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Steph Foster wrote: > > I thought IPv6 was about enlarginging the address space. IPv6 was intended to solve a number of issues including address space, transport layer security, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6 > A lot of the protocols in the TCP suite could do with updating to > minimise the misuses by crackers. Not sure which you have in mind here. Even for IPv4 the only thing that leaps out to me as needing enhancing is DNS, and that is technically an application, and the US government already mandate use of DNSSEC for their internal use. SMTP is abused by spammers but that hopefully isn't an issue for military networks, they can simply mandate TLS or similar, and authenticate the nodes that need to communicate via certificates. > After all TCP/IP was never designed for Joe Public use so I guess they > never bothered to look at the security aspects Given IPv4 was designed by DARPA for military use I'd be surprised if security wasn't a consideration. I believe the primary goal for IP was automated routing around damaged portions, but also the assumption that some nodes would turn rogue (when those units were captured) was part of the original specification. IPv4 leaves a lot of tasks to the application layer, such as encryption, but there are some good arguments that this may be the way to go in terms of flexibility and future proofing. Have to say my reaction was very like that of others who said "sounds like IPv6". I'm also curious why Microsoft, as I'm not aware they have any particular experience in network protocols to speak of (unless we include the mess they have made for Office networking). Presumably one of those that went to the lowest bidder or some such, although it is possible Microsoft has bought some company that does have experience of this sort of thing. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html