5 ms·

While I'm not going to dismiss your argument entirely, it basically boils down to "Migrating to IPv6 is hard. Let's go shopping". Now the question which would b

by trezor 18y ago

While I'm not going to dismiss your argument entirely, it basically boils down to "Migrating to IPv6 is hard. Let's go shopping". Now the question which would be reasonable to ask is how hard would this migration actually be, coupled with how needed it actually is. Right now you might say "There are 6 billion people in the world. Exploiting the existing address-space more efficiently, coupled with NAT will be 'good enough'". This may or may not be true as for now. However, fast forward one generation, 30 years, whatever. Lets (optimistically? pessimistically?) assume world population is doubled. How about now? Will squeezing the existing address-space coupled with NAT be enough? At this point there will be 3 people per IP address. And most people will probably have more networked devices than ever, accustomed to being able to work with data independent of network location. Sure we can add hacks on hacks to make this viable, but at some point we will have to toss IPv4 out and accept that there will be a painful migration. At some point these hacks will cause more pain than a migration away from IPv4. The question is not as much if we will have to ditch IPv4 but when. If your argument is that we have too much stuff which relies on current IPv4 configuration now, imagine in 30 years. In short: Your primary concern is not going to get any better.

tptacek 18y ago
First: "IPv6 is hard, let's go shopping" is exactly what happened on the Internet. Several hundred billion dollars later, nobody much cares about IPv6. Second, when you make an point like "NAT may or may not be good enough", the onus is on you to support that point with evidence. Most of the problems NAT-unfriendly technologies were supposed to solve have instead been solved by brute force; HD movies move just fine over inefficient HTTP CDNs. The rest of your comment just ignores my argument, which is that individuals don't need routable IP addresses for the Internet to work. Many of us never even use routable IP addresses. 6 billion, 10 billion, 20 billions --- as long as the next YouTube can get reachable servers online, what do I care whether my iPencil has a 1918 address? Networking technologies are "hacks" when they challenge the greybeard orthodoxy, and they're "sound engineering" when they don't. It's funny how quickly we forgot that the Internet itself was a pragmatic reaction to OSI standards. You want to see a "hack"? How about, the NSF decides that commercial entities shouldn't connect to the NSF backbone, and the entire Internet splits in two, and I can't get to University sites from Ripco in Chicago? Guess how long ago that happened? Sorry if I can't get all worked up over whether my phone can talk to your phone over direct BitTorrent.
- trezor 18y ago
  the onus is on you to support that point with evidence I'm not claiming to be an absolute authority on these matters, but merely trying to breed some discussion around the topic. I don't think it's a clear cut case. Most of the problems NAT-unfriendly technologies were supposed to solve have instead been solved by brute force My argument is that over time the brute force required may possibly exceed the work of an actual migration away from IPv4 to something better. The rest of your comment just ignores my argument, which is that individuals don't need routable IP addresses for the Internet to work. In that case, my bad. And this is certainly true for large parts of the internet. If this remains true with the evolution of VoIP, SIP and other unified, global communication protocols taking over for traditional telephony, is probably another matter. as long as the next YouTube can get reachable servers online, what do I care whether my iPencil has a 1918 address? If routable IPs become such a scarcity only rich people can afford it, expect to see internet creativity drop significantly. Part of what makes internet great today is that anyone can contribute and put something online if they want to. Sorry if I can't get all worked up over whether my phone can talk to your phone over direct BitTorrent. That's obviously an extreme, but on the other extreme, if nobody except commercial entities can afford routable IPs, technologies like BitTorrent will die because there will be no connectible peers.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    The underclass can't get IP addresses today. Hust because we make hundreds of billions of numbers available tomorrow, doesn't mean those people will be routable for fractions of a cent. There are plenty of logistical problems (RIB size, portability) besides the artificial "scarcity" of IP addresses that retard universal fixed addressing. The rest of your argument just seems like hand-waving. What fraction of "creativity" on the Internet depends on end-station addressing? Web applications don't care what number your laptop claims, and neither does email or IM. If addressing is hurting creativity, it's because you're being creative at the wrong layer of the stack.
    - trezor 18y ago
      Just because we make hundreds of billions of numbers available tomorrow Actually its more like 4 billion billion billion billion IPs. There are plenty of logistical problems (RIB size, portability) besides the artificial "scarcity" of IP addresses that retard universal fixed addressing. This is indeed true. If you want a small RIB size you need hierarchial address assignment. If you want portability, you need to break hierarchial address assignment. That being said, if portability becomes a limited issue, routing doesn't have to be much worse than it is today, where it is pretty much random. What fraction of "creativity" on the Internet depends on end-station addressing? Today I can put up a server on any DSL, have a public IP (and DynDNS if it's dynamic) and I can serve up new stuff to the entire internet without having to pay for hosting. Granted, that is not a business-class solution by any means, but anyone can do it. If you all of a sudden have to use commercial hosting to put something online, you are 100% at their mercy. What they offer, how they offer it, it will have to work on their server-setup unless you are willing to pay premium for a VPS etc etc. You want to develop some new kind of project/service which doesn't run over HTTP or on Apache? It sure must be encouraging to know that 99% of the internet wont be able to run or host your stuff since you are at the hosting provider's mercy and they have no plans deploying untested software. If addressing is hurting creativity, it's because you're being creative at the wrong layer of the stack. I'll assume this comment means you misunderstood what I was thinking about.

