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Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

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Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#131

Post by ffomni »

bmacho wrote: post #119
Plasmoid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another person who does not understand IPv4. IPv4 isn't a text based protocol where IP addresses are parsed like DNS. It's a binary protocol where addresses are recorded in binary and adding more address space WOULD BE A BREAKING CHANGE.

That's not what GP said. Of course IPv4 devices wouldn't be able to use IPv6 addresses, that would be impossible. But it is possible to "keep" IPv4 addresses, just make a.b.c.d to correspond 0.0.a.b.c.d.

First of all, the 4 in IPv4 has nothing to do with its addresses typically being represented in dotted 4-octett notation. That's a coincidence. Each address is a 32 bit number, that's it. Early versions of IPv4 as well as some of the experimental IPv3 drafts actually used 128 bits. In IPv6 there are 128 bits for each address. Nothing to do with 6, which is just a version number.

Second, IPv6 is not just about addressing, it's a new protocol. Many things are different in IPv6, lots make much more sense. The header structure is different. Etc etc. The address space and notation are just the most visible aspects. But it's like comparing IRC and Signal. It's not just about user names, it's a different protocol.

Third, there are embeddings of the IPv4 address space into the IPv6 address space. For example ::ffff:192.0.2.128. Note the mix in notation. This is a valid IPv6 address! Perhaps a bit more cumbersome to write than your suggestion, but for technical reasons it was preferred to keep things syntactically unambiguous (that it's an IPv6 address).

Source: I work at a large router vendor, in the routing team.

Also, none of this is secret. Just read the Wikipedia page. I'm slightly shocked how a tech forum supposedly full of hackers is posting so much half truths and plain wrong information. It's all easily available and understandable, and it's not like we're discussing neurosurgery or epidemiology where we're all amateurs.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#132

Post by p1mrx »

dheera wrote: post #103
ceroxylon wrote: post #12

As someone who grew up on IPv4, i will miss it, but the leap to 340 undecillion unique addresses is exciting in many ways so i think i can learn to live with this transition. If we ever need more than that, i can't even imagine what that future would look like.

I grew up with IPv4 (1.2.3.4) and I was expecting IPv6 to just be 1.2.3.4.5.6 with backward compatibility so that 1.2.3.4 would just be 0.0.1.2.3.4 and the 1.2.3.4 dude wouldn't need to change their address. And the IPv8 would be 0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4 whenever we need it, but probably not for a long time When I saw all the double-colons and slashes and monstrosities like f00f:00f:::ea//dead::beef/3 I just kept using IPv4.…

2a09:: 2a11:: and 2409:: are even shorter than 8.8.8.8, though not quite as memorable.

I'm not recommending those DNS servers, just highlighting that "vanity" IPv6 addresses exist now. It's possible that 2222:: or 3333:: could be allocated someday.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#133

Post by mulmen »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #120
lolinder wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not good enough to protect against the kinds of attacks that OP is warning against. Chrome extensions update automatically and there have been many cases of extensions being purchased by malicious actors who modify the code to be spyware or adware. You can download the current version and install it manually to get around that. If you do that and read the code you're probably safe. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=a…

So the problem is in the behaviour of the browser, but not the extension. Read the code, don't update 'till you read the code, don't use the browser which knows better what is good for you.

Seems to me fine grained access controls would go a long way. The extension gets access to specific capabilities. Such as network connectivity. Local extensions have a much smaller blast radius.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#134

Post by mike_d »

Plasmoid wrote: post #107
dheera wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with IPv4 (1.2.3.4) and I was expecting IPv6 to just be 1.2.3.4.5.6 with backward compatibility so that 1.2.3.4 would just be 0.0.1.2.3.4 and the 1.2.3.4 dude wouldn't need to change their address. And the IPv8 would be 0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4 whenever we need it, but probably not for a long time When I saw all the double-colons and slashes and monstrosities like f00f:00f:::ea//dead::beef/3 I just kept using IPv4.…

Another person who does not understand IPv4. IPv4 isn't a text based protocol where IP addresses are parsed like DNS. It's a binary protocol where addresses are recorded in binary and adding more address space WOULD BE A BREAKING CHANGE.

Not at all. We could have taken one of the unassigned /8's at the time and allocated it to v6 transitional addressing (the failure to address 4->6 reachability is IMO why v6 failed). For the sake of this example lets use 53.0.0.0/8. All new addresses start with 00110101 followed by the first three bytes of the new v6 prefix. The prefix acts as a flag that indicates it is a new address and routers read an additional 5 bytes from the beginning of what would be the data section of a traditional v4 packet to get the complete address.

