Recent Articles
Resource Certificates
December 2008
In November 2008 APNIC publically released its resource certification toolkit. This system allows a holder of APNIC-allocated IP number resources (IP addresses and AS numbers) to have these resources certified by APNIC as being currently held by the entity through the issuance and publication of a digital resource certificate. In this article I will look at resource certificates in some detail, looking at the technology that underpins certification structures, and the potential use of these certificates in securing inter-domain routing and potentially in the area of the emerging need to support address transfers in IPv4. more ...
Address Transfers and Markets
November 2008
The RIRs' policy forums are now considering what the appropriate registry policies should be when the allocation function for IPv4 addresses has terminated. Attempting to apply the same policy principles that were used to guide the address allocation function to the registry function is causing some level of confusion. Here previous practice becomes confused with the generic principles, and the differing characteristics of allocation and registry functions are not being clearly distinguished. more ...
Confronting Ipv4 Address Exhaustion
October 2008
It should be entirely unsurprising that the next phase of the Internet's story, that of the transition of the underlying version of the IP protocol from IPv4 to IPv6, refuses to follows the intended script. Where we are now, in mid-2008, with IPv4 unallocated address pool exhaustion looming within the next 18 to 36 months, and IPv6 still largely not deployed in the public Internet, is a situation that was entirely uncontemplated and, even in hindsight, entirely surprising to encounter. more ...
IPv6 Transition at IETF72
September 2008
The IETF's developmental work on IPv6 has included the study of the particular issues associated with transition to IPv6 from the outset. Starting with the TACIT work on transition in 1994-95, then NGTRANS from 1995 to 2002, and, more recently, the V6OPS Working Group which met first in early 2003 at IETF56. This study has now broadened in scope and today a number of IETF working groups are examining aspects of transition to IPv6 including the SOFTWIRE, BEHAVE and INTAREA Working Groups, in addition to V6OPS. In this article I'd like to look at the background to this IETF activity and review the current state of the IETF Working Groups that are looking at transition tools. more ...
What IPv6 Address is That?
August 2008
If you have enabled IPv6 on your computer, and in an idle moment you've browsed through the interface configuration information for IPv6 addresses you may have been a little surprised by the fact that there's not just one IPv6 address that's been loaded, but many. With IPv4 there was a single address that was bound to each interface, but when using IPv6 its not so clear, and an interface can have a number of IPv6 addresses simultaneously. Its also common to have automatic IPv6 over IPv4 tunnelling interfaces be created, and they also are configured with IPv6 addresses. The result can be impressive in terms of the number of IPv6 addresses that are configured into a single host system. Which IPv6 addresses are useable, and in which context? In this article I'd like to look at the IPv6 address plan, and describe the various address prefixes. more ...
The Future of the Internet - A Political View
July 2008
Lets face it, gathering a collection of ministerial delegations to laboriously recite prepared speeches to each other sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry. And observing meetings where the major outcome appears to be limited to the scheduling of the next meeting can become somewhat tedious after a while. It should not be surprising that the level of expectation of tangible outcomes for such governmental meetings is invariably abysmally low. So what's the value of adding yet another meeting to governments' schedule? What makes the OECD-hosted ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy so unique in the context of the Internet's current political landscape and its political future? Why would a meeting about the dismal science of economics hold any interest at all? more ...
10 Years Later
June 2008
In 1998 any lingering doubts about the ultimate success of the Internet were dispelled. There was nothing else left standing in the data communications landscape that could serve our emerging needs for data communications. IP was now the communications technology of the day, if not the coming century, and the industry message of the time was to adopt the Internet or imperil your entire future in this business. By 1998 the job was apparently done, and the Internet had prevailed. But the story was not over. Communications continued to drive our world, and the Internet continued to evolve and change. What has happened in the last decade of the Internet? What aspects of internet technology has changed, and why? more ...
The End of End to End?
May 2008
The model of a clear and simple Internet where end hosts can simply send packets across a transparent network is largely an historical notion. These days we sit behind a dazzling array of so-called "middleware", including Network Address Translators, Firewalls, Web caches, DNS interceptors, TCP performance shapers, and load balancers, to name but a few. So the question is: Have we gone past the end-to-end argument? Are we heading back to a world of bewilderingly complex and expensive networks? more ...
IPv6 Deployment: Just where are we?
April 2008
In this article we'd like to look at some measures of the use of IPv4 and IPv6 protocols in today's Internet and see if we can draw any conclusions about just how far down the track we are with the IPv6 part of dual stack deployment. We'll use a number of measurements that have been made consistently since 1 January 2004 to the present, where we can distinguish between the relative levels of IPv4 and IPv6 use in various ways. more ...
Tubular Routing
March 2008
I suppose it had to happen one of these days. Sooner or later a routing hijack would get its 15 seconds of fame in the industry press, and the incident relating to the YouTube prefix just happened to be the one that was selected by the media because of the players involved rather than the rather mundane characteristics of the routing leak itself. more ...
IPv6 Transition Tools and Tui
February 2008
If IPv6 really is an inevitable component of our networked future, then is there something an ISP could do today, within the scope of a day or two of effort, that is less ambitious than the full dual stack deployment across the entire network, yet enables some degree of useful and working IPv6 support for its customers? Or, to put it another way, is there a small step that would at least kick start an ISP into the area of IPv6 support? more ...
DNSSEC - Once More, with Feeling!
January 2008
So where are we on this DNSSEC deployment agenda? Within reach? Or a bit of a stretch goal, but still plausible? Or maybe its so far out there that a manned mission to Pluto will happen first! more ...
