[LINK] www.ipv6.org.au/summit

[Karl Auer]

On Sun, 2008-08-31 at 07:57 +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote: 
> I can't see why the ordinary user should need to know 
> anything about v6. All the user needs is "does the connection work?" and 
> "do my applications work?" Multiple end-user addresses may well be a 
> good thing for ordinary users, but if it's an invisible good thing, so 
> much the better.

True to some extent. But the features - and limitations! - of IPv4 have
reached, at some level, the collective subconscious of Internet Userdom.
Often in simplified and sometimes badly perverted form. So people think
- really believe! - that NAT is a security feature, when in fact it is
just another form of security through obscurity.

We can expect that the features and limitations of IPv6 will likewise
reach the collective subconscious - that computers are directly
addressable, that you can have as many computers as you want and so on.

Ordinary people don't even bother to try setting up services on their
own home computers with IPv4, because even though the OS may make it
trivial to set up (say) a webserver. Mac and Linux make it very easy
indeed. But working out the port forwarding, DMZ, dynamic DNS and so on
is just too geeky for most people, and means muddling with something
that, if they get it wrong, might stop all their Internet access. With
an IPv6 address, you set up your webserver and it just works.

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)

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