Now your border router can announce your assigned transitional prefix, i.e. 53.32.122.91/32, and is responsible for routing packets to a NAT gateway that knows both v4 and v6 and rewrites packets seamlessly each way.

What we are left with is a scheme that allows v6 to exist on top of v4 and continue working across the existing internet, and the only people who need to worry about it or upgrade anything are the ones who need more address space.

But instead they followed the model of baking in every stakeholders random pet project into v6 to get consensus in the hopes of forcing adoption. They put letters in the middle of numbers, and expected us to not hate it like algebra.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#135

Post by mg »

baby_souffle wrote: post #10

Ha! Beat me to it! For anybody that's curious, the IP-Foo [0] browser extension puts a little 4/6 icon in the address bar to make it clear at a glance which dialect you're speaking for $currentWebPage [0]: https://github.com/pmarks-net/ipvfoo

In Chromium, you can click on the request in the Network panel and it will show the IP.

I see:

    Remote Address: [2606:7100:1:67::26]:443
When I put that into the url bar:

    https://[2606:7100:1:67::26]/
I also see Hacker News.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#136

Post by mike_d »

Uehreka wrote: post #129
dheera wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with IPv4 (1.2.3.4) and I was expecting IPv6 to just be 1.2.3.4.5.6 with backward compatibility so that 1.2.3.4 would just be 0.0.1.2.3.4 and the 1.2.3.4 dude wouldn't need to change their address. And the IPv8 would be 0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4 whenever we need it, but probably not for a long time When I saw all the double-colons and slashes and monstrosities like f00f:00f:::ea//dead::beef/3 I just kept using IPv4.…

Huh? IPv6 does have backwards-compatible-ish notation for writing IPv4 addresses. To take your example: 1.2.3.4 would be ::ffff:1.2.3.4, the 96-bit prefix indicated by ::ffff: is where all of the IPv4 addresses live in the larger IPv6 space. If your issue is with the use of colons at all, they were a deliberate choice so that computers doing string processing could never confuse the two types of addresses.

> they were a deliberate choice so that computers doing string processing could never confuse the two types of addresses.

Wait until you try to write an IPv6 address with a port number in standard notation.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#137

Post by dieortin »

ugh123 wrote: post #93
p1mrx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPvFoo author here. The problem is that there's no way to obtain the (hostname, ip) stream from Chrome/Firefox without requesting the "all websites" permission. In theory, browser vendors could define a narrowly-scoped permission that only reports (hostname, ip), or roll this functionality into the browser UI, but neither seems likely to happen. I made IPvFoo to promote IPv6 adoption, and wouldn't consider selling it…

To determine ipv4/6, do you need to send that hostname and ip off to somewhere to get a response? or can it be done locally without leaving the machine?

ipv6 addresses are different, so they’re easy to distinguish

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#138

Post by dns_snek »

joering2 wrote: post #92
greyface- wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sure sounds like a lot. But "billions" is less than a /64. Try "sextillions" (/56) or "septillions" (/48). Of course, when the denominator is "undecillions", it becomes clear that this is actually a non-issue.

I'd even go out of my way and say that undecillion of IP addresses ought to be enough for anybody.

Bold prediction! Let's see if it holds true in 200 years when every cybernetic cell in your body is individually addressable from the public internet.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#139

Post by amne »

p1mrx wrote: post #69
notatoad wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cool, but "read and change your data on all websites" is imho not worth the functionality. that seems ripe for takeover by some scammer.

IPvFoo author here. The problem is that there's no way to obtain the (hostname, ip) stream from Chrome/Firefox without requesting the "all websites" permission. In theory, browser vendors could define a narrowly-scoped permission that only reports (hostname, ip), or roll this functionality into the browser UI, but neither seems likely to happen. I made IPvFoo to promote IPv6 adoption, and wouldn't consider selling it…

$10M for access to a pool of 100k (and growing) tech-savy users that are harder to hack than gen-pop? You guys, the 100k+, are lucky I'm not made of money.

Re: Tell HN: Hacker News now supports IPv6

#140

Post by mike_d »

greyface- wrote: post #40
p-e-w wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I looked into this (which was a few years ago), ISPs were allocating blocks containing billions of IPv6 addresses to anyone who paid a nominal sum. So that vast address space might not last as long as it would seem...

That sure sounds like a lot. But "billions" is less than a /64. Try "sextillions" (/56) or "septillions" (/48). Of course, when the denominator is "undecillions", it becomes clear that this is actually a non-issue.

ARIN recently handed out a /16 allocation to Capital One. That is one 65,025th of all of IPv6.

A reasonable sized /32 allocation would have allowed for giving every ATM they operate worldwide its own globally routable /48.

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