Quo Vadis IPv6 - Was: Re: [governance] IPv4 - IPv6 incompatiblity (was Re: Towards Singapore)

[Karl Auerbach]

On 06/18/2011 11:45 PM, parminder wrote:

>>> On a more practical note, Karl makes a clear case of how the Internet
>>> has become lumpy and today largely consists of a few mega spaces
>>> completely owned and run by corporations.
>>
>> Actually I didn't say exactly that.
>
> Fair enough.Though that is what I read between the lines when you spoke
> of the lumpy internet. You do however agree that what Is say is largely
> the trend, right?

I don't know if it is a trend or just my overwrought imagination - a lot 
of things I predict will happen end up not happening...

... and I also have a very strong record of saying something won't 
happen, and yet it does.  One could have become rich by simply by making 
the opposite employment choices then I did in the 1990's,

In other words, I may be a poor oracle.

On the other hand I am a great contrarian.  ;-)

And when I hear the drumbeat that says "we are out of IPv4 addresses, so 
we must necessarily move to an IPv6 internet" my technological, and 
discordian, neurons say "maybe not".

I *wish* we would move to IPv6, despite the difficulties and learning 
curves.

But as I have mentioned, we've entered a world in which there are many 
interests - from corporate to governmental to religious to cultural - 
that want drawbridges and clear chokepoint/portals around "their" part 
of the internet.

And given the subtle change in perception of the net as a bag of 
applications rather than an end-to-end transport, I feel that those who 
like drawbridges and chokepoints have an opportunity to drive the net 
into a form more of their liking.

The question that lingers in my mind is whether this fragmentation into 
lumps will simply happen, like water flowing downhill, or whether it 
requires active driving energy, an implicit intent to break the uniform 
internet, or at least a disregard whether a uniform address space 
obtains in the future or not.

My sense is that we have reached a juncture in which the net is brittle 
in a way it has not been before.

Let me explain using an odd analogy - here in North America our largest 
continental river is the Mississippi.  That river has been on the verge 
of making a major course change for about the last half century (and 
especially during the last two months) - the US Army has spent 
considerable energy and money to prevent the Mississippi from changing 
its course (and bypassing New Orleans).  Yet it would take only one 
runaway barge striking a floodgate at the wrong place, or one bit of 
undermined concrete to cause failure of the whole apparatus that keeps 
the Mississippi in place - in other words the path that the river takes 
to the sea is brittle, a small force could cause a major change.

It strikes me that the conversion to IPv6 is something that involves a 
lot of work while the lumpy internet involves largely upscaling the kind 
of application proxying we are already doing.  The level of effort seems 
that the path of least expenditure of energy and money favors the 
formation of lumps.

But a lumpy internet is not something that the "gods of the internet" (I 
am making an obscure reference here to a particular episode of a UK TV 
comedy series, "The IT Crowd") do not look upon with favor.  Thus 
creating a lump is something that requires a bit of contrarian chutzpah.

Until someone steps forward and creates a lump and says "we did it and 
it worked" there will be fear of the unknown, and we will continue down 
the IPv6 path.

But once some group does create a real lump - and does it in a way that 
is of a scale that makes it more than a toy - and does it in a 
professional way - then the floodgates may fall and the course of the 
internet IP river might shift away from IPv6 and into a new, lumpy course.

	--karl--
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