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Programming The Internet IT Technology

IPv6 Application Competition - win $10,000 217

Posted by chrisd from the 32-bits-are-not-enough dept.
sneekz writes "The IPv6 Promotion Council of Japan has announced a competition for developers of IPv6-enabled applications. Various prizes up to $10,000 for ideas and actual implementations, and you keep the rights to your work. From their site: 'The contest will award developers of applications and software which helps to create new possibilities in the Internet world.'"
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IPv6 Application Competition - win $10,000 More

IPv6 Application Competition - win $10,000

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  • but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:01AM (#5268333)
    who's actually using IPv6? I know some use it privately within their org, but are there any publicly using it?

    • Re:but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by BJH ( 11355 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:07AM (#5268348)
      The Japanese. Many Japanese ISPs will give you your own IPv6 subnet right now, for not very much money.

      • Or IPv6 Tunnel Broker (Score:5, Informative)

        by fv ( 95460 ) <fyodor@insecure.org> on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:50AM (#5268534) Homepage
        > Many Japanese ISPs will give you your own IPv6 subnet right now, for not very much money.

        And even if your ISP won't assign you an IPv6 subnet, you can always utilize a free Tunnel Broker [tunnelbroker.net] to obtain a huge IPv6 address space of your very own (tunneled to your IPv4 IP). I used this recently when adding basic IPv6 support to the Nmap Security Scanner [insecure.org]. My announcement [insecure.org] also provides a concrete example of IPv6 being used to subvert firewall rulesets.

        A ton of useful IPv6 information is available from Kame.Net [kame.net] -- once your setup is working, the turtle on the top of that page starts to dance :). I also found the Linux IPv6 HOWTO [tldp.org] to be incredibly helpful.

        -Fyodor
        Concerned about your network security? Try the Free Nmap Security Scanner [insecure.org]

        • Those manual tunnel brokers are obsolete; 6to4 is simpler and more efficient.
          • Unfortunately, there are not enough 6to4 endpoints around the internet ...

            If there would be more endpoints listening on the 6to4 prefix, it would be Good...

            • Re:Or IPv6 Tunnel Broker (Score:3, Informative)

              by nsayer ( 86181 )
              Unfortunately, there are not enough 6to4 endpoints around the internet ...

              huh?

              6to4 users can interact perfectly well with non-6to4 IPv6 addresses. They just need to set a default route to a 6to4 relay router. And RFC 3068 makes that universally trivial.

              • His point is that there aren't enough 6to4 relays out there.

    • IPv6 info (Score:5, Informative)

      by phreak03 ( 621876 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:13AM (#5268379) Homepage Journal
      from ipv6.org IPv6 is short for "Internet Protocol Version 6". IPv6 is the "next generation" protocol designed by the IETF to replace the current version Internet Protocol, IP Version 4 ("IPv4"). Most of today's internet uses IPv4, which is now nearly twenty years old. IPv4 has been remarkably resilient in spite of its age, but it is beginning to have problems. Most importantly, there is a growing shortage of IPv4 addresses, which are needed by all new machines added to the Internet. IPv6 fixes a number of problems in IPv4, such as the limited number of available IPv4 addresses. It also adds many improvements to IPv4 in areas such as routing and network autoconfiguration. IPv6 is expected to gradually replace IPv4, with the two coexisting for a number of years during a transition period. It prevents spoofed UDP backets (no more easy, D.O.S attacks, and spoofted packets) It makes the amount of posible adresses so large that worms that use simple seek algotrithems (such as slammer) would take like 20 years to infect enough systems to do any damage and would allow for all the future embedded apps, to get their own ip's.
    • Yep. I'm using it.

    • Re:but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by grid geek ( 532440 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:16AM (#5268618) Homepage
      Some of the UK academic network [ukerna.ac.uk] has started an experimental IPv6 network [ja.net] for researchers to play with.

    • seems like everybody sometimes... (Score:4, Informative)

      by VoidEngineer ( 633446 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @02:16AM (#5268787)
      who's actually using IPv6? I know some use it privately within their org, but are there any publicly using it?

      ah, lots of people, actually... it's all over the routers and servers, nowdays... but the local network admin and network engineers are probably doing their best to make the migration as invisible as possible.

