. I'm not sure if it's the IPv4 shortage or copyright infringement/government surveillance pressure to maintain tight linkage between IP address, account, and legally liable person or address to raid.

repolfx 8y ago

Bear in mind privacy advocates also tend to like decentralised systems, but p2p networks benefit from IPv6 a lot. We can't have it both ways. Either we have flat connectivity and a global address space like IPv6 and have static IPs, or we have to host all services in the cloud. I'd rather have static IPs.