IPv6 - What does it mean for us?

On Holiday · 7 Jun 2012 at 19:33

I've not read too much into the whole IPv4 vs IPv6 thing.

So I'm left wondering, when we're all on IPv6 and IPv4 is redudant, how are we going to direct connect to e.g. Teamspeak / Gameserver?

Phemo · 7 Jun 2012 at 19:42

Well that won't happen for a long time but it'll be just the same as it is now - using the address (which is a nightmare to remember with IPv6) or a DNS name. IPv6 will make DNS even more important

oli356 · 7 Jun 2012 at 20:28

What Phemo said I would've thought.. Without DNS it would be a nightmare.

I wonder if the world will ever run out of IPv6 addresses

crinkleshoes · 7 Jun 2012 at 21:06

It means "hackers" can get to your individual system much more easily

KIA · 7 Jun 2012 at 21:12

crinkleshoes said:
It means "hackers" can get to your individual system much more easily

Only if we stop using routers/firewalls. I won't be going back to the days of pre-ADSL routers.

crinkleshoes · 7 Jun 2012 at 21:18

KIA said:
Only if we stop using routers/firewalls. I won't be going back to the days of pre-ADSL routers.

... i'm taking the ****

Dist · 7 Jun 2012 at 21:42

I wonder, how long does it take to port scan on IPv6? Would the additional address space make port scanning everything too time consuming to be viable for hackers?

crinkleshoes · 7 Jun 2012 at 22:18

Dist said:
I wonder, how long does it take to port scan on IPv6? Would the additional address space make port scanning everything too time consuming to be viable for hackers?

There's no real increase in the number of ports available AFAIK.

So port scanning an IPv6 address will take just as long as a v4 address... :confused:

wkingsnorth · 7 Jun 2012 at 22:27

oli356 said:
I wonder if the world will ever run out of IPv6 addresses

Yes, but we'll just make IPv7 or something I suspect

Phemo · 7 Jun 2012 at 22:49

wkingsnorth said:
Yes, but we'll just make IPv7 or something I suspect

Probably not. IPv6 is enough for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses. I don't even know how to begin how to work it out, but that's enough for trillions for every individual person on the planet. And then some.

Dist · 7 Jun 2012 at 22:52

crinkleshoes said:
There's no real increase in the number of ports available AFAIK.

So port scanning an IPv6 address will take just as long as a v4 address...

Yes but the address space is huge, so where as with IPv4 only has 2^32 that need to be scanned, and with IPv4 running out you know there is a large % chance of something using each IP. Where as to port scan IPv6 addresses, you have 2^128 addresses that would have to be scanned, with the vast majority of them being unused right now.

So port scanning a single IP would be the same in IPv6 or IPv4, but hackers rarely target individual machines, they port scan entire IP ranges looking for open ports. And with that huge amount of unused IPv6 addresses I'm wondering if port scanning IPv6 will take so long for so few results that it won' be worthwhile, or if port scanning an address range as big as IPv6 is still quick enough to be viable for hackers.

crinkleshoes · 7 Jun 2012 at 23:11

Yes... IP scanning would take a heck of a lot longer. You only mentioned port scanning... haha

But saying that, the limitation is hardware based... both local and network hardware... as tech improves, time taken will reduce... so while in the future it could get to a stage where scanning the ipv4 range would take a matter of minutes... it could realistically reach a point where it would take just as long to scan the whole IPv6 range as it would to scan the whole IPv4 range today