6bed4: Recovering reliable peer-to-peer contact with IPv6

Abstract

We are all aware how NAT has taken away our ability to perform peer-to-peer communication. Carrier-grade NAT is not going to make that any simpler. Clearly, if we wish to communicate the way that the Internet has been designed, we are better off with IPv6.

6bed4 is an approach to recover peer-to-peer communication by using IPv6. In face of firewalls it may still be UDP-only, but this will at least release UDP-based protocols, including telephony and gaming.

The work on 6bed4 is currently undertaken as a standards effort in the IETF, a first draft version and a demonstration implementation all exist. This story will also include lessons learnt from the RFC process up to now.

Biography

Rick van Rein is the driving force behind OpenFortress, a company that aims to develop core infrastructure in the Internet by way of technical innovation. Past work includes cryptography and specifically DNSSEC; current work involves SIP over IPv6.