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Not very convincing. Addresses cannot be handled by humans? The same is true for all modern computing. Intels CPU has several prefetch queues, some with more t

Not very convincing. Addresses cannot be handled by humans? The same is true for all modern computing. Intels CPU has several prefetch queues, some with more than 200 entries. Who can handle this? Well, not even Intel's engineers as Meltdown and the later discoveries have shown. Have you looked how a GPU works? Recently there has been discussion that Kubernetes depends on 200 libraries. The list goes on and on. That said, he might or might not have some point in the address translation section. But not being an expert in IPv6, he has wasted his trust by useless complaining before he gets to the possible beef.

Arnt 6y ago
AIUI, address translation isn't how it's done. Rather, if you want the hosts on a network to be reachable under some other prefix, you advertise that other prefix (in addition) and then the hosts have an extra address. IPv6 hosts have lots of addresses. v4 needs to scrimp, v6 doesn't.
- jachee 6y ago
  The analogy that really drove home how many IPv6 addresses there are is this: Take every known star in the sky today, give each of them a full IPv4-sized /32 address space, and you'd still have IPv6 space left over. No need to scrimp, indeed!
  - bb88 6y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted here, since the point is valid. I calculated the number of IPv6 addresses per square meter of the earth's surface and got a similarly large number.
    - usr1106 6y ago
      So what would have been an ideal length for you? I think the fixed separation into centrally and privately managed halves is a good idea. 48 + 48? Would that stop your critique? I guess that would cause all kind of alignment issues. 64 + 32? Probably enough, but the gain seems marginal to me.
      - bb88 6y ago
        To be honest, other than running out of space, the length of an IP address has never truly mattered, because you don't typically use the IP address to access microsoft.com, e.g. Also routing uses subtrees, so we could have had just grown IPv4 with an extra 4 octets too. Does every cold virus need an IP address, no. But on the other hand it might make sense to give every planet and asteroid in the solar system one.
    - Arnt 6y ago
      He may be downvoted because counting that is a bit disingenious. The central concept in v4 is an interface, which has a 32-bit address and of which a host tends to have one. The central concept in v6 is a network, which has a 64-bit address and which may be populated by one or many hosts. The number of /64 network addresses per m² of the planet is also a large number, I'm sure. (That it is a large number is intentional, in order to permit simple routing even when that simplicity leads to lower addressing density.) But counting that is honest in a way which counting /128 addresses isn't.
himinlomax 6y ago
> Not very convincing. Addresses cannot be handled by humans? Yeah it's the weakest critique against IPv6. There's plenty to complain about, this is just pointless.
theon144 6y ago
>The same is true for all modern computing. Yes it is. Is this a beneficial trend? If not, is it not worthy of critique?
- usr1106 6y ago
  Not necessarily. I am also sceptical of the extreme optimization tricks done for Intel architecture CPUsm because they lead to security vulnerabilities. A simpler RISC style ISA would be preferable. And of 4K displays, because the complications it brings for (Linux) desktops and more importantly the increased power consumption it causes for irrelvant benefit for the majority of users. I could continue the list, I still enjoy to run Linux on a laptop with 2G of memory (not for building Yocto, but for basic web browsing and doing script programming at least.) Incidently it has no problems with IPv6. But losing that many words about addresses not to be used by humans anyway seems out of proportion for relevant critique.

Arnt 6y ago

AIUI, address translation isn't how it's done. Rather, if you want the hosts on a network to be reachable under some other prefix, you advertise that other prefix (in addition) and then the hosts have an extra address. IPv6 hosts have lots of addresses. v4 needs to scrimp, v6 doesn't.

jachee 6y ago
The analogy that really drove home how many IPv6 addresses there are is this: Take every known star in the sky today, give each of them a full IPv4-sized /32 address space, and you'd still have IPv6 space left over. No need to scrimp, indeed!
- bb88 6y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted here, since the point is valid. I calculated the number of IPv6 addresses per square meter of the earth's surface and got a similarly large number.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    So what would have been an ideal length for you? I think the fixed separation into centrally and privately managed halves is a good idea. 48 + 48? Would that stop your critique? I guess that would cause all kind of alignment issues. 64 + 32? Probably enough, but the gain seems marginal to me.
    - bb88 6y ago
      To be honest, other than running out of space, the length of an IP address has never truly mattered, because you don't typically use the IP address to access microsoft.com, e.g. Also routing uses subtrees, so we could have had just grown IPv4 with an extra 4 octets too. Does every cold virus need an IP address, no. But on the other hand it might make sense to give every planet and asteroid in the solar system one.
  - Arnt 6y ago
    He may be downvoted because counting that is a bit disingenious. The central concept in v4 is an interface, which has a 32-bit address and of which a host tends to have one. The central concept in v6 is a network, which has a 64-bit address and which may be populated by one or many hosts. The number of /64 network addresses per m² of the planet is also a large number, I'm sure. (That it is a large number is intentional, in order to permit simple routing even when that simplicity leads to lower addressing density.) But counting that is honest in a way which counting /128 addresses isn't.

himinlomax 6y ago

> Not very convincing. Addresses cannot be handled by humans? Yeah it's the weakest critique against IPv6. There's plenty to complain about, this is just pointless.

theon144 6y ago

>The same is true for all modern computing. Yes it is. Is this a beneficial trend? If not, is it not worthy of critique?

usr1106 6y ago
Not necessarily. I am also sceptical of the extreme optimization tricks done for Intel architecture CPUsm because they lead to security vulnerabilities. A simpler RISC style ISA would be preferable. And of 4K displays, because the complications it brings for (Linux) desktops and more importantly the increased power consumption it causes for irrelvant benefit for the majority of users. I could continue the list, I still enjoy to run Linux on a laptop with 2G of memory (not for building Yocto, but for basic web browsing and doing script programming at least.) Incidently it has no problems with IPv6. But losing that many words about addresses not to be used by humans anyway seems out of proportion for relevant critique.