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by pixl97 1143 days ago
Every IPv6 thread we get someone saying "Oh v6 is worthless, we can stay on v4 forever, there are no downsides to CGNAT". I still have no idea how they can think that.
2 comments

Those responses baffle me. I don't think most of those have ever been on the receiving end of anti-abuse features targeting shared IP addresses. I wonder if they're the same people who consider IPv4 a scarce resource that needs to be shared carefully.

Try ten Google dorks for finding open Apache directory listings; your IP address gets reCAPTCHA prompts for every single search query for minutes. Share that IP address with thousands of people, and suddenly thousands of people get random Google/Cloudflare prompts.

Yeah, ever try to use Google through Tor? If you're lucky, it will let you do a captcha and get your result, but mostly it just says the IP is temporarily blocked for abuse.
IPv6 addresses are effectively the same as shared IPv4 addresses in anti-abuse systems. All anti abuse systems treat a /48 or /56 level the same as a single IPv4 address. It's the only way to actually detect one system doing abuse.
> All anti abuse systems treat a /48 or /56 level the same as a single IPv4 address.

With the difference being that you get your own /48 or /56 and suffer from only your own behaviour.

If you're behind CG-NAT because your ISP can't get enough IPv4 addresses, then you suffer from the behaviour of other people.

I don't know of a single ISP that gives /48s out to customers. Maybe a /56, but I think even that is rare.

IPv6 is way better than cgnat, but ISPs are still doing their own internal routing for much smaller blocks. Meaning the block itself is functionally the equivalent of a shared IPv4 for abuse prevention purposes.

But also, I could just not know about the ISPs giving out /48s. My window to this is from the abuse prevention side.

Residential /56s are ubiquitous in my community, and /48s are offered by one major isp, though not the one I personally use.
I'm with Andrews & Arnold (a UK ISP) and they provide a /48 by default.
You get with v6 it's all disposable? You can use it for 1 min and throw it away.

You'll be able to to get them from any geo-location easy as pie.

So it's worse. You'll be even less trustworthy unless you register as trustworthy and keep it, which means tracking. The same as having a fingerprint or login now.

As pro argument that sucks, it's the opposite.

The second half of the address is disposable, plus a few more bits. The first 56 bits or so are allocated just like non-CGNAT IPv4 addresses are currently allocated.
So then you can build up a good reputation by sticking with one IPv6 address, and you shouldn't have to deal with any silly bot restrictions at all.