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The basic architecture of the Internet hasn't changed since it was conceived 40 years ago. But what was once the playground of wonks is now the main staging area for the global economy and open to an array of security vulnerabilities. Brooke talks with Internet experts who ponder a vexing conundrum: adjustments that increase security simultaneously hamper innovation.
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There were some serious flaws in your piece on why the internet hasn't completed transition from IPv4 to IPv6 (you rightly simplified that to "bigger address space").
It's not an issue of 40 year old routers and switches that don't know how to do bigger addresses as as your interviewee said. Operators and their business managers have been replacing older kit with v6 capable hardware for years. Not because they wanted it for v6, but simply because they needed to increase the capacity of their networks. As it happens, the major hardware vendors have been shipping v6 capable kit for 3-5 years or more now.
Thanks for your time,
R A Lichtensteiger
The problem is more simple. IPv6 was designed to replace v4 at a time when it was generally accepted that the 32 bit address space of v4 would be exhausted by tthe end of the 1990s. As luck would have it, some very bright folks came up with an idea to set aside blocks of address space whihc could be used within a network, but would not be routable on the public internet. This idea was documented in RFC1918 "Address Allocation for Private Internets" in 1996. Once network began to use these private address blocks and a technique called "network address translation" or NAT at their borders, the immediate pressure on the v4 address space was drastically eased.
Without the motivation of imminent address scarcity, neither "eyeball networks" like cable companies and phone companies, nor content networks had a good justification for the expense of a transition.
We're still waiting for that "killer app." IPv6 is available now. You can reach www.google.com via v6 address. Indeed, one can send me emails over v6 transports. But until there's an urgent need, v6 will not receive mainstream acceptance. And it's certainly not due to old routers!
Thanks for your time
R A Lichtensteiger
what an interesting example of Evolution in action.
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old hardware that future generations are stuck with...
... that is, stuck with learning to build upon already developed hardware, and behavior patterns
while adapting to new situations.
I am very happy to hear that Brooke will return. I had heard on Brian Leher that she was moving on. Good news, how refreshing.
As soon as we can get enough computers to stop running Windows (or iPhones, for a more curent platform) we shall once again have secure networks.
While we have monopolies controlling our devices, PCs or mobile phones, somebody is likely to abuse permissions.
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