

World IPv6 Launch - dazbradbury
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/world-ipv6-launch-keeping-internet.html

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ghshephard
I just purchased a new Comcast internet connection two weeks ago, leased their
default router, have a vanilla MacBook Air.

I'm happy to report that I was required to do precisely and absolutely nothing
- beyond spending a few minutes unpacking the (largish) cardboard box they
shipped me, plugging in a coax cable to the router, ethernet cable to my USB
dongle, and then activating my account.

15 Minutes later I was online. I've got
2001:558:6045:ba:24b2:f727:e418:328f/128, and I haven't found an IPv6
network/host that I can't route to natively, though I'm sure they are out
there.

Zero effort and, if I wasn't paying close attention, it wouldn't be clear to
me which services are communicating to me over IPv6 verus IPv4.

It Just Works.

Looking forward to World IPv6 Launch day on 6/6.

~~~
sp332
Does that IPv6 address change? I know Comcast changes your IPv4 address
periodically unless you pay for a static one.

~~~
zaphoyd
Amusingly even if the Comcast LAN prefix is static most operating systems by
default will cycle your address anyways. In IPv6 a dynamic address is now a
Feature!

Whether or not the Comcast LAN prefix changes is a good question though. I've
seen no evidence that they plan to deliberately change them. My Comcast IPv4
address stays static pretty much until I reset my modem and even then it often
grabs the same v4 address again.

I did a bit of really basic testing earlier today and no amount of modem
resetting seems to cycle the IPv6 prefix I am getting delegated.

In the end though, dynamic DNS does a very good job of dealing with the
occasionally changing prefix and IPv6 gets rid of the need to do port
forwarding so maintaining dns records with public addresses to machines on
your home network is actually possible now. I am happy to report that (with
the proper firewalls in place) it is downright awesome to have IPv6 at home
and at work and on your phone. I can't wait to see what sort of new home cloud
tech this will enable.

~~~
sp332
Well if Comcast only assigns you a /128 then you're kinda stuck :) Good to
know, thank you.

~~~
zaphoyd
comcast assigns a /64 if you plug in a router that supports DHCPv6. You get a
/128 if you plug your macbook air straight into the modem. =)

~~~
sp332
I will have to experiment with this. I can't get a Comcast rep to explain how
a static IPv4 address (which doesn't use DHCP) plays with IPv6 access :)

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sp332
Here's a little restartless Firefox addon that tells you if the page is loaded
over IPv6: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sixornot/> and one
for Chrome (written by p1mrx here):
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ecanpcehffngcegjma...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ecanpcehffngcegjmadlcijfolapggal)

~~~
pferde
Actually, IPvFOX (<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ipvfox/>) is
even better. Sixornot only shows dns lookups for the page's domain, this one
shows IP address for every loaded resource in it.

~~~
sp332
If you click SixOrNot's down-arrow, it shows the same information, right?

~~~
pferde
Not really, at least according to description text of IPvFOX addon. And I
remember that sixornot's verdict over a loaded page hasn't always been correct
in the past - lot of sites have v6 DNS entries, but aren't really connectable,
etc.

~~~
Dagger2
Ah... yeah, okay, I really should update that. SixOrNot used to be DNS only,
but now it monitors connections too.

There's also 4or6, which has easy access to the IPv6-related preferences.

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aidenn0
My ISP still hasn't deployed it, but I have a he tunnel, which works quite
nicely. If nothing else, it's nice to be able to easily run several webservers
with SSL on the same machine without feeling like an address hog.

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jkn
Can someone shed light on how privacy will be affected by IPv6?

From what I've read, the typical case is that the ISP assigns statically a 64
bit prefix to the user, and the remaining bits are assigned from the MAC
address of the devices, or a more opaque scheme when IPv6 privacy extensions
are enabled. But doesn't this leave the user fully traceable based on the
prefix only?

Compared to cookies for example, IP addresses are a serious threat to
privacy/anonymity because they are logged everywhere, sometimes exposed (e.g.
Wikipedia anonymous edits) and basically constitute a universal ID that can be
used to make links between all kinds of network activities (web, BitTorrent,
Skype, whatever...)

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throwaway64
within the specification for privacy extensions is the option to change
addresses periodically.

~~~
jkn
But that won't change your prefix will it?

~~~
throwaway64
no, but the issue is essentially the same as ipv4 at that point

~~~
jkn
Exactly, and my point is that currently my ISP assigns IPv4 addresses
dynamically, so I'll get a different one every time I turn on my ADSL modem. I
think this is quite common, and as a consequence IPv4 addresses are not a
reliable way of identifying a home computer. If every home connection is
assigned a static IPv6 prefix, that becomes a reliable identifier. Then you
can credibly say "This comment on my blog is from the same computer as this
Wikipedia edit from last month!", something you currently cannot say for home
computers in general (while work computers are much more likely to have static
IPv4 addresses and in that case IPv6 doesn't make it worse).

As I understand it, the privacy extensions in IPv6 were designed to solve
another, bigger privacy concern that was totally absent from IPv4: if the
second part of the IP address is based on the MAC address, then smartphones
and laptops can be traced globally, no matter where they connect to the
network (home, hotel room, 3G...)

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illumen
ipv 6 launch, on the 6th day of the 6th month.

666

Yes, the nerds are still in charge of the net. Thank satan.