      A good starting point to learn more about IPv6 would be www.internet2.edu [internet2.edu]. If you check out the corporate partners, you'll notice that ATT&T, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, Nortel, Qwest, SBC, and Sun are all in on the "Internet2" act, which includes the IPv6 protocol And the list of affiliated universities stretches nearly 200 members long...

      Anyhow, Sun Solaris 9, Microsoft Windows2000, Microsoft WindowsXP, and Cisco IOS all have support for IPv6, as I understand... They're publicaly using it and supporting it.

      If you want to know more about IPv6, check out this link [rfc-editor.org] and just search for the term "IPv6"... you should get about 93 articles regarding the Request For Comments (RFC) procedure used to define the protocol... As you will notice, IPv6 is a 128bit protocol, and was designed to be able to be broken up into 4 32bit packets, which allows it to interoperate with older IPv4 networks...

      Moral of the story is that there are millions of people already using IPv6 on their client machines, who already don't know and don't care about the specific protocol implementations...

      The article refers to an award for application developers to develop IPv6 enabled applications... If you calculate the ratio between IPv6 address and the total surface area of the earth, you will notice that there are approximately 2,000 IP addresses per square meter, with the IPv6 protocol... enough to give an address to every nut, bolt, and widget in every plane, train, and automobile on earth, with billions and billions left over... The awards will be going to people who figure out not just how to use IPv6, but how to code new applications and new uses for that kind of domain space...

      • Re:seems like everybody sometimes... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This sentence really intrigued me.

        "If you calculate the ratio between IPv6 address and the total surface area of the earth, you will notice that there are approximately 2,000 IP addresses per square meter..."

        However I can't seem to recreate it. Here is my math.

        IPv6 is 128 bits: 2^128 = 3.4028e38
        Surface area of Earth: 5.1007e14 m^2 (verified on 3 different sites)

        3.4028e38/5.1007e14 = 6.6713e23 IP/m^2

        That is a whole lot more than 2000, so one of us made a mistake. :)
        • That is a whole lot more than 2000, so one of us made a mistake. :)

          Just a quick guess, but use 30% of 5.1007e14 and it will probably be closer to 2,000. The stat probably only takes into account land mass.

          That is an interesting idea though, geographically assigned IP addressing. Although DNS services will have to become much more configurable with IPv6 before it gets really widespread adoption. I'd like to see a named that utilizes a quick stripped down SQL database.
    • When I had dual T1s installed to my office in June I was told by my UUNet tech rep that they were not offering IPV6 address space because they were not supporting it.

      That pretty much kills any possibility that I'll be putting it to real-world use anytime soon.

      -Chris

  • How about one that creates the slightest interest (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In big corp/gov users to move to IPv6

  • My idea... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:04AM (#5268345)
    An IPv6 application competition, with a $5,000 prize! That should help promote IPv6, no?

  • More of everything (Score:4, Funny)

    by plierhead ( 570797 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:07AM (#5268350) Journal
    My suggestions...

    .. would be just MORE of everything. Like:

    - increased timewasting at the office due to faster, clearer, saucier porn downloads

    - even greater levels of theft and destruction of the capitalist system as we know it by illegal music sharing

    - yet more time spent deleting bucketloads of crap from our inboxes as spam increases to unprecedented levels

    Yeah, its pretty revolutionary stuff all right.

  • For Idea Contest... (Score:3, Informative)

    by robbyjo ( 315601 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:13AM (#5268374) Homepage

    Aren't there enough papers [nec.com] already on IPv6? Especially on purpose #1 (i.e. increasing the internet experience).

    For #2 (i.e. promoting widespread), it's highly debatable, IMHO...

  • All packets are created equal (Score:4, Funny)

    by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:14AM (#5268381) Homepage Journal
    I will not support a protocol where all packets are not created equal. I wish to be treated with respect, not my game of quake slowed to a crawl because its deemed unessential. I fail to see the need.

    although a bit more address space would do nicely...

    • Re:All packets are created equal (Score:4, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:23AM (#5268638) Homepage Journal
      IPv4 already has a TOS field which specifies whether one wants to optimize for latency, bandwidth, both, or neither, and one can filter packets based on this with sufficiently advanced rules processing. (Linux has this, of course. I've never done it with anything else but I assume most advanced packet filters have TOS matching.)

