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Comment by reirob | Hacker News Reader

Skimmed through the article to understand how IPv6 will improve battery life and I get following:

* Because NAT is not necessary with IPv6 every device can be directly reached by services like Twitter. In contrast today the device has initiate the connection to the services on a regular basis, which drains the battery. * "Accessing sites and content over the Internet is usually faster with IPv6 than with IPv4 because with the new protocol it requires fewer "hops" between network nodes": I cannot comment on this but I would like to know why IPv6 will use fewer "hops"?

The article goes as well on to say that communication providers will offer static IP addresses to their customers. We will see, but I am a little bit worried what this can mean for security if everybody in the InterNet can easily reach every mobile phone. Imagine new exploits in the TCP/IP implementation. It would open the door to infect a huge number of devices...

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One area where IPv6 will have "fewer hops" is in cases where carrier grade NAT is being used in mobile networks. With IPv4 and CGN all traffic must be routed from cell sites to central offices with CGN hardware. With IPv6 traffic can be routed directly from cell sites to its destination without having to first travel to a central aggregation point with special hardware.

I think the 'hop' argument is silly. The other points about not maintaining keep-alive made more sense.

I think devices have been built assuming there was a firewall around them. If the designers started to envisage security from the start, things would have to change. I think it is probably the way things will move.

Indeed. The 'hop' argument is only "true" with IPv6-over-IPv4 tunneling, where the real hops are concealed. Of course, the effect is actually the opposite: you have less efficient routing from source to destination because you have to go through tunnel PoPs, plus processing overhead.

Regarding security, it is still possible to provide the same "security" as NATed private addresses on the network gateway level. However, with some carriers it was (still is?) possible for a long time to communicate with other private IPs without any firewalling, making the argument moot. This also had the bonus feature of bypassing traffic accouning, allowing to have free unlimited traffic via a VPN between two customers.

I think it is more about being able to listen on a port instead of active polling.

Anyway, I doubt it will have a significant impact on battery life.

I'm actually more concerend about privacy. Now tracking a device is even easier than before. No more downloading of illegal contents!

While I somewhat agree about the tracking (if every device gets a /64, then, while the device can chose the host part, the network part is fixed, so site owners would just track the network part to uniquely identify a device or subscriber), I don't see the argument about illegal contents.

To track a downloader of illegal content, you'd still have to go through the users provider and the provider can easily determine who actually downloaded that content at a time.

So as long as providers cooperate, it's not easier or harder to track down a pirate with IPv6 than it was with IPv4

Honestly, I can't help but hate you when your first thought with "privacy issues" is illegal downloads. Even if you thought that was the main reason for 'net privacy, why would you say it?

You're not doing anyone any favors.

There are currently several schemes for obtaining a full /128 address from a /64. One appends your device's MAC address and some other stuff to the network prefix. This obviously has some privacy implications.

The second appends a random number to the /64. This was added specifically to address the privacy concerns of the previous scheme, and does so as well as any easily routable scheme can. While it's obvious under this scheme what network traffic is headed to, it isn't easy to determine which device on that network is going to receive that traffic. Or that device's past network history, if it routinely switches IP addresses.

A /64 isn't a person any more than a IPv4 address is a person. It could identify you on your wifi, your phone, your friends phone, your friends laptop, the kind lady downstairs who you lent your wifi password... all it specifies is the destination subnet for communication.

If you're the least bit privacy aware, it's not any easier to track your device using IPv6 vs IPv4.

edit: IPv6 is arguably harder to track, because autoconfiguration proceeds without a central DHCP server. In order to log IP <=> client mappings, a router would need to listen for all Neighbor Solicitations to outgoing devices, not just add a couple printfs to the DHCP server.

I am a little bit worried what this can mean for security if everybody in the InterNet can easily reach every mobile phone.

Well, where there used to be NAT there should now be a carrier-grade firewall. So it probably won't be as bad as a bare connection to the internet.

The only thing lost by losing the NAT is obscurity... which really isn't security. You should still have your firewall in place.

And thanks to the carrier-grade firewall, you have to start wasting your battery on keep-alives again.

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