5 ms·

Ok so try calling my phone at sip://ninkendo.example. Oh, I’m actually not at my house. I’m traveling and my device is moving from one cell tower to the next, g

Ok so try calling my phone at sip://ninkendo.example. Oh, I’m actually not at my house. I’m traveling and my device is moving from one cell tower to the next, getting a new IP address every few minutes. Then I get to my friends house and his router is gonna block unestablished connections so you better call me soon. No, there’s a reason software like FaceTime, and calling in general, are mediated by centralized services and implemented as client-server. Because relying on your users to have stable IP’s, and to always be behind a properly configured firewall, would be an utterly insane way to design something. Hence “ipv6 is a relic of a bygone era”, because in the era we live in now, IP addresses change and users move between networks constantly, and NAT is very much the least of our problems.

vel0city 2y ago
> my device is moving from one cell tower to the next, getting a new IP address every few minutes You're pretty much never getting a new IP at every cell tower. > Then I get to my friends house and his router is gonna block unestablished connections so you better call me soon. PMP can solve that. > Because relying on your users to have stable IP’s Not a stable IP, but some kind of stable identity. Like a DNS name. That can be provided by someone like Apple, or Google, or whoever. It doesn't need to be ultra-centralized by only a single thing controlling it.
- ninkendo 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > I don’t think I’ve met someone that truly thinks technological progress stopped in the 1990s and that URL’s and DNS are all we actually need I never said this. You're putting some rather strong words in my mouth. Just giving an example of something that could have been if it wasn't for NAT and an acceptance that you need a third party platform to allow you talk. Feel free to change out the pieces to whatever. Personally I'd like to be able to just dial a FaceTime-like client from any device instead of just what Apple blesses with accounts Apple allows. And have that stack just be the norm. I understand NAT isn't the only headache that prevents this, but it is one of the several that does. I don't think it's crazy to think easy dynamic DNS services could have become common if advertised right. People don't know how phone numbers work but in the end they know how to use them. The tech for routers to auto configure firewall rules based on client requests exists, and potentially if everyone-has-a-public-ip was common we'd have seen less reliance on brittle edge firewalls and NAT to provide so much of our security. Killing NAT doesn't solve all the problems, but it does solve some of them. And I'd prefer solving the ones that help give users more freedom instead of accepting things like CGNAT.
Dagger2 2y ago
FWIW IPv6 can handle this scenario just fine, by letting you take your home IP with you when you move to other networks. I don't think "v6 is a relic of a bygone era" is fair to say when it has a way to handle this exact problem.
- ninkendo 2y ago
  How does ipv6 let me take my IP with me, exactly? Citation needed. I mean, I have WireGuard installed on my phone and I get a tunnel my house wherever I go, but that’s not really the same thing, is it? You’re saying there’s a way for me, wherever I go, my house, 5G, my friends house, to just have traffic routed to my phone for a consistent IP address wherever I go? Not a VPN? Through something only IPv6 provides? Could you explain what this is? Because my ISP at home won’t even give me a consistent IP, not even a stable prefix.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    It kind of exists in IPv4, but is a lot messier. Also, the lack of IPv4 addresses makes this a lot harder to do something like this in IPv4. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6275 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6275

vel0city 2y ago

> my device is moving from one cell tower to the next, getting a new IP address every few minutes You're pretty much never getting a new IP at every cell tower. > Then I get to my friends house and his router is gonna block unestablished connections so you better call me soon. PMP can solve that. > Because relying on your users to have stable IP’s Not a stable IP, but some kind of stable identity. Like a DNS name. That can be provided by someone like Apple, or Google, or whoever. It doesn't need to be ultra-centralized by only a single thing controlling it.

ninkendo 2y ago
[flagged]
- vel0city 2y ago
  > I don’t think I’ve met someone that truly thinks technological progress stopped in the 1990s and that URL’s and DNS are all we actually need I never said this. You're putting some rather strong words in my mouth. Just giving an example of something that could have been if it wasn't for NAT and an acceptance that you need a third party platform to allow you talk. Feel free to change out the pieces to whatever. Personally I'd like to be able to just dial a FaceTime-like client from any device instead of just what Apple blesses with accounts Apple allows. And have that stack just be the norm. I understand NAT isn't the only headache that prevents this, but it is one of the several that does. I don't think it's crazy to think easy dynamic DNS services could have become common if advertised right. People don't know how phone numbers work but in the end they know how to use them. The tech for routers to auto configure firewall rules based on client requests exists, and potentially if everyone-has-a-public-ip was common we'd have seen less reliance on brittle edge firewalls and NAT to provide so much of our security. Killing NAT doesn't solve all the problems, but it does solve some of them. And I'd prefer solving the ones that help give users more freedom instead of accepting things like CGNAT.

Dagger2 2y ago

FWIW IPv6 can handle this scenario just fine, by letting you take your home IP with you when you move to other networks. I don't think "v6 is a relic of a bygone era" is fair to say when it has a way to handle this exact problem.

ninkendo 2y ago
How does ipv6 let me take my IP with me, exactly? Citation needed. I mean, I have WireGuard installed on my phone and I get a tunnel my house wherever I go, but that’s not really the same thing, is it? You’re saying there’s a way for me, wherever I go, my house, 5G, my friends house, to just have traffic routed to my phone for a consistent IP address wherever I go? Not a VPN? Through something only IPv6 provides? Could you explain what this is? Because my ISP at home won’t even give me a consistent IP, not even a stable prefix.
- vel0city 2y ago
  It kind of exists in IPv4, but is a lot messier. Also, the lack of IPv4 addresses makes this a lot harder to do something like this in IPv4. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6275 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6275