vrijdag 23 oktober 2009

Adam Curtis makes me want to delete this blog...

Adam Curtis: "The basic fact is they gave me a website on which I put up this film, It Felt Like A Kiss and things associated with it. When I'd done that they asked what I wanted to do next. They wanted me to all sorts of bloggy stuff and I just would not do that. I think that's so boring. It's noodling and doodling and it's exactly what I criticise the web for being - the idea that half formed, half, vague, badly researched aperçu, we used to call them, can be some new form of journalism."

donderdag 15 oktober 2009

Whatever happened to IPvSEXY?

IPv6 is needed, both readers of this blog know that, right? So how come the implementation is so slow?

Is it [at least locally here] the rules for lawful interception holding us back?
Is it again the question who pays for the huge investments for the equipment needed for lawful interception?
Is it the customer [me and you] not willing to pay for IPv6?
Or is it not ready for primetime?

There are hardly any technical reasons not to get wet your appetite. Or it must be for the lack of consumer grade [read cheep] hardware. Setup a tunnel in a minute and go!

But where does one go on the IPv6 Internet?

Google 'IPv6' and the first hit is the wikipedia entry for IPv6, the second is ipv6.org with the tempting page title "IPv6: The Next Generation Internet!" Sweet! But ever bothered to look at the content? It's older then my first born! It's totally outdated and not maintained. How's that for marketing?

Third hit, IPv6 (tutorial) - DD-WRT Wiki. Excellent! A cheap easy to get your hands on IPv6 able [WiFi] router. Ooops: "IPv6 is apparently NOT WORKING on all versions of DD-WRT version 24 (tested on RC5 and final). If you want IPv6 on v24, try one of the custom builds"

So, let's try another angle, google "IPv6 WRT54G" First hit leads to JoatWiki, stating "While the actual setup/configuration takes less than an hour if you know what you're doing, it make take a couple weekends to get up and running if you never done this sort of thing. You also run the risk of turning your WRT54G into a brick"

Hmm, hit two sounds promising: "Earthlink IPv6 in the Home" Earthlink being a large ISP in the US, surely offers something more useable then the 'do it wrong and you'll brick your device' right? Well, the footer of the page might dim that expectation a little: Last modified: Wed Jul 06 18:29:15 PDT 2005. 2005, that is like a million Internet years ago! The concept is to make it so simple that there is not even a possibility to login [http nor ssh nor telnet] to the box. That does not help unless you truly want to go IPv6 via earthlink and I do not since I am on the other end of the world.

But lets say you, as a dedicated hobbyist are not stopped by all the dead links and manual work to get your WRT54 up and running, or you're rich and just bought a Fritz 7270 and loaded the lab firmware version and get your IPv6 working, then what?

What is waiting out there for you? How will it feel to browse the Internet of the future? What prices will you be able to collect and pry the eyes of your friends? Hold tight, take a seat and look at these impressive numbers:

https://fit.nokia.com/lars/meter/ipv6.html

As Lars explains: "The scripts that update this page retrieve the names of the web sites that are most popular across the globe, as well as in select countries, from alexa.com in regular intervals. They then check whether the DNS entry for each site name reflects that it uses IPv6. The numbers above show the percentage of these top sites that are IPv6-enabled, as well as the absolute numbers."

There are about 200 [yes, two hundert] IPv6 enabled sites! In the IPv4 world, back when the Internet still was DARPA's that number was reached in 1983. Ok, I give it to you, I am comparing apples and oranges: the 200 number of IPv6 hosts are 'the most popular' sites and the 190 hosts are an absolute number, but it does show how PATHETICALLY slow IPv6 adaptation is.

We celebrate single 'well known' IPv4 hosts who are accessible via IPv6 by means of a proxy. WOW hold the presses, the eagle has landed!

At the same time, the one true IPv6 pushing ISP in Holland called XS4ALL has to STOP the rollout because Legal Interception is too costly.

But there must be good news? Any news? Well on the Dutch IPv6 taskforce site, there are a stunning 5 [yes five] links listed with IPv6 news...

But why trust me and my flakey and spotty observations! Let's find some smart guys who care and actually know things. Derek Morr for instance. On his [ice to read] blog called "Living with IPv6" he made some [wishful] predictions about IPv6 deployment in 2009 and some excellent observations of the lack of good IPv6 monitoring.

Let me wrap up by making some predictions for IPv6 metrics in December, 2009:

90% of top-level domains will have IPv6 glue in the root (right now, 75% do).
50% of the DNS root servers will support IPv6 (right now, 25% do)

At AMS-IX, 1% of traffic will be native IPv6.
1400 ASes will have IPv6 prefixes.
Europe will continue to have the most allocated and deployed IPv6.


The prediction for the AMS-IX is wrong. Currently it is about 0.3% IPv6 a far cry from the predicted 1%

What's wrong with these pictures:


Screenies taken about 3 months apart, left one first: 40.000 IPv6 domains 'disappeared' and IPv4 gained 40 days :D

Let's see what Derek Morr will come up with in a couple of months.

Bottom line: we have a need, we have a solution, we have [some] knowledge but our marketing is horrific, the customers [yes: you!] have no need and thus are not demanding [read: pay for] it. It is up to us [as ISP's and networkers as a whole] to get it out. There is good news too, of course. When you see CDN's like netflix implement IPv6 in 2 [yes, TWO!] months, you know it is realy possible... even if they too are a little scared to let 'normal' users access their service via IPv6 and 'hide it' in a IPv6 subdomain.

Pair that with this news flash: "In the first nine months of 2009, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) received 300 requests from carriers for blocks of IPv6 address space. This compares to 250 requests received in all of 2008 and 2007." and it just looks like there is some real IPv6 work being done.

Now let's see how IPvSexy will actually make a real life comeback and forefil its destiny.

PS For those with love for numbers, the Ghost Route Hunter by SixXS is a must bookmark.