5 ms·

IPv4 has been "in crisis" for the entire 20 years I've worked in tech and we seem to be managing alright. Not to say things can't be better or we shouldn't try

IPv4 has been "in crisis" for the entire 20 years I've worked in tech and we seem to be managing alright. Not to say things can't be better or we shouldn't try to improve. But I'll be surprised if v4 isn't still the default for most use cases in another 20 years.

RiverCrochet 6mo ago
That's because the Internet is basically broadcast TV 2.0 so no one cares about having public IPv4's at home as long as they can get to their memes and streaming. Great job, we took something that was meant to be a next frontier in humanity and let anyone connect with anyone else without gatekeepers/intermediaries and turned it 21st century brainrot troughs. Perhaps a society not in slow intellectual decline would have chosen otherwise.
- ozim 6mo ago
  I do agree. But at the same time there is a quote by Stanisław Lem... "Until I used the Internet, I didn't know there were so many idiots in the world"
- ux266478 6mo ago
  > Great job, we took something that was meant to be a next frontier in humanity and let anyone connect with anyone else without gatekeepers/intermediaries We already had that, it's called shortwave radio. The internet, especially as it's implemented and as it's used, is a terrible way to achieve this. It's service providers the whole way down.
  - smallmancontrov 6mo ago
    It would be funny if HAM radio came back because the social filter imposed by the limitations wound up being more important than the technological capability.
    - ozim 6mo ago
      Problem is that HAM radio also has social filters you broadcast to everyone and you don’t know who is listening. Encrypted communication is not allowed in HAM. You are not supposed to use it for „communication” as in Facebook. You are supposed to use spectrum to test your gear and keep transmissions short to leave space for others. I was in local HAM club and passed the exam for license but never got license to transmit mostly because you are not supposed to chat frivolously over the radio.
  - globular-toast 6mo ago
    There are definitely problems, but IRC in the 90s had strong ham radio vibes imo.
  - kaoD 6mo ago
    > It's service providers the whole way down. And still likely better than heavily regulated airwaves.
- dartharva 6mo ago
  > Perhaps a society not in slow intellectual decline would have chosen otherwise. The "slow intellectual decline" has circular causality with advancement of mass media and convenience tech.
lern_too_spel 6mo ago
His point is that you're managing alright because you live in a country where your ISP can give you a public IP address. The author lives in a country where that is not possible and accesses the Internet behind layers of NAT.
- LoganDark 6mo ago
  What's the difference, other than port forwarding? Does NAT cause some sort of unique issue that makes existence miserable?
  - jofla_net 6mo ago
    Hole punching, which has various forms, may or may not work. This means if you're doing something realtime, you may need to stick a server(reachable endpoint) in between it, at the very least reducing performance.
    - LoganDark 6mo ago
      I have never seen any situation where this is not already necessary other than UPnP which already almost never works reliably. A publicly-addressable relay is already practically non-negotiable for anything over the internet.
      - lern_too_spel 6mo ago
        IPv6 everywhere makes that not necessary, which is what the author is pushing for.
      - lmm 6mo ago
        uPnP works fine though? What was the problem you had with it?
        LoganDark 6mo ago
        For one, monopolies disabling it by default on their equipment? I remember some years ago having to guess the admin password at a vacation house so I could enable UPnP. It's usually framed as a security vulnerability, even.
me4502 6mo ago
Part of the issue is this affects different countries differently, based on residential IP allocations to household ratios. I am currently on CGNAT in Australia split 256 ways, and any site that doesn't support IPv6 can be borderline unusable. I can't imagine what it's like in countries with worse ratios, like India. It's been in crisis for decades, but it's also getting increasingly worse every year.

RiverCrochet 6mo ago

That's because the Internet is basically broadcast TV 2.0 so no one cares about having public IPv4's at home as long as they can get to their memes and streaming. Great job, we took something that was meant to be a next frontier in humanity and let anyone connect with anyone else without gatekeepers/intermediaries and turned it 21st century brainrot troughs. Perhaps a society not in slow intellectual decline would have chosen otherwise.

ozim 6mo ago
I do agree. But at the same time there is a quote by Stanisław Lem... "Until I used the Internet, I didn't know there were so many idiots in the world"
ux266478 6mo ago
> Great job, we took something that was meant to be a next frontier in humanity and let anyone connect with anyone else without gatekeepers/intermediaries We already had that, it's called shortwave radio. The internet, especially as it's implemented and as it's used, is a terrible way to achieve this. It's service providers the whole way down.
- smallmancontrov 6mo ago
  It would be funny if HAM radio came back because the social filter imposed by the limitations wound up being more important than the technological capability.
  - ozim 6mo ago
    Problem is that HAM radio also has social filters you broadcast to everyone and you don’t know who is listening. Encrypted communication is not allowed in HAM. You are not supposed to use it for „communication” as in Facebook. You are supposed to use spectrum to test your gear and keep transmissions short to leave space for others. I was in local HAM club and passed the exam for license but never got license to transmit mostly because you are not supposed to chat frivolously over the radio.
- globular-toast 6mo ago
  There are definitely problems, but IRC in the 90s had strong ham radio vibes imo.
- kaoD 6mo ago
  > It's service providers the whole way down. And still likely better than heavily regulated airwaves.
dartharva 6mo ago
> Perhaps a society not in slow intellectual decline would have chosen otherwise. The "slow intellectual decline" has circular causality with advancement of mass media and convenience tech.

lern_too_spel 6mo ago

His point is that you're managing alright because you live in a country where your ISP can give you a public IP address. The author lives in a country where that is not possible and accesses the Internet behind layers of NAT.

LoganDark 6mo ago
What's the difference, other than port forwarding? Does NAT cause some sort of unique issue that makes existence miserable?
- jofla_net 6mo ago
  Hole punching, which has various forms, may or may not work. This means if you're doing something realtime, you may need to stick a server(reachable endpoint) in between it, at the very least reducing performance.
  - LoganDark 6mo ago
    I have never seen any situation where this is not already necessary other than UPnP which already almost never works reliably. A publicly-addressable relay is already practically non-negotiable for anything over the internet.
    - lern_too_spel 6mo ago
      IPv6 everywhere makes that not necessary, which is what the author is pushing for.
    - lmm 6mo ago
      uPnP works fine though? What was the problem you had with it?
      - LoganDark 6mo ago
        For one, monopolies disabling it by default on their equipment? I remember some years ago having to guess the admin password at a vacation house so I could enable UPnP. It's usually framed as a security vulnerability, even.

me4502 6mo ago

Part of the issue is this affects different countries differently, based on residential IP allocations to household ratios. I am currently on CGNAT in Australia split 256 ways, and any site that doesn't support IPv6 can be borderline unusable. I can't imagine what it's like in countries with worse ratios, like India. It's been in crisis for decades, but it's also getting increasingly worse every year.