    • Re:All packets are created equal (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gawk ( 23512 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:34AM (#5268672) Homepage
      Better quit using TCP, then ...
      unless you (and your ISP) are manually setting all of your TOS bits to 0, that is.

      Protocols are mechanism, not policy. The reason why you haven't complained as yet of your IPv4 traffic being "slowed to a crawl" is that TCP's QOS features (minimal though they are) are typically only used when needed and ignored otherwise.

      I would rather have the possibility open to shape traffic, should I want to, than to pre-emptively close the door because others might use it in ways I disapprove of. There are plenty of legitimate uses for QOS besides pissing off gamers (though I consider that an important activity in its own right :) -- and if their games are bandwidth hogs, maybe widespread QOS will force game-designers to write more efficient protocols.
      • I actually wrote a thesis about using IntServe/Diffserve for a video conferencing application across the internet.
        It is a while ago now and I have had other things on my mind, but basically what I found out is that on the internet there is no real need for QOS as bandwidth is increasing all the time, satellite links are reolaces by fiber (less latency and delay, and a lot more bandwidth), fiber is being replaced by "thicker" fibers, etc.
        Just to give you an idea of the amount of bandwidth available - only 2.9% of all fiber optic cables layed alongside powerlines, rail roads etc are actually lit. And those that are lit, thos in use for the internet only have a maximum use basically of 50%.
        Also, in order to give certain datastreams priorities over others, you need to track these, which adds processing delays and with networks where bandwidth is not a problem - why do this?

        Also, something often overlooked:
        In order to actually give packets priority over others and shape the traffic depending on priotities, you need to queue at least 200 packets it was discovered by some researchers, otherwise the queuing algorithms just do not have enough data to actually put into different queues. Think of it this way, if the queues are empty, then of course the data is sent to the top priority queue and you gain nothing.

        Basically, there are two concepts: Diffserve and Intserve.

        Intserve goes against the nature of the internet (in my opinion), as it uses RSVP to set up a quasi-static route through the internet, does the reservations, and then the flows have to be monitored. Keeping track of individual flows on the backbone routers? No way! And if the route changes, all the reservations have to be done again. Intserve (IPv6 has a Flow Label to facilitate this) has no place on the internet backbone in my opinion.
        Intserve is very useful though in an organisation, where you have control of the network, and to give certain flows priorities getting out of that bottleneck router to the internet and then let best effort scheduling do it's work.

        DiffServe on the other hand is viable in my opinion as this is hop per hop based. Diffserve works by marking packets and assigning it a traffic class.
        This is very useful when you have flatrate customers, and customers that have are willing to pay for bandwidth. Of course the routers could and may already mark traffic of those customers paying for bandwidth with a higher priority.

        Something which I really like about Diffserve is the ability to give packets a drop priority ("Hello you little nice router, If you really need to drop a packet, please drop this one").
        This could be very useful in the case of video over the internet where the network itself regulates the quality of the video. What I proposed in my thesis, was to have an algorithm that send the most important coefficients in a packet with a low drop priority, the next batch with a medium priority and the rest with a high one, and in addition to that also have the software on the other end report back some statistics so sending is also reduced.
        What this is allows is to have video not stop, but just instantly become of less quality if there are congestions.
        Speaking of congestions, they only exist till the packets they reach the backbone.
        And of course getting down from them again.

        What has my post got to do with IPv6? Well, IPv6 has a Flow Label and Traffic Class in the IP header which are for IntServe/DiffServe.
        Ipv6 facilitates IntServe/Diffserve, but does not really add anything new in this respect. It just makes it easier to process, because it is always at the same place whereas this info in an IPv4 packet could be at varying locations due to the variable length of an IPv4 header.

    • Re:All packets are created equal (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zaffle ( 13798 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @02:42AM (#5268861) Homepage Journal
      What you are refering to is the QOS field, which exists in IPv4 (what we currently use) and IPv6. However it isn't commonly used in IPv4.
      The end points (eg your Quake client and the server) usually set the QOS field, and what is theorically suppose to happen is the routers along the way go.. ah, he wants low latency, so I'll send these packets down this link.
      However, what usually happens is most routers ignore the QOS bits.

