On Sat, 13 May 2017 11:09 UTC, ea2ekh@gmail.com said:
On 13 May 2017, at 03:23, Brian Kantor Brian@UCSD.Edu wrote:
As usual, systems running non-Windows OS's (Linux, etc) are immune to this attack.
Sorry, I forgot. This is going to be very interesting with IPv6 and the disappearance of NAT.
I'm not sure IPv6 will be implemented at the breakneck pace I feared: NAT has saved the net, as a whole, from having to implement IPv6 capacity on a short deadline. Although statisticians and advertisers are drooling at the thought of having a MAC address in every IPv6 packet, the enormous investments companies and ISP's have made in IPv4 equipment, plus caution regarding possible end-user pushback, has caused them to drag their feet for a while.
Sooner or later, though, we'll have to adapt: although "NAT", as a security mechanism, might go away, routers can be set to refuse uninvited incoming packets. There is also a very good chance that ISP's will offer IPv4 <> IPv6 transition services, which might keep IPv4 viable for several more years: the cable companies experience with supporting NTSC television transmissions long after the digital TV start has, I think, reminded ISP's that most consumers cling to their old electronics until everyone else they know has made the leap to the new stuff. Since I've always been a late adopter myself, I think any ISP that demands customers replace their "home" routers and PC's and Roku boxes and Gameboys en masse will lose a lot of income, very quickly, so I doubt they'll force anyone to use IPv6 until current IPv4 gear has aged out of consideration.
Thankfully, IPv6 won't require updates for a lot of the *NOS software and older Linux versions being used at gateways, because I think we can start to encapsulate IPv4 inside IPv6 packets, and use that mechanism to keep major parts of amprnet viable with IPv4. Let's talk about what and where that method could be used, and (of course) whether it should be implemented.
Bill, W4EWH