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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-give-huge-blocks-to-businesses dept.

Things are looking up for our next-generation internet.

[...] But the shortage of IPv4 elbow room became a steadily worsening issue -- have you noticed all those phones that can connect to the network now, for example? So tech companies banded together to try to advance IPv6. The result: World IPv6 Day on June 8, 2011, when tech giants like Google, Facebook and Yahoo tested IPv6 sites to find any problems. For a sequel, they restarted those IPv6 connections and left them on starting on World IPv6 Launch Day, June 6, 2012.

Back then, there was still a risk that IPv6 wouldn't attract a critical mass of usage even with the tech biggies on board. The result would've been an internet complicated by multilayer trickery called network address translation, or NAT, that let multiple devices share the same IP address. But statistics released Wednesday by one IPv6 organizer, the Internet Society, show that IPv6 is growing steadily in usage, with about a quarter of us now using it worldwide. It looks like we're finally moving into a future that's been within our grasp since the Clinton administration.

"While there is obviously more to be done -- like roll out IPv6 to the other 75 percent of the Internet -- it's becoming clear that IPv6 is here to stay and is well-positioned to support the Internet's growth for the next several decades," said Lorenzo Colitti, a Google software engineer who's worked on IPv6 for years.

[...] How much room does IPv6 have? Enough to give network addresses to 340 undecillion devices -- that's two to the 128th power, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 if you're keeping score.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:24PM (31 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:24PM (#689886) Journal

    Maybe the Network Effect will come into play. If I was the only person in the world that had a telephone, the usefulness of a telephone would be somewhat less than it is currently. Once a 2nd person has a telephone, a telephone becomes more useful. A 3rd person, etc. As more and more sites have IPv6, the more useful it becomes.

    As the IPv4 runs out of addresses (as the Mayans predicted for 2012) there will start to appear IPv6-only sites. Suddenly if you have only IPv4 service, you feel like you're missing out. If your computer doesn't have an IPv6 address along with an IPv4 address, then you "aren't seeing the entire internet".

    Suddenly the Tipping Point happens. Everyone has IPv6, and so it is suddenly valuable to make sure YOU have IPv6.

    Then, just as 32-bit CPUs became obsolete at a surprisingly fast rate, so will IPv4.

    How it plays out in reality remains to be seen.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:34PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:34PM (#689891)

    Goddamn. These are fine machines that do a fine job.

    The only thing that has made them even remotely "obsolete" is the inherently crappy nature of software that has been exposed by the existence of both 32-bit and 64-bit machines; programmers clearly do not understand abstraction, and so unbeknownst to them, even their source code ends up targeting exactly one of these types of machine.

    So, I guess we can draw a conclusion: All of a sudden, a bunch of software will assume there is only IPv6, not because IPv4 doesn't work anymore or is nowhere to be found, but rather because the programmers of said software don't really know WTF they're doing. "I hit the play button, and it, like, worked."

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:48PM (15 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:48PM (#689895) Journal

      Blame the C programmers.

      As a Java programmer, what I write runs just fine on 32-bit or 64-bit. (The same object code even.)

      Okay, well, there is this one application that uses enough gigabytes of memory (because of the size of the data sets) that 32-bit becomes unsuitable due to address space limitations.

      But in general, my Java apps run perfectly fine on 32-bit or 64-bit. On all OSes. Even Raspberry PIs.

      But . . . there seems to be more Linux distros dropping their 32-bit support. Thus the machines become obsolete from my POV. If I can't get an OS for them, then they are effectively useless. And even if Microsoft were to continue to have 32-bit support, you wouldn't expect me to use that surely? And what about Apple's 32-bit support?

      I would also point out that a machine with only 4 GB of ram is starting to look obsolete anyway. At least in the environment I work in. (Yes, I know that a PI only has 1 GB, but I use it for different things.)

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:14PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:14PM (#689901)

        Last I checked, Java runs in a virtual machine not directly on the CPU. And the JRE definitely cares about 32 or 64 bit CPUs.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:37PM (5 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:37PM (#689922) Journal

          That is correct. But I am abstracted (mostly) away from those details.

