[TriLUG] IPv6, openness, and network neutrality

[Kevin Otte]

Geoff Huston is the Chief Scientist at APNIC, the registry of addresses 
for the Asia-Pacific region.

This text is from the end of the article 
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/01/why-hasnt-everyone-moved-to-ipv6/

--snip--

End users might not care how their IP addresses are assigned, but an 
internet based largely on NAT systems would completely eliminate network 
neutrality, Huston suggested. “A carrier-grade NAT is like a toolbox. 
The access provider has visibility to the traffic, and the rationing 
model changes.”

“Once we’ve exhausted IPv4 addresses there’s no such thing as end-to-end 
anymore All of your traffic is pulled apart and sometimes the content is 
changed. All of a sudden, openness doesn’t exist any more. This whole 
idea of permission-less networking is over if the network is ridden with 
middleware and with folks whose economic incentive is to restrict the 
edge because they want their money back.”

For Huston, the biggest issue is that the resistance to IPv6 might 
signal a move away from the open standards-based world that the internet 
has heralded, returning us to the state of technology three decades ago. 
“Back then, everything was proprietary. It was a closed world. We never 
see much of that any more, apart from the iPhone which is a resurgence 
of the same thing. This is a world which is dominated by openness, but 
how fragile is this? Will it last?”

“What we’ve really done is shut down the last 10 years of fascinating, 
mind-boggling marvellous innovation and replaced it with crap. It’s time 
to think about this and choose very carefully.”