      As for the slow downs, etc. That may be your upstream (ISP), who may twiddle the bits, but they can only do that based on a number of factors, to/from port, IP address, bandwidth usuage, etc.

      There is nothing (much) you can do to avoid your ISP slowing down certain connections, except by making it hard to identify what is "legitimate" and what is "illegitmate" traffic. Eg giFT uses random port numbers of both sides, so its very difficult for the ISP to say, lets throttle giFT traffic. Freenet does much the same thing.

      IPv6 will not answer the bandwidth and traffic shapping problems, all it will answer is the limited number of IP addresses problem. (And if you think about it, probably cause more bandwidth problems because you'll be able to have *LOTS* of different devices all plugged into your upstream bandwidth, all sapping it).

      My recommendation is if you live under a draconian ISP is one of the following:
      1) Move ISPs. If All ISPs are like this, move country.
      2) Go postal, grab yourself a semiautomatic assult rifle, storm into your local ISPs NOC (network operations centre), and demand a 100mbit connection for your laptop, "right this instant!".
      3) Find an open proxy, use that to bypass port based traffic shapping. If your ISP is shapping every port but port 80 (web), go find an open proxy that is running on port 80 and use that for other connections. The best bet would be find some willing (or otherwise) machine somewhere outside of draconia, and put a SOCKS proxy on port 80 on the machine.

      4) Implement IP over carrier pigeon. Pigeons are not known for looking at each IP packet and flying differently because of its contents, though if the packet size is too large, it could slow the transport mechinisim down. I'm not sure if this RFC supports IPv6, but sinces its a transport mechinisim, I should think it would matter.

  • I have this idea... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hugonz ( 20064 ) <hugonz@NoSpam.gmail.com> on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:16AM (#5268387) Homepage
    You know...I have this idea for IPV6...you set up a server, then write a client...people register whatever songs they have in MP3...then...oh, nevermind.

  • Woohoo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Duncan3 ( 10537 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:17AM (#5268393) Homepage
    $10,000 for recompiling with -lipv6 and changing some u32's to u128's in the structs... oh yea.

    For high level languages like Python, I imagine all the work has been done for me already.

  • exchange rates... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord_Slepnir ( 585350 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:17AM (#5268395) Journal
    Award for Planning: 5 works, 50,000 yen each

    So that's like what, 50 bucks total?

  • Figures are off (Score:5, Informative)

    by Niadh ( 468443 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:18AM (#5268401) Homepage
    Grand Prize is 1,000,000 yen... thats 8,306.775 USD not $10,000.

    Award for Promotion 5 works 150,000 yen each (1,246.03 USD)
    Award for Planning 5 works 50,000 yen each (415.332 USD)

    Grand Prix 1 work 1,000,000 yen (8,306.775 USD)
    Award for Excellence a few works Total 1,000,000 yen
    Award for Fine Works a few works Total 500,000 yen (4,153.15 USD)

    So they are paying people to port applications to IPv6 now? hmp.. I would have thought that the ISP's and telicos would have ported to it automaticly when Internet IP's started to dry up.
    • I just checked 2003.02.10 04:22:21 GMT and 1,000,000.00 Japan Yen = 8,305.604 USD so the prize seems to be decreasing as we discuss it.

    • Re:Figures are off (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think its already starting to happen. A few weeks ago I was going to do some online gaming with a friend of mine, but it wouldn't work because, as we discovered, his ISP had given him a 10.x.x.x IP. And I was behind my NAT router, so neither one of us could conect to each other. So forgive me when I say that its about time IPv6 came about.
    • If you look here [yahoo.com], you'll see that the yen's gained about 10% over the last year. Unless our economy picks up soon, the prize will grow further!

  • Sponsors (Score:5, Informative)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:20AM (#5268409)
    Take a look at the sponsor list:

    NTT Communications Corporation
    A subcompany of the NTT group; the country's largest ISP.

    Fujitsu Limited
    One of Japan's largest manufacturers of PCs and servers.

    Impress Corporation /. users should know this one - it runs the Akiba PC Watch site.

    Internet Research Institute, Inc.
    A company founded to take advantage of academic research. Funded by Yahoo Japan/Softbank (Softbank's one of Japan's largest Internet-related companies, and actually runs Yahoo Japan).

