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It's still difficult to find equipment and ISPs that reliably work with IPv6. I'm sure it will be ready for prime time in the next decade or two, right when we

It's still difficult to find equipment and ISPs that reliably work with IPv6. I'm sure it will be ready for prime time in the next decade or two, right when we get fusion power plants, self driving cars that don't require supervision, and the AI singularity.

whatevaa 1y ago
We will never get rid of ipv4. Apparently my country ISPs have more ipv4 than they need (they actually rent them to others), so they just don't bother with ipv6.
- cassianoleal 1y ago
  I guess when the world moves away from IPv4, your country will have the entire IPv4 space for itself, and massive headaches with NAT to route out, and the relative impossibility to route in.
  - sieabahlpark 1y ago
    [dead]
john01dav 1y ago
I think that government intervention here is needed in order to coordinate people. We'll all be better off once ivp4 is dead and buried, but the incentive for each entity to do so is minimal. It could be some other powerful entity instead of government, for example tier 1 ISPs degrading ipv4 performance substantially or Google delisting websites that don't support ipv6 (and eventually delisting websites that do support ipv4).
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  Really? The network protocol someone uses is so critical that it should be illegal to use the wrong one? What happens when IPv9 becomes the hot new thing, but everyone is stuck on IPv6, because of some outdated government regulation? Do Americans have the right to use whatever internet protocol they want, under the first amendment? IPv6 has made enough progress that it's totally possible to run your network off of it, regardless of what everyone else is doing, and if all of your neghbors are using IPv4, it won't harm your IPv6 network. Also, part of the delay in the switch to IPv6 is that some work is needed to ensure that home routers and IoT devices default to reasonable security settings, and the absolute worst thing to do is force them to switch first, and figure out security later. The answer isn't to force everyone to use something before its ready; the answer is to address every impediment, so it's worth it for everyone to switch. Sure it's slower, but it's much better than making users worse off by switching, converting them to detractors instead of supporters.
  - wiredpancake 1y ago
    I don't see a reason why IPv9 would ever need to be a thing.
- HWR_14 1y ago
  > We'll all be better off once ivp4 is dead and buried Doesn't IPv6 hurt anonymity? NAT is annoying, but hides the number of devices you have. ISPs assigning you different IPs at different times at least provides some measure of identity resetting. To say nothing of how easy it is to keep IPv4 devices confined the local network Or am I missing something?
  - grgergo 1y ago
    IPv6 has temporary addresses for privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#Temporary_addresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#Temporary_address...
    - gruez 1y ago
      It's still strictly worse than the privacy you get with ivp4 + NAT. Even with privacy addresses, a device has its own unique (but rotating) address, so it can be uniquely identified. Contrast this with ipv4 + NAT where all devices share the same address, and the only identifying characteristic is the port, which changes on a per-connection basis. On a typical home networking scenario this is handy, because it means advertisers can distinguish traffic coming from your daughter's phone between traffic coming from your PC. With ipv4 they're mixed under one IP address, and you need to resort to various forms of fingerprinting to distinguish them. On a public VPN server this basically kills privacy, which is probably why all the VPNs I've encountered are ipv4 only.
      - boredatoms 1y ago
        If you really want to, you can NAT the v6 just like you do with v4
      - justsomehnguy 1y ago
        CGNAT exists which is "much privacy" by your logic. So anyone interested, starting with Google, is already fingerprinting you anyway, so the whole idea what "ipv4+NAT is more private than ipv6" is moot at best. NB: your useragent already sends enough info to effectively distinguish your from the other users behind the same ipv4 address
leapingdog 1y ago
I understand your pessimism but believe IPv6 is coming. I worked on network management software, the kind of software that runs on out of band networks that are unlikely to ever need IPv6. In the beginning IPv6 was a required feature for sales but it was accepted that no one was going to use it so little effort was put into testing it. More recently, it HAS to work. It is being used in anger internally in large telecoms companies. I expect adoption to proceed at a glacial pace until some tipping point. Consumer ISPs will be the last to adopt it.

whatevaa 1y ago

We will never get rid of ipv4. Apparently my country ISPs have more ipv4 than they need (they actually rent them to others), so they just don't bother with ipv6.

cassianoleal 1y ago
I guess when the world moves away from IPv4, your country will have the entire IPv4 space for itself, and massive headaches with NAT to route out, and the relative impossibility to route in.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago
  [dead]

john01dav 1y ago

I think that government intervention here is needed in order to coordinate people. We'll all be better off once ivp4 is dead and buried, but the incentive for each entity to do so is minimal. It could be some other powerful entity instead of government, for example tier 1 ISPs degrading ipv4 performance substantially or Google delisting websites that don't support ipv6 (and eventually delisting websites that do support ipv4).

dlcarrier 1y ago
Really? The network protocol someone uses is so critical that it should be illegal to use the wrong one? What happens when IPv9 becomes the hot new thing, but everyone is stuck on IPv6, because of some outdated government regulation? Do Americans have the right to use whatever internet protocol they want, under the first amendment? IPv6 has made enough progress that it's totally possible to run your network off of it, regardless of what everyone else is doing, and if all of your neghbors are using IPv4, it won't harm your IPv6 network. Also, part of the delay in the switch to IPv6 is that some work is needed to ensure that home routers and IoT devices default to reasonable security settings, and the absolute worst thing to do is force them to switch first, and figure out security later. The answer isn't to force everyone to use something before its ready; the answer is to address every impediment, so it's worth it for everyone to switch. Sure it's slower, but it's much better than making users worse off by switching, converting them to detractors instead of supporters.
- wiredpancake 1y ago
  I don't see a reason why IPv9 would ever need to be a thing.
HWR_14 1y ago
> We'll all be better off once ivp4 is dead and buried Doesn't IPv6 hurt anonymity? NAT is annoying, but hides the number of devices you have. ISPs assigning you different IPs at different times at least provides some measure of identity resetting. To say nothing of how easy it is to keep IPv4 devices confined the local network Or am I missing something?
- grgergo 1y ago
  IPv6 has temporary addresses for privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#Temporary_addresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_address#Temporary_address...
  - gruez 1y ago
    It's still strictly worse than the privacy you get with ivp4 + NAT. Even with privacy addresses, a device has its own unique (but rotating) address, so it can be uniquely identified. Contrast this with ipv4 + NAT where all devices share the same address, and the only identifying characteristic is the port, which changes on a per-connection basis. On a typical home networking scenario this is handy, because it means advertisers can distinguish traffic coming from your daughter's phone between traffic coming from your PC. With ipv4 they're mixed under one IP address, and you need to resort to various forms of fingerprinting to distinguish them. On a public VPN server this basically kills privacy, which is probably why all the VPNs I've encountered are ipv4 only.
    - boredatoms 1y ago
      If you really want to, you can NAT the v6 just like you do with v4
    - justsomehnguy 1y ago
      CGNAT exists which is "much privacy" by your logic. So anyone interested, starting with Google, is already fingerprinting you anyway, so the whole idea what "ipv4+NAT is more private than ipv6" is moot at best. NB: your useragent already sends enough info to effectively distinguish your from the other users behind the same ipv4 address

leapingdog 1y ago

I understand your pessimism but believe IPv6 is coming. I worked on network management software, the kind of software that runs on out of band networks that are unlikely to ever need IPv6. In the beginning IPv6 was a required feature for sales but it was accepted that no one was going to use it so little effort was put into testing it. More recently, it HAS to work. It is being used in anger internally in large telecoms companies. I expect adoption to proceed at a glacial pace until some tipping point. Consumer ISPs will be the last to adopt it.