          On the horizon we can see native Java ahead-of-time compilation coming. I'm not sure whether to rejoice or hide under my desk.

          For my use of Java at work, I target only one platform, in practice. The production servers.

          For my personal use I target Linux, RasPI, and sometimes Windows. For an insulting job I might target Linux, Windows, Mac, and even PI.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:30PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:30PM (#689997)

            The point is that no matter how far you may be abstracted away from the actual computer, somewhere at the bottom is code that needs to interact with the real metal. And that code, and the the people that write it, do need to care about 32-bit or 64-bit processors, and other architectural designs. And those people make choices about how many versions of the code they really want to develop and maintain. So if they decide they don't want, or don't have time, to support both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, guess which one is more likely to be axed.

          • (Score: 2, Funny) by NotSanguine on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:03PM (3 children)

            On the horizon we can see native Java ahead-of-time compilation coming. I'm not sure whether to rejoice or hide under my desk.

            I'd rather have my tonsils extracted through my ears. Java needs to die a slow, painful and ignominious death.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 08 2018, @01:47PM (2 children)

              by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 08 2018, @01:47PM (#690309) Journal

              So do a lot of things. But good luck with that. Java is going to be around a long time. Nothing is perfect. Everything has warts. If there were one perfect language, everyone would already be using it.

              I am genuinely curious though, what is it that gives you such passion about Java?

              --
              People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
              • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday June 10 2018, @09:29PM (1 child)

                I am genuinely curious though, what is it that gives you such passion about Java?

                1. Oracle
                2. Deployment nightmares due to version incomatibilities
                3. Performance, or rather, lack thereof
                4. Oracle
                5. Because you like it! :)

                --
                No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
                • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 11 2018, @02:33PM

                  by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 11 2018, @02:33PM (#691401) Journal

                  I can't blame you for #1.

                  #2 is something that is within your (or your organization's) control. I generally don't have version incompatibility problems. But I begin deploying internal test servers, first one or two, then more, on new versions long before we consider putting new versions in production. Yet I manage to be far ahead of lots of people I hear that are still stuck on, say, Java 6. I am not running bleeding edge. But I tend to get to a MAJOR new version with significant differences, within about a year.

                  #3 is something we can disagree about. I value abstraction far more than performance. You can buy performance with bigger better hardware. I am optimizing for dollars. I am NOT optimizing for bytes and CPU cycles. Optimize for dollars. If I need 64 GB more ram, my bosses will give it to me if I can beat my competitor to market.

                  #4, can't argue with you there.

                  #5, I am left puzzled. (and right puzzled)

                  --
                  People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:22PM (4 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:22PM (#689906) Journal

        The only thing that has made them even remotely "obsolete" is the inherently crappy nature of software [such that] unbeknownst to [programmers], even their source code ends up targeting exactly one of these types of machine.

        there seems to be more Linux distros dropping their 32-bit support. Thus the machines become obsolete

        These seem to be facets of "shiny new stuff" syndrome. Programmers, finally realizing that they need to not reinvent the wheel, depend on libraries. That's generally "good". But many libraries have been "improved" with instructions/features (perhaps coincidentally) found only in 64-bit processors, meaning their 32-bit legacy versions get dropped instead of maintained in parallel.

        Cascading results include programs that would otherwise work fine on any arbitrary level of bittiness losing 32-bit support because their library dependencies have lost 32-bit support. And operating system vendors watching their upstream pools of 32-bit software shrink before their very eyes as new versions require the shiny new 64-bit only libraries (despite not requiring the shiny new features therein).

        In my humble opinion, this is a "bad thing" with respect to GNU/Linux distributions and operating systems in general, as 32-bit machines in general are as capable and hardy as they ever were, and it's getting to the point where you have to run old, unpatched, unmaintained software on them, or add concrete and chain and repurpose them as boat anchors.

        With respect to IPv6, the corresponding process might be a good thing, and might not. One certainly hopes that it takes off and works and we go to a practically all-IPv6 internetworking universe.

        But frankly I am still not sure that IPv6 is going to catch on, the hopeful and forward-looking language of TFA notwithstanding.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:04PM (3 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:04PM (#689946) Journal

          I am still not sure that IPv6 is going to catch on,

          Here's why I think it will.