    KDDI CORPORATION
    Japan's #2 phone company after NTT.

    Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.
    Japan's largest manufacturer of electronic goods.

    Nokia-Japan Co., Ltd.
    Need I say more?

    Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc.
    The Mitsubishi group's research organization.

    The reason Japan's so hot for IPv6 is that it got rather shortchanged in the IPv4 handout - the ratio of IPv4 addresses to users is much worse than in the US.

    • NTT shortchanged? Not really, they bought Verio for the marketshare in the US and the some 60 odd other countries that have Verio offices.

      Each office that Verio had was done through a buy out. So Verio has an immense amount of IPv4 adresses. Hence NTT has them.

      NTT is just being smart, thats all.

      Puto
    • The reason Japan's so hot for IPv6 is that it got rather shortchanged in the IPv4 handout - the ratio of IPv4 addresses to users is much worse than in the US.
      The reasons why new IPv4 addresses are harder to come by in Japan than in the US are mainly internal JP politics - the policies of ARIN and APNIC are almost the same, and there's still new IP addresses to be had, if you're able to navigate the paperwork. (For a few years more).

  • nostalgia (Score:5, Funny)

    by God! Awful 2 ( 631283 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:27AM (#5268441) Journal
    Sigh... remember when a good idea used to be worth $40 million?

    -a

  • My entry (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:42AM (#5268500)
    An application that keeps tabs on all information of everyone according to their unique IPv6 number, and then ranking them on an anti-american scale.

    -John Ashcroft

  • Great Idea! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1) IPV6 Application Implementation
    2) ???
    3) Profit!!
  • do they get the rights to anything submitted in the contest?

    It seems like a good idea to me. Having a contest and offering a small lump sum is probably cheaper then hiring a whole bunch of developers to think up some applications. Not only will it get people to dream up ipv6 apps, but get more people to understand what its all about.

    I must say that this seems to be a great idea on the ipv6 promotional councils part

    • Re:money savings (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cervo ( 626632 )
      To answer your question on do they get the rights do anything submitted here is rule #7 from the rules page "The applicant will maintain all applicable intellectual, technology and design copyrights for the entries submitted to the contest, but the right for disclosure and distribution of entries submitted will belong to both the applicant and the contest host.".

      It appears you get all the copyrights but they are allowed to disclose and distribute your product whatever that means. It could mean they can sell it or give it to whoever they want. The terms sound a bit iffy to me. Any lawyers out there want to offer up an interpretation?
    • I admit to sometimes posting without reading the article, but come on,man, you didn't even make it to the second sentence of the post.

      Back on topic, I think offering contests to promote tech and keeping the rights is a great idea for buisness. Google does that with their contests.

  • RIAA may hate me for saying this.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:56AM (#5268551)

    Imagine a world with IPv6 enabled devices.
    Now when someone receives a subpoena from RIAA with the IP address, they can always reply back that there was a mistake because that IP address belongs to the microwave or the toilet bowl cleaner scheduler device..

  • what this contest proves (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @12:59AM (#5268561)

    A consortium of some 300 individuals and corporations interested in the promotion of IPv6 have to offer significant amounts of money just to generate interest in this new protocol. A decent Internet protocol should not be forced on the public cum pecunia; it should be developed openly and freely under the currently-existing RFC standards. If there were any real, useful applications of IPv6 to the whole world, then an open, free-entry consortium would be overseeing the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 now.

    However, there is no desperate shortage of IP addresses under the current scheme. While there are less IPs than theoretically possible (256^4 = 4,294,967,296), thanks to overhead and mismanagement (MIT getting its own Class A subnet makes perfect sense...NOT), nevertheless there is no current need for this initiative.

    The fact is, this contest is simply a ploy by these companies to get your intellectual capital at a fraction of its potential worth. Do the world a favor and make your ideas and code snippets public and free (or GPL'd). Death to corporate tyranny!

    • Re:what this contest proves (Score:4, Informative)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:57AM (#5268736)
      The folks at the receiving end of customer demands solved the IP shortage issue years ago. They simply subnet the last octet. I personally think the IETF could better serve us all by revising some of the early "over" allocations of netblocks to institutions like MIT, but that runs counter to the IPv6 agenda.

