Category Archives: Networking
Thoughts on IPv6
A multitude of websites have been reporting the impending doom of ipv4 exhaustion, which is going to happen soon. All the top level address’ will be gone, but the regional registries will still have stocks of address’ in to 2011. As a user of ipv6, I thought I could share sone thoughts/insights on the events ahead…
Below is a very good video which one of my favourite tech shows, Hak5 made with an IPv6 Consultant, Joe Klein.
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/cl4cEbPayek?fs=1&hl=en_US
My own experience has been straightforward on the set up side of things. We had to purchase an
Apple Airport Extreme router however, which is the biggest pain in the transition, the cost. Most home routers do not have proper IPv6 capability, a serious problem. This will cost the Internet Service providers a lot of money in keeping these old routers shielded from the ever increasing IPv6 enabled websites and services – to the point at which a large scale upgrade may well be cheaper, but this is not likely to happen in the short term.
Setup of IPv6
The funny thing with IPv6 is tht machines self issue address’ and can use them locally if you have an IPv6 capable router, defaulting to IPv4 when going through your NAT to the Internet. So it’s the bridge to your ISP is the issue. Where I set it up, my ISP is small and has no IPv6 support. I emailed them about it, to get no response. It’s probably worth trying again since most ISP’s are running trials now, and you may get a router upgrade if you opt-in now. So I had to set up a tunnel, using the excellent Hurricane Electric. My ISP is slow though (average 1mbps rural wireless) and when the tunnel is set up all traffic defaults to IPv6, it makes it even slower. Tunnels are not ideal because the result will always depend on the quality of connection to your tunnel provider and the overhead that provides. Since IPv6 packets are bigger than IPv4 packets, your going to get a lot more IPv4 packets for the same volume of traffic, the major downside of tunneling. Tunnels are good to get some IPv6 experience, but not much else unless you have a very fast connection. The transition itself will probably look like this:
- Tunnels are set up, small contained IPv6 networks exist (already happend)
- IPv6 islands merge, major ISP’s peer and inter-network communication switches to IPv6 (happening now)
- ISP’s start to use 4to6 tunnels to get to the IPv6 part of the internet
- ISP’s switch equipment and use 6to4 tunnels to get to ever decreasing IPv4 Internet
- Like Usenet, ISPs state there is no demand for IPv4, and drop it to be fully native IPv6
So I’d advise anyone right now who has the patience and the interest to invest time in IPv6, it’s a game-changing technology, not necessarily better but a must to have knowledge of. As I mentioned earlier Hurricane Electric provide free tunnels (you can even set it up on a single computer if your router can’t support IPv6) and free certification to test these skills
3G Coverage in Ireland
I recently used Twitter to post about my journey on public transport from Kilkenny to Dublin. For people outside of Ireland the total Journey distance was about 90 miles.
I used only my iPhone on the O2 network and close to 50% of the time it seemed like I had 3G. This was on a train moving at speed, and YouTube played very well with little to no stutter. It did drop to Edge the other half of the time, with about 30% of time I still got speeds web browsing was acceptable on. So in summary: 80% of the time it was possible to surf the web.
After that Journey I was also on a Dublin Bus, and I had full 3G coverage which comes as little surprise as Dublin Bus only serves densly populated Dublin and it’s environs.
A few days later I went on a road trip to Athlone, and the coverage on the M4/M6 was not as good as I’d hoped. My theory on why the train was better is the fact on the routes I’ve been on a lot more urban areas are visited, thus the rollout has been very good to densely populated towns, but along motorways which are far away from such places: your sadly out of luck.
Hutchinson Whampoa (aka 3 Ireland) have recently got the national broadband contract to supply rural areas with 3G coverage, so most of these areas should be covered in the next few years. I should note wireless broadband is hugely needed for mobiles etc,, but a fiber optic service is really what the government should be sticking money into!
Overall I am very happy to recommend 3G for mobile usage with small devices. People with Laptops should explore their options and try find something else first, like DSL, Cable or fixed point wireless. These can be slightly more expensive then bargain-basement 3G but worth it. As the old adage goes: sometimes you get what you pay for…
Home made server…
I managed after ages of trying hard, to get my NAT transverse to work 
!! This means the computer sitting in my house should be reachable worldwide at dueyfinster.com. It’s login screen is from Ampache music center, a php+mysql solution to a large music catalogue such as mine. It means (for those who can login ) that my whole collection is streamable, downloadable, rateable and generally all round goodness and what you’d expect from a top class open source media+web application! I am excited about this, as I have already tried it from a remote family members house. Unfortunately it does not work too well half way across the world in the US (speed is *really* slow I have been gleefully informed), but I am not too bothered, upgrades in speed will come with better broadband (which may be years, this is Ireland). I am trying to restrict peoples usage of it at the moment, as I really do not want a letter from my Internet Service Provider!
For those interested in hardware, its a cheapo Dell PC I picked up during the summer for less than €400. I’d say I’ll get a little more than a year (If I am lucky) out of it, than I will be asking heavy users of it to donate for new hardware (likely some weak point in it, methinks), I just hope I won’t be the only heavy user 
I also set up proftpd on it, so I should be able to modify its web directory, and my home directory on it. Check out my hardware page and see the 2Ghz Dell for the PC I am on about. As and ever, it runs Kubuntu Linux, and as I write it chugs away gleefully (for now………)
Macbook Update, Fonero Haven, Commercial Darknet and College!
I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook
as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.000, so hopefully it will be worth it
I have also joined, for a month, a commercial darknet. Don’t know what that is? It is basically me paying for an extra layer of security, 128-bit encryption to a Swedish Internet service provider. Why? Well that means that if my ISP ever got a court order from a company, they would not have any records on me, since it will be encrypted, leaving them with no trace of what I have been upto. Don’t get me wrong I am a totally law abiding person, and the law says I have a right to privacy. I am just enforcing that right, in case my ISP was collecting anything (BT is my ISP), like my passwords. I also share my connection through my FON router, so as I will be using VPN encrypted network, I can prove 100% it wasn’t me who abused my internet connection, clearing me of liability. Ars Technica (“[The] Technical Art in Latin”) has an interesting article on the matter. That said, I have heard little of file sharing implications in Irish Law.
Also, I am one of the newest members of the FON community Wifi project. What the hell is this I hear you ask? Basically you share your internet connection, either for free (like I do)or for a small fee to others. If you share yours for free, you get free access to other FON routers worldwide. If however you “milk your wifi” (aka. make people pay) you hve to pay to use other foneros[sic] routers.
I see Leaving Cert results are out today! I am not looking forward to the year ahead, my last year of secondary school, 6th Year. I will be sitting the Leaving Cert next June, and well to say its no easy task to do well would be an understatement! I do Physics, German, Engineering, Irish, English, Maths, Geography which all will be tested! I wish everyone who has done it, the very best of luck this year, and I hope they all get the results they want. Each of your six best subjects is picked, all weighted on points and automatically submitted to the Central Applications office which holds a list of predetermined points on courses in registered institutions. Based on the availabilty (read “supply and demand”) is whether you get the course, as points fluctuate. They have rounds of offers, until all places are filled. No idea what I want to do, but I am looking in the sub <350 points range, shouldn't be too hard to achieve!
