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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: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:54PM (6 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @04:54PM (#689937) Journal

    I would have to go home to look to see which book I mean. I know there are several on the subject.

    I'm going TOTALLY FROM MEMORY here . . .

    Long before 9/11, I was reading something interesting in the book . . .

    (I just googled it, and the entire book I am thinking of is downloadable. [psu.edu] So now I can cite exact page number and quotation.)

    On page 93 (of the PDF), talking about Key Escrow, Clipper Chip, etc.

    But on page 94 . . .

    Imagine a major terrorist attack in New York; what sorts
    of limits on the police would be thrown aside in the aftermath?

    It is hard to imagine escrowed encryption schemes working as their advocates imagine without some
    kind of legal pressure. The obvious next step is a ban on the use of non-escrowed encryption.

    . . . .

    It’s not clear how difficult outlawing
    non-escrowed cryptography will be, or how it will affect cryptography as an academic discipline.
    How can I research software-oriented cryptography algorithms without having software nonescrowed
    encryption devices in my possession; will I need a special license?

    And there are legal questions. How do escrowed keys affect users’ liability, should some encrypted
    data get out? If the U.S. government is trying to protect the escrow agencies, will there be the
    implicit assumption that if the secret was compromised by either the user or the escrow agency, then
    it must have been the user?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:09PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:09PM (#689952)

    Yeah key escrow is basically the gun control argument. Only criminals would want crypto. The writers of the constitution never envisioned blah blah blah.

    The way the civilized modern world looks at key escrow is pretty much how (real) americans look at gun control.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:19PM (3 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:19PM (#689963) Journal

      There is one big difference. The legitimate every day uses of crypto technology VASTLY outweigh the illegitimate uses. Even if there is such a thing. Furthermore, crypto does not have the direct purpose of killing someone. I mean it is not inherently a weapon nor is it violent. It is an academic discipline. Like all tools, a claw hammer for example, crypto can be used for good and bad purposes. And, of course, so can guns.

      I would also argue that people with differing views on gun control are all real americans, with real arguments. Just with differing opinions on policy. Some policy viewpoint differences are driven by whether you live in a dense urban environment or not. Declaring some americans less real than others is what drives division even deeper.

      I find no conflict in being against government regulation of cryptography, yet in favor of some reasonable restrictions on firearms. But it is a difficult and thorny subject. It seems to me that there are beyond doubt certain individuals who simply should not have guns. This subject has been debated to death in other forums.

      --
      To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:59PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) on Thursday June 07 2018, @05:59PM (#689980)

        Furthermore, crypto does not have the direct purpose of killing someone.

        Propagandists can twist anything, and the perfect example for the line above would be permissive action links for nuclear warheads. I'm sorry we have to take your GPG or ROT-13 away, but no private citizen should have ownership of nuclear weapon technology, sir...

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:17PM (1 child)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 07 2018, @06:17PM (#689994) Journal

          It's true. That's why it's good, for everyone, to try not to be a propagandist.

          Propagandists twist things to absurd lengths.

          Reasonable people want to protect themselves from how far some reasonable idea could be stretched beyond any sane limits. That also leads to a lot of division. Maybe try to write a compromise that can't be stretched. But then some people won't compromise.

          --
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          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:00PM

            by VLM (445) on Thursday June 07 2018, @07:00PM (#690017)

            With a side dish of the fallacy of argument to moderation, where there are some areas of debate like crypto freedom or gun control or slavery or ownership of property where "kinda in between" is worse than either extreme.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @03:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @03:06AM (#690182)

      Help me out here. How can I tell the difference between (real) americans and (fake) americans?
      Do the (real) ones support the purity of IPv4 and distain IPV6, or is it the other way around?