4 ms·

Domain names turned out to be a weak point susceptible to attack by the statists. To route around this weakness, an array of names is used. However, there is s

Domain names turned out to be a weak point susceptible to attack by the statists. To route around this weakness, an array of names is used. However, there is still the matter of having an account to get to these names. Which was the original reason the statists went after them in the first place. The users themselves will thus become the next target, just like in the days of Napster.

fudgefactorfive 4y ago
To me that was the real strength in IPv6. (I know I know innefficient protocol with complex upgrade path lead to near negligible adoption) NAT "fixed" the problem of address exhaustion, but it killed the old internet. You cannot run your own network anymore. In the "old" times, I gave you a phone number or IP address and that's it, direct connection. All anyone could do was show up and take the computer to stop that. Sure there's a phone company or ISP involved, but they just powered the pump, you completely controlled what went through it. Now I can't do that. They ran out of addresses and I share an address with X unknown others. So I can't give you a home address, just to a bank of doors. I could give you an apartment number, but that's also shifting transparently, so num X to you is num Y to someone else. IPv6 would have solved the problem of exhaustion while preserving the right to an address. I could be some number permanently and you could reliably find a connection to my system using it. In that world I could set up a private DNS service in my house no one can alter without physically plugging in. Then have that store records to other addresses. Every part of that chain requires someone finding you and showing up at your door to disrupt. Instead now I have to pay digital ocean 5 bucks to keep an address for me so anything can find me via them. A bunch of servers in my home effectively an island without a coordinate until DO points me out on request. Like having all mail addresses be to the local town hall for them to forward to me. Sure maybe you trust your local town hall, but they are fundamentally beholden to someone else. With IPv6 support and adoption a whole network could be set up independent of any other authority besides BGP. Which requires nation-state levels of mobilization just to block an address, with fallout affecting literally thousands of others. They'd have to nuke a block to suppress any site, only for that site to find another address and be back to normal within minutes. Instead they do a WHOIS, send a scary email and boom, you're unknown, unfindable and disconnected. Hoping that word of mouth brings people to your new "address" exactly like losing your phone (and SIM) while abroad. I know it sucks as a protocol but v6 to me is a massive extremely important development that would change how the internet, and from that all communication, works.
- mindslight 4y ago
  IP addresses are just a different type of name, and also assigned by hierarchical entities. NAT isn't the issue, rather it's the incumbent power structures gradually tightening the identity/control screws. If you have a public IP on your physical connection and use that for banned publishing, they go after the account holder listed for the physical connection, which eventually gets back to you - the same as if you obtain that public IP from Digital Ocean or a tunnel broker. The only way around that is using naming systems that don't rely on centralized authorities, or at least can't be coerced by governments.
  - fudgefactorfive 4y ago
    I miss the days of sending someone a letter with some cash for them to associate address A with line B. All I'd have to do to stay essentially anonymous is finding a someone with bad record keeping. Suddenly someone shows up with address A and threats and then drowns trying to interpret that persons mappings. While that's happening I can find 5 other someones and suddenly I have 6 addresses all of which essentially ephemerally link to my system. Someone else does that for their mapping system and you get to Dijkstra levels of working out how to block connections. After like 3 levels of middlemen even centralized authorities just struggle to do the actual work of blocking, outside of just issuing the order.
    - fragmede 4y ago
      On the one hand, hosting companies don't like getting raided by the feds and taken offline because one of their customers is doing something objectionable. So I doubt those 5 new addresses will remain live for all that much longer. When you're on the lam, digitally or physically, or both, you find out who your real friends are, real quick. On the other hand, I can type "tpb" into Google and get to a bittorrent of Disney's latest hits in less than 5 clicks, so maybe the copyright regime doesn't have an omnipotent hand on the Internet.
  - musicale 4y ago
    I'm not sure how to deliver packets on the internet without destination IP addresses of some sort.

fudgefactorfive 4y ago

To me that was the real strength in IPv6. (I know I know innefficient protocol with complex upgrade path lead to near negligible adoption) NAT "fixed" the problem of address exhaustion, but it killed the old internet. You cannot run your own network anymore. In the "old" times, I gave you a phone number or IP address and that's it, direct connection. All anyone could do was show up and take the computer to stop that. Sure there's a phone company or ISP involved, but they just powered the pump, you completely controlled what went through it. Now I can't do that. They ran out of addresses and I share an address with X unknown others. So I can't give you a home address, just to a bank of doors. I could give you an apartment number, but that's also shifting transparently, so num X to you is num Y to someone else. IPv6 would have solved the problem of exhaustion while preserving the right to an address. I could be some number permanently and you could reliably find a connection to my system using it. In that world I could set up a private DNS service in my house no one can alter without physically plugging in. Then have that store records to other addresses. Every part of that chain requires someone finding you and showing up at your door to disrupt. Instead now I have to pay digital ocean 5 bucks to keep an address for me so anything can find me via them. A bunch of servers in my home effectively an island without a coordinate until DO points me out on request. Like having all mail addresses be to the local town hall for them to forward to me. Sure maybe you trust your local town hall, but they are fundamentally beholden to someone else. With IPv6 support and adoption a whole network could be set up independent of any other authority besides BGP. Which requires nation-state levels of mobilization just to block an address, with fallout affecting literally thousands of others. They'd have to nuke a block to suppress any site, only for that site to find another address and be back to normal within minutes. Instead they do a WHOIS, send a scary email and boom, you're unknown, unfindable and disconnected. Hoping that word of mouth brings people to your new "address" exactly like losing your phone (and SIM) while abroad. I know it sucks as a protocol but v6 to me is a massive extremely important development that would change how the internet, and from that all communication, works.

mindslight 4y ago
IP addresses are just a different type of name, and also assigned by hierarchical entities. NAT isn't the issue, rather it's the incumbent power structures gradually tightening the identity/control screws. If you have a public IP on your physical connection and use that for banned publishing, they go after the account holder listed for the physical connection, which eventually gets back to you - the same as if you obtain that public IP from Digital Ocean or a tunnel broker. The only way around that is using naming systems that don't rely on centralized authorities, or at least can't be coerced by governments.
- fudgefactorfive 4y ago
  I miss the days of sending someone a letter with some cash for them to associate address A with line B. All I'd have to do to stay essentially anonymous is finding a someone with bad record keeping. Suddenly someone shows up with address A and threats and then drowns trying to interpret that persons mappings. While that's happening I can find 5 other someones and suddenly I have 6 addresses all of which essentially ephemerally link to my system. Someone else does that for their mapping system and you get to Dijkstra levels of working out how to block connections. After like 3 levels of middlemen even centralized authorities just struggle to do the actual work of blocking, outside of just issuing the order.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    On the one hand, hosting companies don't like getting raided by the feds and taken offline because one of their customers is doing something objectionable. So I doubt those 5 new addresses will remain live for all that much longer. When you're on the lam, digitally or physically, or both, you find out who your real friends are, real quick. On the other hand, I can type "tpb" into Google and get to a bittorrent of Disney's latest hits in less than 5 clicks, so maybe the copyright regime doesn't have an omnipotent hand on the Internet.
- musicale 4y ago
  I'm not sure how to deliver packets on the internet without destination IP addresses of some sort.