      The desire for point-to-point connectivity is nothing more than that; a desire. The real-world Internet doesn't really care all that much if it can't touch millions or billions of anonymous hosts behind NAT. The fact that it can't means, for example, that Slammer was only able to infect the routable hosts. Imagine the effects of something like Slammer if every single MS SQL server was actually routable from the public network. Yes, I know, NAT is not security. Until the IETF invents a way to force network operators to care enough about security to be worthy of allowing all their hosts to be routable, I'll remain pretty appreciative of the benefits of NAT in the real world.

      Claims that IPv4 is inherently doomed due to the demands placed on routers I find difficult to believe. The size of the graph that is the Internet will not get smaller with IPv6. If IPv6 provides a more efficient means for "routers" to comprehend that graph, why can't that solution also apply to IPv4? Routers get faster right along side all other computing devices. Routers are also becoming a figment of the IETFs imagination. The old fashioned IP Internet is quickly being supplanted by ATM et al, and most of the "routing" is being done via virtual circuits between IP endpoints. IP "routing" is being relegated to the edges of the core.

      The commercial world solved the IPv4 problem. IETF just doesn't care to notice.
      • If IPv6 provides a more efficient means for "routers" to comprehend that graph, why can't that solution also apply to IPv4?

        It could, but it would force everyone to be renumbered, which they will not accept.
        • It could, but it would force everyone to be renumbered, which they will not accept.

          As opposed to IPv6, which everyone is clearly so excited about accepting? Which of these three options is more likely to be considered acceptable outside the ivory towers of IETF;

          a.) mitigating the size of routing tables by renumbering existing subnets

          b.) implementing an entirely new protocol

          c.) buying bigger, faster routers

          If you know anything of the commercial world, you have absolutely no doubt about the correct answer.

      • Re:what this contest proves (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Minna Kirai ( 624281 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @03:55AM (#5269066)
        IPv6 is an attempt to return to the principles that gave the internet it's growth and democracy in the beginning:

        Dumb network, smart edges.

        When IPv4 was designed, there was no plan for exponential user growth outside of military/R&D/education. If there had been, addresses would've been 48+ bits from 1980 onward.

        The failing with pre-existing networks which IP was meant to surmount is that the interior of the network was too intelligent. That sounds like a good thing, but it means that the network as a whole is less flexible- the inner nodes (routers) cannot be easily upgraded to support new applications and features. Under IP, all interesting computers are into hosts on the edge of the network. Each can be upgraded by an end-user, without supplication to the network templars- be they Bell Atlantic frame relay technicians, or Novell NOS admins. Those smart edges are served by a dumb cloud- the rest of the network just passes data from one place to another, without translating or modifying it in anyway. In the past, network application growth was slowed because users couldn't easily tell what was going on inside the cloud. IP made the cloud's job boring, so that you were no longer interested in seeing what went on there.

        That change triggered the explosive growth of computer networks until they combined into the shared entity we all know and love.

        NAT betrays this heritage

        NAT boxes move intelligence back into the cloud- instead of IP packets being routed to the desired host and no other, there are now entities hidden in the cloud which waylay your packets. They seize them, pull them apart, inspect their innards- then, maybe, they'll deign to alter the packet and send it along further.

        The damage isn't just a theoretical one- real end-users are being held back by NAT and other violations of the IP promise. New applications which would be easier to deploy with real per-host addressing are difficult or impossible to install reliably. This is things like high-speed game servers, file/web servers, P2P clients, cheap VOIP, videoconferencing, VPN, and prehaps things that haven't been invented yet.

        The internet should be about giving power to the users on its edges. IPv6 would encourage that, but NAT hinders it. There are forces who don't want to empower users- major content providers and big ISPs. (Which may be the same [aol.com] thing [time.com]). Fearful of losing control of mass audience's entertainment patterns, they want to keep mass creativity centralized. AOL doesn't want users to download ClickNRun IRC-like servers to create TeenTalkDaytonville chatrooms, they want to sell them as a value added service. Time Warner doesn't want 100s of cheap FTP servers passing out free copies of 56 year old TV shows (which by rights are public domain [eldred.cc]), they want you to wait for the DVD or PPV options.

