Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu writes:
How quickly do you think IPv6 would deploy if msn.com or aol.com
provided <insert glitzy new product> as an IPv6 application?
Go ask Microsoft to move the MSN servers from IPv4 addresses to IPv6
addresses. Also ask them to switch all their public client addresses
from IPv4 to IPv6. See what they say.
An extension to the public Internet address space is a failure if the
extended addresses can't talk to the old addresses.
This is the same sort of wishful thinking that says "the only hope for
computer security is to make it work without any effort from the user".
To a first approximation, the only hope for computer security is to make
it work without any effort from the user. In fact, the most successful
security products are _easier_ to use than the systems they replace.
The main exception is that attacks against low-security systems provide
some economic incentives to switch. NSA's Brian Snow commented at a
recent conference that web-site defacements are great advertising for
his team's computer-security work. (I resisted the urge to ask him
whether NSA has paid for any of this advertising.)
And even today, when you add a new system to the Internet, you often have
to tell it it's IP address, it's netmask, it's default router, and the
IP address of a nameserver. Hardly "without any effort".
This effort provides a huge reward: a connection to the Internet! Email,
the web, and so much more. (Despite this, people complain about the
effort, and so we have all sorts of automatic configuration systems.)
Now, what exactly is my reward for spending time setting up useless IPv6
addresses for my perfectly functional IPv4 machines?
---Dan