A lot of us see the lack of NAT with IPv6 as one very good reason not to use it. More specifically, IPv6 was designed for absolute tracking of everything and everyone on the internet. Eg. Cookies on steriods. Just say no.
This is a perspective I've never really thought about, and it's worth considering in more detail. On the one hand, wouldn't it be nice if devices could just send packets back and forth, like in the "good old days" before firewalls and NATs? IPv6 has the potential to eliminate a lot of the hackiness of the current IPv4 world.
That said, I remember in the early days of home DSL and cable modems that some ISPs would try to say "you only get 1 device at home", and NATs were the way you told them to buzz off. You sell me bandwidth and get out of my way.
So what's the solution? I'm not convinced that NATs do much for privacy these days. Even if you're running all your traffic through SSL, there are all sorts of telltales that
fingerprint your TCP stack, and your DNS activity, all by itself, is quite telling about who you are and what you've got going on in your network. IMHO, the solution to this isn't better technology to hide ourselves, but rather better regulation that says what ISPs can and cannot collect.
I have to disagree here, Dan. I certainly agree regulation is important and desirable, but I would never trust it alone to solve a problem like this. This sounds to me like: "we do not need encryption but regulations that prevent Governments and anyone else to spy on people".
I am quite concerned about IPv6, as a matter of fact, and I'd much rather rely on technology to insure privacy, than regulation. I've been wondering - and hoping - that when IPv6 becomes finally widely deployed, NATing techniques of some sort are in fact available nonetheless. Also, I wonder, how would an IPv6 world actually work, otherwise? Would ANY individual purchasing internet access be assigned an IPV6 RANGE by the ISP? Would we have to worry about how many IPs we have available from our ISP (or any other authority) to insure we have enough to connect one more printer or IoT device in our homes? Would we have to change our home network IP space as we change ISP? Or, would we need to purchase our own IP space and have ISPs route to that once we subscribe (adding a lot more complexity)?
NATing of some sort would still be very useful, it seems to me, and almost unavoidable, not only for privacy, but to allow some individual freedom/flexibility in designing one's local network. I have not been researching much on this, so sorry if my concerns or assumptions are naive, but, what do you guys think?
P.S.: also, and here I may simply be ignorant as to how IPv6 differs from IPv4, but, isn't NATting a router-based (meaning device-based, vs protocol-based) feature? If I am correct, what would prevent routers to simply include as many NATting features as desired by consumers, whether IPv6 or IPv4? One would still be presenting one IP to the world, apparently originated from the router, regardless of whatever happens on this side of the home gateway. What am I missing?
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