          IPv4 addresses are a limited resource. (Well, so is IPv6, but in slightly more abundance, see other posts here about how the address space is somewhat larger)

          IPv4 addresses were all allocated in 2014 -- which is why the Mayan's ended their calendar. End of the world, etc.

          Now it is just an economic market of who can buy, sell and trade IPv4 addresses as they are needed. Static IPv4s will be harder and more expensive to buy.

          IPv6 addresses will be plentiful and cheap. Like nuclear power, so cheap we won't even have to meter it, or so they said.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:41PM (2 children)

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:41PM (#689974) Journal

            IPv6 addresses will be plentiful and cheap.

            I so want you to be exactly right. But the solution is a problem. That solution being the temporary one, NAT, and the problem being that many shrug and say "Ah, who cares, a ten|one-(seventy|ninety)-two dot whatever NAT address is just as good as a real one, with virtual hosts and all."

            Even my ISP hands out not real addresses, but 10.0.x.x NAT ones, to cable modem customers (unless you cough up $10 a month to get a real IPv4 address, which is very rare, judging by the surprise of the tech support and customer service people when I said I needed a real IP address). Almost no one knows or cares. (I was furious, and let them know it. This was my introduction to CGNAT.)

            NAT addresses are not good enough, by any measure, except the 80/20 rule: 80% of the people have a networking IQ of about 20, and therefore don't know or care about IP addressing.

            • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:00PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:00PM (#689981)

              You're way off.

              80/20? Ha!
              More like 99.99/0.01.

              And, that's not just for networking; that's for everything.

              Virtually nobody has control over anything, and virtually nobody knows how anything works, anyway. Each person has fallen into a certain position within the Great Machine, and just does one little repetitious action before dying one day.

              That's why you can't ever get through to someone to help you solve your problems, such as getting a "real" IP. Your only interface to the rest of the world is a nebulous cloud of know-nothings in the 99.99%, who don't even know where the sentient 0.01% are.

              When you realize this, the whole world starts to make a lot more sense.
              Give up now, while you can. Have a beer, and watch a show on Netflix.

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @09:18PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @09:18PM (#690074)

              You're way off.

              80/20? Ha!
              More like 99.99/0.01.

              And, that's not just for networking; that's for everything.

              Virtually nobody has control over anything, and virtually nobody knows how anything works, anyway. Each person has fallen into a certain position within the Great Machine, and just does one little repetitious action before dying one day.

              That's why you can't ever get through to someone to help you solve your problems, such as getting a "real" IP. Your only interface to the rest of the world is a nebulous cloud of know-nothings in the 99.99%, who don't even know where the sentient 0.01% are.

              When you realize this, the whole world starts to make a lot more sense.
              Give up now, while you can. Have a beer, and watch a show on Netflix.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:57PM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:57PM (#689979) Homepage Journal

        I think 10.4 had 64-bit command line programs with a 32-bit kernel. 10.5 had 64-bit GUI and command line, 32-bit kernel. 10.6 had a 64-bit kernel.

        The current macOS is 10.13.4. The current macOS that actually _works_ is 10.12.5 or maybe .6. Apple announced 10.14 at their developer conference on monday but it's only available to paid dev program members.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:32PM (1 child)

        by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:32PM (#690098) Journal

        As a Java programmer, what I write runs just fine on 32-bit or 64-bit. (The same object code even.)

        Got to jump in with smart-ass-ery here. As a user of applications written in java, it seems that 32 or 64 bit is indeed much less important, however, the damned java version installed on a PC seems to be all the rage - to the point where one of the nearby teams have to use VMs with specific versions of java installed just to keep their (horribly supported) business applications functional. Java was supposed to be a perfect world - write once - work everywhere solution, I remember the damned sales pitch. It's ended up rather different!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:37AM (#690220)

          Sales pitches and reality generally don't match. Actual developers quickly turned that slogan into "write once, debug everywhere."

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:23PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:23PM (#689907)

    I used to be (years ago) responsible for the firewall rules at my employer and at the time, deliberately disabled IPv6 until I could spend the time to learn all its ins and outs. Of course, having the time to sit down and do that never happened, so when I left that role, we still didn't have it enabled.
    The little time I did get to look at it spooked m though: it seemed that there was a lot of internal info that could be gleaned from looking at the IPv6 address assigned to a device. Is this the case or was I just confused?