        The desire exists. A chicken in every pot, and permanent IP address in every study! The powers that be are fearful, though. The existing entertainment/datacomm oligopoly was harmed enough by the Internet. End-users sharing data amoung themselves could ruin them- but the exhaustion of IP addresses provided an excuse to keep end-users cordoned off from the real internet. They could download, but not serve files- as long as the people remain "consumers", the corporations can keep them under control.

        NAT boxes bring the internet a tiny bit back towards the shape of traditional TV and telephone networks, which is just how big business likes it.
      • The commercial world solved the IPv4 problem. IETF just doesn't care to notice.

        I see... Then the car companies also *solved* the gasoline/oil problems. Intel and AMD *solved* the power consumption and heat issues.

        A band-aid is not a solution...
      • There's a good article why NAT (and private address space) is bad here [clock.org] and I agree with him. IPv6 would solve this problem. What if you have two companies, who only have one public IP address who want to connect their two networks, and they both decided on 172.16.0.0/16 for their internal network? They get to renumber all their hosts if they want to internetwork.

        He also has an essay about why ATM is bad for computer networks [clock.org] here.

    • A decent Internet protocol should not be forced on the public cum pecunia;

      "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -- Howard Aiken

  • Plagarize a submission (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:00AM (#5268562)
    I'd like to submit lain - just watched it last night and they clearly said that it was development of the sixth gen protocol that made the creation of lain possible.

    For those who have no idea wth I am talking about, go an google, "serial experiment lain" then watch it. Some acid might make it clearer on your first viewing too.
  • a way to actually put IP addresses on toasters.

  • How to get up and running (Score:5, Informative)

    by tialaramex ( 61643 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:13AM (#5268607) Homepage
    If the upstream router from you (whether that's a $20k rack box from Cisco or some Pentium Linux box) has IPv6 connectivity then all you need to do on your hosts is turn on IPv6 and the rest happens automatically.

    e.g RH Linux, set NETWORKING_IPV6=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network and restart networking

    If you don't have upstream IPv6 then (1) Tell your provider that you think they should look into it sooner rather than later (2) round up the OS specific documentation for a technology called "6to4" tunnels.

    A 6to4 tunnel can be created from any fully operational IPv4 host, even if it's a dialup link on some mom&pop ISP. Like the rest of IPv6 this is autoconfigured, you set a few options according to the documentation from your OS vendor and then it Just Works (TM).

    If you have a typical small office/ geek house NAT setup with a single router & a lot of hosts spread around a building, the 6to4 tunnel will let you give all those hosts unique IPv6 addresses too, by assigning a /48 to each subnet in the building.

    To check that it's working visit e.g. http://www.kame.net/ for visual confirmation. You may have to restart your browser if IPv6 wasn't installed when it was first started.

  • Proposal (Score:5, Funny)

    by BinBoy ( 164798 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:27AM (#5268654) Homepage
    I propose an IPv6 protocol app that allows you to browse other sites on the internet. Each site will store one or more files in a standard markup language. The app will download these files and render the text and images in a desktop window. The markup language should include links to other sites and files, creating a sort of "web." It could be useful for scientists who want to exchange research data.

  • Paging Linksys... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:34AM (#5268670) Homepage
    We should push Linksys (and other cable/DSL router manufacturers) to write firmware capable of creating an IPv6 intranet, as opposed to the typical class C. Better still, I'm sure they could add support for something like TunnelBroker [tunnelbroker.net] (as mentioned above [slashdot.org]) and map one's intranet into genuine IPv6 space. Yes, you could do the same thing with a 486 running BSD or Linux, but I think using a nice, small, energy-efficient box would be more elegant.

    • Re:Paging Linksys... (Score:3, Informative)

      by nsayer ( 86181 )
      They could do it a lot easier than that... All they really have to do is implement 6to4, use the RFC 3068 default route, and implement NAT-PT and a DNS proxy layer. If you have a box that does that, then IPv6-only clients would be able to experience the IPv4 internet seamlessly, but still gain all the advantages of being native IPv6.

      NAT is an abomination that must die.
      • They ought to do both. That way, if someone's ISP were firewalling him, he'd still be able to have a genuine IPv6 address.
  • ...all porn stars get IPv6 addresses? Now THAT'S revolutionary!

  • Hrm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Myuu ( 529245 ) <myuu@pojo.com> on Monday February 10, 2003 @01:54AM (#5268730) Homepage
    /me starts thinking that the net will move to ip v6 about the same time the US moves to metric.

