[arin-ppml] IPv6 in the Economist

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 21:49 -0700, Scott Leibrand wrote:
> Michel Py wrote:
> >> Scott Leibrand wrote:
> >> The Economist, in their usual fashion, did a very good job with
> >> their metaphors in explaining the issues of IPv4 exhaustion and
> >> IPv6 transition for a general audience:
> > 
> > I think it would have been better if it was accurate:
> > 
> > http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482493
> >> {..} Support for IPv6 is already baked into most popular operating
> >> system software. It is incorporated into Windows XP and Vista {..}
> > 
> > Last time I checked, IPv6 was not "incorporated" into XP. Given the
> > <sarcasm> huge popular success of Vista especially in corporate
> > environments </sarcasm> that changes the picture a bit, as XP still is
> > by far the most popular operating system.

> It requires activation from the command line, but Windows XP definitely 
> has IPv6 support.  I enabled and used it on my XP laptop at the last 
> ARIN meeting.

	IPv6 in Windows XP does not require command line activation since SP1.
You can turn it on by right clicking on the network connection and
adding the protocol.  You don't even have to reboot.

	What is, err, disturbing is that a significant number of XP systems
have ended up with IPv6 enabled and yet nobody knows how it happened.
That a globally addressable and routable protocol "magically appears" on
a box without the user having done it is very disturbing from a security
standpoint.  Some users have thought that it was due to a Microsoft
update, but we know that to NOT be the case.  This has happened even on
some embedded systems, such as POS terminals.

	Yes, when enabled, it does have Teredo enabled and is perfectly capable
of configuring itself to the MS Teredo servers and start chatting on
IPv6.  This has been occurring enough to be showing up on intrusion
detection systems with Teredo and 6to4 signatures enabled.

> -Scott

	Mike
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