Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout • Hacker News Board

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#21

Post by sva_ » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #16

School-Cotton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?

IDK for sure, but might be harder to maintain, monitor, and block. One characteristic of v4 is it's somewhat reasonable to do a straight forward block on a range of addresses to shut down access. This is still somewhat possible with v6, but harder as there's simply a much larger portion of ip addresses that can be all over the place. It's theoretically a lot easier for anyone that wants to bypass a simple filter to g…

Additionally to the much larger IP space, you also have larger headers and additionally extension headers which make deep packet inspection computationally much more expensive if you consider the scale

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#22

Post by iso1631 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #16

School-Cotton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?

IDK for sure, but might be harder to maintain, monitor, and block. One characteristic of v4 is it's somewhat reasonable to do a straight forward block on a range of addresses to shut down access. This is still somewhat possible with v6, but harder as there's simply a much larger portion of ip addresses that can be all over the place. It's theoretically a lot easier for anyone that wants to bypass a simple filter to g…

n ipv4 /32 is roughly equivalent to an ipv6 /56 or /64

You'd typically block an AS - i.e. every IP originating from AS12345. That's just as easy on v6 as v4.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#23

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

cimi_ wrote: post #17

Not specific to this IPv6 event, but I was wondering what happens to public services during these Internet shutdowns? Does everything stop or it's mostly business as usual minus some things? I would imagine hospitals, tax offices etc need the internet to work?

Ironically, their long history of shutoff and censorship probably mean they're more resilient to stuff like this.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#24

Post by resumenext » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

kaoD wrote: post #20

resumenext wrote: post #19

[flagged]

How so?

It’s intended to be human readable, but it’s not and its slow adoption is proof of that. A random 10 digit string would arguably be better.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#25

Post by davidw » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #12

ronsor wrote: post #7

No competent network engineer wants to work in Iran, so government doesn't know how to block v6 properly. End result: just get rid of it entirely!

Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?

There are some pretty big protests happening right now: https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mbvphn4...

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#26

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

tguvot wrote: post #15

School-Cotton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?

(going with recent ipv6 discussion) they probably failed to make it work properly and decided that it's easier to block it

Is this an attempt at a joke, or do you actually seriously believe a country capable of enriching uranium isn't capable of hiring competent network engineers?

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#27

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #25

School-Cotton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want to block IPv6 specifically?

There are some pretty big protests happening right now: https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mbvphn4...

That doesn't explain why they would want to block IPv6 specifically, and not also block IPv4.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#28

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

resumenext wrote: post #24

kaoD wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

It’s intended to be human readable, but it’s not and its slow adoption is proof of that. A random 10 digit string would arguably be better.

> It’s intended to be human readable…

What? No.

Facebook did some brute forcing to slip `facebook` into their Onion URLs, but no one's intended to be typing these things out.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#29

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

resumenext wrote: post #24

kaoD wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

It’s intended to be human readable, but it’s not and its slow adoption is proof of that. A random 10 digit string would arguably be better.

> It’s intended to be human readable

Says who?

> slow adoption is proof of that

No it's not. There are many plausible reasons for the slow pace of IPv6 adoption. Poor human-readability of addresses is among the least plausible.

Re: Iran Goes Into IPv6 Blackout

#30

Post by falaki » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

Fortunately, the government cannot enforce complete blackout because thousands of startlink terminals are active inside the country. They have been complaining about it [1] to no avail. Using these terminals activists and journalists continue to upload videos of demonstrations to social media which has enabled analyses that show demonstrations are very wide spread [2] and continue to grow.

[1] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/RRB/Pages/Starlink....

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre28d2j2zxo