  • IPv6 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 10, 2003 @02:20AM (#5268804)
    Last year i did a research paper on IPv6 for my data communications class. People, those who think IPv6 is dumb, unecessary, or already dead, pull your head from where the sun ain't shining and take a look at what it has to offer, you might consider giving some RFC's a read, that is unless your a pussy, and if thats the case, why do you read /. ?

    IPv6 RFCs [hs247.com]

    It offers some really neat, and much need security imporovements, like secure hashing, encryption at the IP level(data link layer) and seriously, there is no longer a need for DHCP. It is a network administrators dream come true, now if only people would start using it...

    Sorry for being an anonymous coward, i haven't posted in so long, i forget my userid...
    • Just as a side note, the "really neat" security improvements you list are simply the IPSec stuff found in a standard IPv6 stack. These same features are available in any IPv4 stack with IPSec tacked on. The difference is that, in v6, IPSec is manadatory, and in v4, it's optional.

      The point of my post is that listing IPSec as an advantage to using v6 is misleading. List true advantages and people in the know will actually listen. Otherwise, you just sound like another clueless advocate.
  • noone will ever need more than IPv4

  • There's something missing here (Score:3, Interesting)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade,eric&gmail,com> on Monday February 10, 2003 @03:41AM (#5269029) Homepage Journal
    I don't think it's that IPv6 gives anyone necessarily any new ability to create some awesome application that they couldn't already do with IPv4. The problem with this whole thing is, to create really radical new applications, we need the BANDWIDTH behind Internet2. And by just creating an IPv6 app, you don't get magic access to that bandwidth.

    So, seriously, anyone have any wonderful ideas?
    • I agree with that bandwidth is a cornerstone in succesfully deploying IPv6. I'm hacking on an IPv6 video-streaming plugin for the Gstreamer [gstreamer.net] media framework on my spare time, it will be used to stream/broadcast realtime one-to-many video like Movies/Television/Music/Radio using IPv6 multicast in a codec independent fasion thanks to the flexible Gstreamer architecture. I'm alot into homecinema and satelite/cable stuff and it would be nice to be able to stream TV channels and movies (MPEG2/MPEG4) in good quality over the net.

      I enjoy doing low-level network programming, like designing protocols, ponder upon network routing issues, etc. I got bored about doing IPv4 stuff for some years ago, so I moved into the IPv6 area in 98-99, after a while I got bored of doing IPv6 unicast stuff becouse that area are much covered today, not much design and research to be done there. IPv6 multicast is fairly new and un-expoited and are evolving quick, so its a fun area to be involved in, I'm part of a global IPv6 multicast research network called M6bone [m6bone.net], most things revolve about research of new protocols like MLD and SSM and effecient multicast routing.

      In a future world I would be able to stream video from my server at home to my Cellphone/PDA anytime via Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) connectivity. Most new phones today have a IPv4 stack and color-screen but no IPv6 support in the phones yet. With Linux on the Ipaq I can get fully Mobile IPv6 in my pocket thru WiFi networks or wireless GSM/GPRS today if I wish.

      I would like to see IPv6 being deployed in broadband networks to the homes, I think that would fuel IPv6 into mainstream usage in conjunction with P2P filesharing and true high-quality video streaming.

      Enough ranting from my side. :-)

  • Read the standards for judgement [v6pc.jp] page. They require PowerPoint format presentations. OK, does this mean I finally have to install an office package on my Linux workstation, such as Star Office or Open Office?

  • Hmmm:
    8<-------------
    jeroen@purgatory:~$ host -t aaaa slashdot.org
    slashdot.org AAAA record currently not present
    -------------->8

    But:
    8<-------------
    jeroen@purgatory:~$ host -t aaaa slashdot.org.sixxs.org
    slashdot.org.sixxs.org CNAME ipv6gate.sixxs.org
    ipv6gate.sixxs.org AAAA 3FFE:4007:1:1:210:DCFF:FE20:7C7C
    ------------->8

    http://slashdot.org.sixxs.org [sixxs.org]

    Et tada.... Slashdot and every other IPv4 only site over IPv6 ;)
    Read more about it on http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net [sixxs.net]

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