Today in our newest take on “older technology is better”: why NAT rules!

  • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Every time there’s a “just add an extra octet” argument, I feel some people are completely clueless about how hardware works.

    Most hardware comes with 32-bit or 64-bit registers. (Recall that IPv6 came out just a year before the Nintendo 64.) By adding only an extra octet, thus having 40 bits for addressing, you are wasting 24 bits of a 64-bit register. Or wasting 24 bits of a 32-bit register pair. Either way, this is inefficient.

    And there’s also the fact that the modern internet is actually reaching the upper limits of a hypothetical 64-bit IPv5: https://lemmy.world/comment/10727792. Do we want to spend yet another two decades just to transition to a newer protocol?