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:05PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:05PM (#689986)

      I have had the same experience with IPv6 research as you. And like you have been waiting to see how things roll out and improve, or not. This is a "game" where there is little to no downside of waiting for the early adopters to run into a majority of the problems. Reminds me of a true story...

      When cable was rolling out internet access in the mid/late 90's one of the VPs in our company got it installed in their home. He opened up his network tools and was shocked that he could see the computers of every house in his neighborhood as if they were on his local, in-home network. The cable/ISP has not put up the proper networking separations between clients. It was literally open to everyone. I see IPv6 as being potentially similar to that today - just with a much higher technical bar.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:17PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:17PM (#689993)

        one of the VPs in our company got it installed in their home. He opened

        How did you conclude this makes sense?

        Here: one of the VPs in our company got it installed in his home. He opened...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:46PM (#690006)

          Don't assume xhis gender.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:04PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:04PM (#690020)

            The "masculine" forms in English are only masculine in that they are "not explicitly feminine". The "feminine" forms are explicitly gendered.

            Basically, you use "she", et al., to denote things that are special, unique, or cherished—such as females, or boats. If you use "he", et al., you are not actually specifying a gender. That is why a law may be written in terms of "he", but yet still applies to women.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:49PM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:49PM (#690010) Journal

          Consistentcy in virtue signaling has not gained wide traction yet.
          Same as IPV6 it seems.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday June 07 2018, @09:29PM

      by sjames (2882) on Thursday June 07 2018, @09:29PM (#690076) Journal

      It's really not that complicated. It's just that instead of relying on NAT (which was never intended to be a security measure), you rely on a much less resource intensive stateful firewall rule.

      If you just use autoconfig for addresses, it is possible to derive some information about machines inside the firewall (that has good and bad points). If you use IP privacy, they pick random addresses and change periodically to hide that information.

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:23PM (6 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:23PM (#689908) Journal

    All we gotta do is tell the hipsters that IPv6 is white and cool and has a nice logo on it, and all the Apple fanbois will want to sign up for it, no matter when it comes out or how much it will cost.

    Hipsters RULE!
    :)

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:43PM (5 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:43PM (#689928)

      All we gotta do is tell the hipsters that IPv6 is white and cool

      Leftists are generally anti-white, so yeah not so much ... Tell them its made entirely out of artisanal, free range, gluten free, urban, organic, pesticide free, natural electrons, that'll sell.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:00PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:00PM (#690018)

        Leftists are generally anti-white

        Oh good Lord, the throwback righties are at it again. Treating others (say, with darker skin) with respect, equality, and kindness does not mean you hate yourself, or those like yourself. Most leftists in predominantly "white" countries are themselves white, dipshit.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:07PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:07PM (#690021)

          White people came late to slavery and then did the most to end slavery.

          White people built plumbing, transportation, and power grids around the world.

          White people invented tolerance, multiculturalism, and respect for the individual above the collective, and white people remain the greatest practitioners of these philosophies.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:40AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:40AM (#690222)

            White people came late to slavery

            The ancient Greeks and Romans had slavery, so no, whites weren't late to slavery. Late to using sub-Sahara Africans as slaves, maybe, but not slavery in general.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:47AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:47AM (#690223)

              By the time of what most people think of as the "slave trade", Europeans only supported the idea of indentured servants, who signed contracts of employment; at the expiration of such a contract, the servant would become a free man, and would maybe even be given a parcel of land of his own, etc.

              True slavery was introduced into the American colonies by a black African named Anthony Johnson, who had himself been a slave and was freed by white people when they bought him as an indentured servant. Anthony Johnson became the first legally recognized slave owner in the colonies, after he hoodwinked fellow Africans into obligating themselves contractually, and thus began once more among Europeans (particularly of the Common Law systems) legal recognition of slavery in general.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @12:36AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @12:36AM (#690131)

        For the right-winger, just tell them the stuff is using true American electrons, never touched by an H1B hand or imported from China.