Re: Microsoft's participation in World IPv6 day

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Jun 6, 2011, at 12:20 AM, Mark Andrews wrote:

> In message <DFE74319-378F-4134-B521-452328B179F0 () delong com>, Owen DeLong writes:
> > > It's how you handle the exceptions.  Home users have port 25 off
> > > by default but can still get it turned on.  Most home users don't
> > > need a public IP address as they are not running stuff that requires
> > > it however some do so planning to handle the exceptions as efficiently
> > > as possible is a good thing to do.
> >
> > I disagree. I look forward to a day when all home users by default
> > have a public IPv6 address for each of their machines and hopefully
> > enough to support multiple subnets within the home.
>
> need == something they currently do will break without it when LSN is
> deployed for IPv4 and there is not a suitable workaround.
We have different definitions of need. I would argue that someone
needs their sight. I don't know of any blind people who, given the
opportunity, would consider sight unnecessary. I don't know of
any sighted people who would consider the loss of their sight
an acceptable outcome given any choice in the matter.

The fact that most of the internet is currently disabled (behind NAT)
does not mean that they do not need complete internet access.
The fact that most people do not realize they are disabled is an
unfortunate consequence of the nature of their disability, not
a status quo that we should seek to preserve.

> I'm all for customers getting public IPv6 addresses.  Keeping IPv4
> running until IPv6 is ubiquitous with minimal breakage is the
> challenge.

Yep... And a challenge of questionable and dubious benefit and
success as well. I would argue that it is better to put that amount
of resources behind making IPv6 more ubiquitous rather than
diverting them to hackery aimed at preserving the status quo.

> > Until then, IPv4 service without at least one public IP is degraded
> > at best compared to what most people consider normal residential
> > internet access today (which, frankly, is degraded at best compared
> > to what I consider normal internet access).
> >
> > > I've got two applications that won't work behind a LSN.  A sip phone
> > > and a 6in4 tunnel however I'm not typical.
> >
> > You're not that atypical either, at least compared to US users. The
> > following very common applications are known to have problems
> > with LSN:
> >      Playstation Network
> >      X-Box Live
> >      AIM/iChat/FaceTime
> >      SIP/Vonage/other VoIP services
> >      The HTTPs Server on TiVO boxes
> >      Peer to Peer (torrent, etc.)
> >
> > Other less common applications also have problems:
> >      HTTP servers
> >      SMTP servers
> >      Back to my Mac
> >      VNC
> >      Tunnels
>
> So you take these things that are known to break as exceptions to
> being behind a LSN and when there is a workable alternative you
> remove it from the exception list with a desription of the work
> around.

My point is that I don't know very many US internet users that don't
use at least one of the above on a regular basis, so, you've now said
that everyone should get an exception until there is a workable
alternative. Most of these things will likely never have workable
alternatives without significant development efforts and it's questionable
how effective said alternatives can be even then.

> e.g. SMTP servers don't require a public IPv4 address.  STARTTLS
> with authenticated TURN to a external MX will work.  Similarly a
> external dual stack MX + IPv6 support will work.  The ISP could
> supply that external MX.

That implies an unacceptable trust model for users that don't have
their own external TURN host. If everyone has a TURN host, then,
you have only increased the required number of public addresses.

One reason I run my own SMTP server is because I don't want to
trust my ISP with access to cleartext versions of all of my email.

Owen