[Macworld]

Post your comments for Five things you should know about IPv6 here

[ChezNoelDesigne]

thanks very much because i always see IPV6 in my computer and i really don't know what was his signification. i get a small idea idea now.

http://greatiful.com

[markfn]

I see this as giving the internet providers a way to charge us more. Couldn't they force us to adopt IPv6 in our homes, then force us to pay for every new IPv6 IP address we use?

[blowen]

A quick question or two, if you have the additional information. What Apple routers are compatible with IPv6? Assuming the older ones are not, can the firmware be updated to make them compatible? Or will we have to buy new ones (realizing this is advantageous to Apple's bottom line)? Thanks.

[Bairnsfather]

Somehow I missed what an SMB is.

[Tom]

Bairnsfather, on 08 June 2012 - 07:42 AM, said:

Somehow I missed what an SMB is.

Bairnsfather, I did too. It means Small and Medium-sized Business.

[bastion]

blowen, on 08 June 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

A quick question or two, if you have the additional information. What Apple routers are compatible with IPv6? Assuming the older ones are not, can the firmware be updated to make them compatible? Or will we have to buy new ones (realizing this is advantageous to Apple's bottom line)? Thanks.

IPv6 was added to Apple's base stations with the January, 2007, models. A firmware update to add it to older models is not technologically realistic, let alone likely.

[RobLewis]

Tom, on 08 June 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

Bairnsfather, on 08 June 2012 - 07:42 AM, said:

Somehow I missed what an SMB is.

Bairnsfather, I did too. It means Small and Medium-sized Business.

Confusingly, it can also mean "Server Message Block" which is some kind of Microsoft networked file access protocol, used in connections like "smb://my.domain"

[RobLewis]

It seems to me there's a potential loss of security if every device is connected directly to the worldwide Internet. Will every device--even my printer and, eventually, my refrigerator--have to have its own firewall, with passwords and security settings to manage? I kind of like the idea of everything entering my home having to pass through a single secure gateway.

[Hawaiian717]

RobLewis, on 08 June 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

It seems to me there's a potential loss of security if every device is connected directly to the worldwide Internet. Will every device--even my printer and, eventually, my refrigerator--have to have its own firewall, with passwords and security settings to manage? I kind of like the idea of everything entering my home having to pass through a single secure gateway.

No. I expect you'll still have a router device where you make the connection from your network to your ISP's. You know, that cable/DSL/FiOS/U-Verse modem thingy. The firewall will be there, the difference is that the NAT functionality, where the address you configure your device with is different than the address an outside server sees you connect from, will be unnecessary.

There was a point in the article that every packet will be encrypted and authenticated. That's nonsense. The author is confusing the fact that IPsec was developed for IPv6 (and later ported to work with IPv4) and various claims I've seen that IPsec is "mandatory". You're still not going to create an IPsec tunnel with each and every device you connect to on the net.

[bastion]

RobLewis, on 08 June 2012 - 08:02 AM, said:

Tom, on 08 June 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

Bairnsfather, on 08 June 2012 - 07:42 AM, said:

Somehow I missed what an SMB is.

Bairnsfather, I did too. It means Small and Medium-sized Business.

Confusingly, it can also mean "Server Message Block" which is some kind of Microsoft networked file access protocol, used in connections like "smb://my.domain"

"Some kind of?" It's quite likely the single most used networked file system on the planet.

[bastion]

RobLewis, on 08 June 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

It seems to me there's a potential loss of security if every device is connected directly to the worldwide Internet. Will every device--even my printer and, eventually, my refrigerator--have to have its own firewall, with passwords and security settings to manage? I kind of like the idea of everything entering my home having to pass through a single secure gateway.

No worries, because every device in your house isn't actually going to be physically connected directly to the Internet. *If* you connect them - and you're under no obligation I know of to connect your blender or electric shaver whether they provide it or not - you will do so through something very like the gateway or router that virtually everybody not on dial-up already has today, and that device will provide the firewall.

Like, for example, this one: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5080

(That's funny. I could've sworn that even as recently as last week I've seen people complaining about how AirPort Utility 6 doesn't support IPv6 configuration. Apple seems to have multiple knowledge base articles describing different aspects of IPv6 configuration in that version of the app.)

[AnonCommentAcct]

Unfortunately, Apple drops support for IPv6: http://www.pcworld.c...v6_support.html

[lhudd]

AnonCommentAcct, on 08 June 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

Unfortunately, Apple drops support for IPv6: http://www.pcworld.c...v6_support.html

Well, the commentators appended to that article fail to realize that apple dropped Support for IPV6 in Airport UTILITY 6.0... not in the airport itself. You can still configure IPV6 in Airport Utility 5.6. 6.0 was streamlined as kind of an "airport utility for dummies" and removed much of the functionality of the former 5.5.x version. 5.6 still has it all, and is therefore what i continue to use every day to manage my network of Airports.