this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Whether you're really passionate about RPC, MQTT, Matrix or wayland, tell us more about the protocols or open standards you have strong opinions on!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If computers connect to others through the internet, the IPv6 address can reveal how many computers there are on the local network, and if certain traffic to different destinations are coming from the same computer, but also if one of the computers has gone offline but then resumes from sleep/hibernation.
To me their comment means they want to avoid that, and I agree, I want to avoid that too. To fix these, I would need to configure NAT on my router for IPv6.

Yes IPv6 address privacy extensions help somewhat, but

  • computers won't use a different v6 address for every distinct destination, they will just start using a new one from time to time
  • computers won't stop using the old v6 address immediately after wakeup

With v4 addresses these did not really matter, because everything was being sent from the same public IP, and and outside observer could only see what a "network" is doing collectively. But with v6 an address identifies a computer, across websites/services. Even if it's just for a "short' time, even if the address is randomized.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If you want privacy, you need some kind of VPN or onion routing. Even if everything you list were correct, the difference between IPv4 and 6 for privacy would be marginal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I don't think this is so black and white. I'm a regular tor user, but so often it's not worth it to load webpages through a dial-up connection, and then there are the sites that block access for tor users for some reason.

Even if everything you list were correct

Which parts weren't?

the difference between IPv4 and 6 for privacy would be marginal

I disagree