Python Magazine

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 1:30 AM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
> In article <51a0caac$0$30002$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
>  Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 25 May 2013 16:41:58 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> > On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 4:38 PM, zoom <zoom at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> But why would anyone want to use IPv6?
>> >
>> > I hope you're not serious :)
>>
>> He's planning to drop off the Internet once the IP address run out.
>
> We already have run out.  People have gotten so used to being behind NAT
> gateways they don't even understand how evil it is.  From my phone, I
> can call any other phone anywhere in the world.  But I can't talk
> directly to the file server in my neighbor's house across the street?

Of course, the shift from IPv4 and NAT to IPv6 and direct addressing
does shift the firewalling burden somewhat. Instead of "I'll forward
whatever ports I choose", it becomes "alright let's think about this
whole firewall thang". I'm not 100% confident that home-grade routers
will have proper firewall facilities in them; I suspect that moving
home users onto IPv6 may result in a spate of attacks. On the flip
side, it becomes less useful to simply port-scan across huge IP blocks
- bulk-attacking an IPv4 /24 block is easy, but spamming even a single
IPv6 /64 is practically impossible.

ChrisA