nanog mailing list archives

Re: Rate of growth on IPv6 not fast enough?


From: Jim Burwell <jimb () jsbc cc>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:40:13 -0700

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On 4/23/2010 06:17, Clue Store wrote:


But none of this does what NAT does for a big enterprise, which
is to *hide internal topology*. Yes, addressing the privacy
concerns that come from using
lower-64-bits-derived-from-MAC-address is required, but it is
also necessary (for some organizations) to make it impossible to
tell that this host is on the same subnet as that other host, as
that would expose information like which host you might want to
attack in order to get access to the financial or medical
records, as well as whether or not the executive floor is where
these interesting website hits came from.

Matthew Kaufman

Yeh that information leak is one reason I can think of for
supporting NAT for IPv6.  One of the inherent security issues
with unique addresses I suppose.

<flame-suit-on>

What makes you think that not using NAT exposes internal
topology?? I have many cases where either filtering at layer-2 or
NAT'ing a /48 for itself (or proxy-arp for those that do not have
kits that can NAT IP blocks as itself) does NOT expose internal
topology. Get your filtering correctly setup, and there is no use
for NAT/PAT in v6.

NAT was designed with one puropose in mind ..... extending the
life of v4... period! The so called security that most think NAT
gives them is a side effect. NAT/PAT also breaks several protocols
(PASV FTP, H.323, etc) and I for one will be happy to see it go. I
think it's a mistake to include NAT in v6 because there are other
methodologies of accomplishing all of the side effects that
everyone is use to seeing NAT provide without having to actually
translate IP's or ports.

I for one (as well as alot of other folks I know) am not/will not
be using any kind of NAT moving forward.

</flame-suit-on>
I'm not really advocating NAT for v6.  I'm just saying it's one valid
security issue with using any sort of globally unique IP address (v4
or v6), in that analyzing a bunch of traffic from a particular
netblock would allow one to build a topology map.  It's easier with
IPv6 since you can presume most if not all addresses are on  /64s out
of a /48 (so look to the fourth quad for the "subnet ID").

Obviously if someone is super concerned with revealing this sort of
info there are other things besides NAT they can do, such as using a
proxy server(s) for various internet applications, transparent
proxies, etc.  But it is a valid security concern for some.

Also, is that your real name?  ;-)

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