by trezor 18y ago

tptacek 18y ago

First: "IPv6 is hard, let's go shopping" is exactly what happened on the Internet. Several hundred billion dollars later, nobody much cares about IPv6. Second, when you make an point like "NAT may or may not be good enough", the onus is on you to support that point with evidence. Most of the problems NAT-unfriendly technologies were supposed to solve have instead been solved by brute force; HD movies move just fine over inefficient HTTP CDNs. The rest of your comment just ignores my argument, which is that individuals don't need routable IP addresses for the Internet to work. Many of us never even use routable IP addresses. 6 billion, 10 billion, 20 billions --- as long as the next YouTube can get reachable servers online, what do I care whether my iPencil has a 1918 address? Networking technologies are "hacks" when they challenge the greybeard orthodoxy, and they're "sound engineering" when they don't. It's funny how quickly we forgot that the Internet itself was a pragmatic reaction to OSI standards. You want to see a "hack"? How about, the NSF decides that commercial entities shouldn't connect to the NSF backbone, and the entire Internet splits in two, and I can't get to University sites from Ripco in Chicago? Guess how long ago that happened? Sorry if I can't get all worked up over whether my phone can talk to your phone over direct BitTorrent.

trezor 18y ago
the onus is on you to support that point with evidence I'm not claiming to be an absolute authority on these matters, but merely trying to breed some discussion around the topic. I don't think it's a clear cut case. Most of the problems NAT-unfriendly technologies were supposed to solve have instead been solved by brute force My argument is that over time the brute force required may possibly exceed the work of an actual migration away from IPv4 to something better. The rest of your comment just ignores my argument, which is that individuals don't need routable IP addresses for the Internet to work. In that case, my bad. And this is certainly true for large parts of the internet. If this remains true with the evolution of VoIP, SIP and other unified, global communication protocols taking over for traditional telephony, is probably another matter. as long as the next YouTube can get reachable servers online, what do I care whether my iPencil has a 1918 address? If routable IPs become such a scarcity only rich people can afford it, expect to see internet creativity drop significantly. Part of what makes internet great today is that anyone can contribute and put something online if they want to. Sorry if I can't get all worked up over whether my phone can talk to your phone over direct BitTorrent. That's obviously an extreme, but on the other extreme, if nobody except commercial entities can afford routable IPs, technologies like BitTorrent will die because there will be no connectible peers.
- tptacek 18y ago
  The underclass can't get IP addresses today. Hust because we make hundreds of billions of numbers available tomorrow, doesn't mean those people will be routable for fractions of a cent. There are plenty of logistical problems (RIB size, portability) besides the artificial "scarcity" of IP addresses that retard universal fixed addressing. The rest of your argument just seems like hand-waving. What fraction of "creativity" on the Internet depends on end-station addressing? Web applications don't care what number your laptop claims, and neither does email or IM. If addressing is hurting creativity, it's because you're being creative at the wrong layer of the stack.
  - trezor 18y ago
    Just because we make hundreds of billions of numbers available tomorrow Actually its more like 4 billion billion billion billion IPs. There are plenty of logistical problems (RIB size, portability) besides the artificial "scarcity" of IP addresses that retard universal fixed addressing. This is indeed true. If you want a small RIB size you need hierarchial address assignment. If you want portability, you need to break hierarchial address assignment. That being said, if portability becomes a limited issue, routing doesn't have to be much worse than it is today, where it is pretty much random. What fraction of "creativity" on the Internet depends on end-station addressing? Today I can put up a server on any DSL, have a public IP (and DynDNS if it's dynamic) and I can serve up new stuff to the entire internet without having to pay for hosting. Granted, that is not a business-class solution by any means, but anyone can do it. If you all of a sudden have to use commercial hosting to put something online, you are 100% at their mercy. What they offer, how they offer it, it will have to work on their server-setup unless you are willing to pay premium for a VPS etc etc. You want to develop some new kind of project/service which doesn't run over HTTP or on Apache? It sure must be encouraging to know that 99% of the internet wont be able to run or host your stuff since you are at the hosting provider's mercy and they have no plans deploying untested software. If addressing is hurting creativity, it's because you're being creative at the wrong layer of the stack. I'll assume this comment means you misunderstood what I was thinking about.