Wednesday, February 15, 2012

IPv6

IPv6 issues and observations.
IPv6 can address individual devices on a network - even separate computers, tablets, phones and other Internet connected devices even when they are connected behind a network router.

This is the reason for security and privacy concerns in that your computing device will be identifiable even though you have taken steps to obscure your IP address. Although the primary need for Network Address translation is alleviated, I guess this means that you will be able to connect multiple computers in your home to the Internet via your ISP without the need for a router, it will probably a good idea that you don't.

IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses, so the new address space supports 2128 (approximately 340 undecillion or 3.4*1038) addresses. This expansion allows for many more devices and users on the internet as well as extra flexibility in allocating addresses and efficiency for routing traffic. It also eliminates the primary need for network address translation (NAT), which gained widespread deployment as an effort to alleviate IPv4 address  exhaustion.

My advice is that you should always use a router when connecting to your ISP. Even when new IPv6 models become available it is probably best to try and use an old model. There will probably be some loss of functionality, such as the ability for you to uniquely identify all of your IPv6 compatible equipment even though you are using a shared Internet connection.

IPv6 has not been fully implemented (Fall 2011), Windows 7 uses Teredo Tunneling to  give IPv6 connectivity for IPv6-capable hosts which are on the IPv4 Internet . There have been reports that the IPv6 stack is a potential security problem for users of services such as The Pirate Bay's iPredator.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update on whether having IPv6 enabled in Windows can effect your abilitity to remain anonymous when you are downloading copyright materials