IPv6 content experiment

[Kevin Day]

On Apr 9, 2007, at 4:28 AM, Carlos Friacas wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Apr 2007, Kevin Day wrote:
>> As everyone's aware, there's the issue of not enough eyeballs to  
>> justify content providers spending the time to deploy IPv6. End  
>> user ISPs won't do it until there's content.
>
> Or lack of IPv4 address blocks to be distributed by the RIRs...  
> that's the real driver for IPv6, imho.
>

My hope is that people will willingly start working with IPv6 before  
it's too late, rather than being forced into it by IPv4 exhaustion.  
There are benefits in IPv6 for everyone, and if I can show that it's  
not going to hurt content providers to start using it, maybe more will.

>> Many say that there are ways (tunnel brokers, teredo, etc) end  
>> users can get on IPv6, and the fact that they aren't using them  
>> means it's up to the content providers to step forward.
>
> My experience says this is a very ugly path... e.g. i've recently  
> seen a slide from Microsoft about Vista, and teredo is the last  
> resort option for IPv6-only p2p applications. ISATAP and 6TO4 show  
> up before Teredo...
>

I don't believe it's perfect either, but there are many who claim  
that it's easy for end users to do. So, by putting some very  
desirable content up on IPv6 only, and giving links to the current/ 
existing IPv6 HOWTO documents, lets see how many inexperienced users  
are able to do it? If they do have problems, what can we do to  
improve it?

I'm sure there are going to be some users stuck on IPv4 connectivity  
long after the rest of the world has moved to IPv6. Is it really that  
simple for a Vista user to access IPv6 only content? If not, why?

>> Either way, "lack of demand" is cited by many for the biggest  
>> reason why they aren't deploying IPv6. So, what if we put some  
>> desirable content up and made it available only on IPv6 and gave  
>> those who accessed via IPv4 detailed instructions on how to get on  
>> IPv6?
>
> I guess that isn't entirely an original idea... that's also trying  
> to push the need for IPv6 to the end-user field, when deploying  
> IPv6 should be mostly an ISP-driven task/requirement/issue...!
>

I agree, but I'm trying to respond to the notion that IPv6 is ready  
for the world to use, it's just a matter of content being put up on  
it to get the ball rolling. I honestly don't have an opinion either  
way on that statement, I'd prefer to find out. :)

>> How many are actually able to get on IPv6 if they want?
>
> Bad quality IPv6... everyone with minimum technical skills, imho.  
> It's just a matter of enabling the OS, and finding a tunnel broker.

I hope so, but I think you'd be surprised at how difficult it is for  
a non-technical user to even grasp the concepts. I'd rank "installing  
an alternative video codec" far easier than "set up an IPv6 tunnel  
broker connection", and we've all but given up trying to get our end  
users to do that.



On Apr 9, 2007, at 4:42 AM, Carlos Friacas wrote:
>
> Hi again,
>
> Now that i've followed the link...... imho, the type of content  
> involved can possibly generate:
> - (good) a great amount of data to be analized

It's about the only thing I can think of that will guarantee a large  
number of people trying desperately to access it, that isn't only  
going to cover a subset of the Internet population who probably  
already knows how to configure IPv6.

> - (bad) negative publicity for IPv6 by associating the next  
> generation internet protocol to that *type of content*

I think the internet as a whole already has that reputation, but I'm  
aware of the connotations behind this. :) The end user visible site  
will go through great pains to explain that there's more to IPv6 than  
that kind of content.

>
> It's a courageous experiment... hope there will be also the usual  
> way of preventing access to certain types of audiences.
>
> It also comes to mind that netnanny-type software can also become  
> IPv6-aware following this experiment ;-)))

I've already tested the "insert specific META tags in the page"  
method of announcing the type of content the page contains, and all  
the content filters I was able to test were fine with blocking it on  
IPv4 and IPv6. I will send a heads-up email to all the major content  
filtering companies to let them know about this experiment before it  
launches, so they can do their own testing if they choose to.

-- Kevin