IPv6 and identity
Posted by unbrand on 1 January 2005 | 0 Comments
China is making news with their IPv6 network. What would the net-world be like with that much address space? Would NAT disappear? I don’t think NAT is going anywhere soon because of the halfway decent security it provides. In my view, what’s really cool about IPv6 is that it will allow for all electronic devices on the planet to be able to communicate with each other.
What if all electronic devices had a web client and a web server on board? Using various wireless technologies like Bluetooth for close-range devices and 802.11g for in-the-household devices, there’s no reason why every single electronic device on the planet couldn’t communicate with at least some other devices. And each electronic device would have its own unique IP address.
Look at the network interface MAC address. That’s unique, globally, and allows for all kinds of cool IP stuff to happen at higher layers of abstraction. But the uniqueness of the MAC address is the lynchpin. IPv6 allows for every conceivable physical thing to have a unique IP address. Once the “thing” has an identity, you can talk to it. You might not want to, but you can.
Update: Slashdot reports on Smart Car-to-Car Navigation Network in Japan which is a good example of how to get a bunch of devices to talk amongst themselves and provide benefit to humans.