[Wiltshire] August meeting

[Andrew Meredith]

David Fletcher wrote:
> Something I keep wondering about because it will be happening sometime in the 
> future but I've no idea when, because nobody seems to be taking any interest 
> in something so fundamental, is IPV6.
> 
> If anybody has any expertise on the subject, it might be good to spend a 
> little time telling the rest of us.

I am by no means claiming expertise, but I did take a time-out on
company time a while and sit down and read the reference work on the
subject cover to cover ... I even understood it for a while as well !!

> Specifically:-
> 
> As far as I know, even though IPV6 has been available on operating systems for 
> quite a while, ISPs are showing no interest in implementing it on their 
> broadband services. Why?

They're businesses. Nobody is asking them for it, so they aren't
spending their profit margin offering it.

> Manufacturers of consumer internet routers do not appear to be implementing 
> IPV6 on their products. Why?

See comment for ISPs ;-)

> When it eventually becomes possible to buy an IPV6 enabled consumer level 
> router, or run a firmware update to obtain IPV6, and ISPs are providing the 
> service, what impact will it have on the likes of us?

Depends on whether you choose to implement IPV6 inside your network.
IPV4 can be sent over IPV6, so anywhere from nothing at all to complete
switchover and probably total chaos for a while.

> We are all used to having NAT on our routers. I understand that it is there as 
> a consequence of not having enough IPV4 addresses for every computer in the 
> world. Given that it has the effect of hiding the real IP address of a 
> computer, it seems to me to be a nice feature to have for security. Will it 
> vanish along with IPV4?

First off, if you are a fan of "Deperimeterisation" (as am I) (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deperimeterisation) then NAT is a
distraction, however to answer the question behind the question: NAT is
the poor relation of some far more advanced concepts made possible by
IPV6. Your security on this front will not be reduced. You can do some
really cool things with IPV6 that are just not in the standard for IPV4.
In fact a couple of the more recent IPV4 networking tricks were kind of
back-ported from IPV6 in the first place.

> What will happen with private networks? Wikipedia states that IPV6 has a built 
> in provision for these. Will they operate in a similar fashion with an IPV6 
> version of NAT?

Yup

> Will every Internet user be able to purchase a block of IPV6 addresses for 
> personal use? In that case, does every computer become, effectively, directly 
> connected to the Internet, and completely dependent for security on its own 
> firewall? In this case will the router be replaced by something more like an 
> ethernet switch?

This one will depend on how the relevant authorities choose to actually
implement stuff. In theory, every piece of equipment you buy with a MAC
address automatically has it's own routeable IPV6 address ... but then,
the initial documentation based theory for many standards gets subverted
by commercial interest when it actually hits the streets. Don't get me
started on this one; I worked on some of the specs for GSM back when it
was a theory and believe you me, big chunks of it now look nothing like
the stuff we developed.

> And, just as an afterthought, what happened to IPV5?

The evil version-fairies stole it and locked it in their crystal prison.

Or maybe:
http://compnetworking.about.com/b/2008/11/05/what-happened-to-ipv5.htm
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2003/06/what_ever_happened_to_ipv5.html

> See you all at the next meeting.

I seldom get the chance to do meetings unfortunately, but keep making
the resolution to try harder.

Cheers

Andy M

PS All of the above, come with the proviso that I read up on all
   this a long time ago and have a notoriously bad memory ;-)

-- 
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         Andrew Meredith BEng CEng CITP MBCS MIET
	 http://www.anvil.org    andrew at anvil.org
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