←back to thread

Using the Internet without IPv4 connectivity

(jamesmcm.github.io)
296 points jmillikin | 1 comments | 29 Jun 25 08:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.352s | source
Show context
xacky ◴[29 Jun 25 12:13 UTC] No.44412475[source]▶
I have strong opinions about ipv4, especially since I'm forced to use an ipv4 isp. The lack of ipv6 adoption should be considered one of the great failures of tech. Who actually is responsible? Is it router manufacturers writing poor quality firmware, ipv4 advocates in leadership positions at isps, ipv4 address speculators, poor training of network engineers and tech support staff? I think we all need to have a much greater discussion with the internet at large and not just on isolated web posts and subreddits.

For comparison, the internet mostly transitioned off of TLS 1.0 just fine, why can't we do the same for transitioning off ipv4? Maybe AI powered proxies for legacy code perhaps?

replies(5): >>44412760 #>>44412955 #>>44414305 #>>44415086 #>>44418534 #
1. cesarb ◴[29 Jun 25 16:27 UTC] No.44414305[source]▶
> For comparison, the internet mostly transitioned off of TLS 1.0 just fine, why can't we do the same for transitioning off ipv4?

This is a great demonstration of the advantages of the end-to-end principle. The reason the transition off TLS 1.0 (and earlier SSL 3.0) could happen so quickly is that only the endpoints (the server and the client) needed to be updated to understand the new protocol; nodes in the middle of the path (routers, switches, and so on) only needed to care about the IPv4 (or IPv6) layer, which didn't change with new TLS versions.

But that only works for layers above the network protocol; when updating the network protocol itself, every node is affected.

(And the TLS transition also took longer than it should, in large part because a lot of "middleboxes" violated the end-to-end principle by inspecting or even modifying the TLS connection, without taking part in the protocol negotiation. TLS 1.3 had to be modified to pretend to be a resumed TLS 1.2 connection to trick these middleboxes into not incorrectly rejecting the newer version of the protocol.)