There are a bunch of topics in this thread that bear comment.
Verizon's announcement is GOOD newsIt means even more momentum behind IPv6 on the eyeball side. Verizon+Comcast on the eyeball side is pretty formidable.
Combine that with the content side where Netflix, YouTube, Google are all IPv6 ready and Yahoo has announced plans but no visible deployment yet and it's pretty hard to pretend IPv6 still isn't rolling out.
NAT != SecurityThe security is provided by stateless inspection. The theory that NAT provides actual security is such a widely held myth that even some so-called security experts claim it is. It's even sort-of codified in the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS), except where it isn't.
The reality, however, is that stateful inspection without NAT provides all of the security benefits of NAT except one small theoretical advantage. Theoretically, in the event of an error in policy configuration which would permit packets through, NAT may provide an additional illusion of security because internal hosts are still slightly harder to reach than without NAT. In reality this is of very limited benefit and only matters if you have a serious error in your firewall rules.
Unique Addresses Expose <Pick Your Favorite Bogeyman>In fact, if you care about that, you should be using IPv6 privacy addresses and you still don't need NAT. NAT breaks stuff without any real benefit other than address conservation. Every actual benefit of NAT is replaced by something better in IPv6.
IPv6 isn't neededNothing could be farther from the truth. There are only 22 remaining IPv4 blocks in the IANA free pool. The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) go through approximately 14 of these blocks (known as slash-8s because they are 8-bit prefixes) each year. In addition, policy says that when there are only 5 left, IANA will issue one to each RIR and thus ends the IANA IPv4 Free Pool. So, at the rate of 14 blocks per year, it's going to be about 1.25 years before IANA is out of IPv4 addresses to issue to RIRs. The RIRs will run out 12-18 months later. (Some may run out faster, some slower).
More information about migrating to IPv6 can be found at »
businessv6.he.netYou can get Free IPv6 tunnel connections at »
tunnelbroker.netMore information about IPv6 in general can be found at »
www.getipv6.infoOwen DeLong is an IPv6 Evangelist at Hurricane Electric
