I know it's a joke, but the idea that NAT has any business existing makes me angry. It's a hack that causes real headaches for network admins and protocol design. The effects are mostly hidden from end users because those two groups have twisted things in knots to make sure end users don't notice too much. The Internet is more centralized and controlled because of it.

No, it is not a security feature. That's a laughable claim that shows you shouldn't be allowed near a firewall.

Fortunately, Google reports that IPv6 adoption is close to cracking 50%.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works -5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We use NAT all the time in industrial settings. Makes it so you can have select devices communicate with the plant level network, while keeping everything else common so that downtime is reduced when equipment inevitably fails.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

That's nothing that can't be done with a good set of firewalls on IPv6.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago

The one thing you can't do with IPv6 is yell the address across the room to the technician plugged into the switch trying to ping the node.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

This is equipment that uses all statically addressed devices. And ignoring the fact that IPv6 is simply unsupported on most of them, there are duplicate machines that share programs. Regardless of IP version you need NAT anyway if you want to be able to reach each of the duplicates from the plant network.

[–] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Good luck trying to find industrial stuff that supports IPv6, hell most of it is still serial.

I have legit heard that serial is security mechanism because it cannot communicate long distance like ethernet.

Of course you can do IPv6 magic that hides IPv6 from the end device, but nobody understands how that magic works.

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