Most internet users are connected with IPv6, mostly due to the expansion of the address space. However, the new standard also provides a number of features that can overcome the key limitations of IPv4. Above all, this includes the consistent implementation of the end-to-end principle, which makes the detour via NAT superfluous, simplifying the implementation of security protocols such as IPsec.
Additionally, IPv6 enables automatic address configuration via neighbor discovery as well as allowing multiple unique IPv6 addresses per host with different scopes to map different network topologies. In addition to the optimized address assignment, the simplification of the package header and outsourcing of optional information to header extensions for package transfers ensures faster routing.
With QoS (Quality of Service), IPv6 has an integrated mechanism for the security of quality service which prioritizes urgent packages and makes package handling more efficient. The fields “traffic class” and “flow label” have been directly tailor to the QoS methodology.
Critical to consider, though, is the assignment of static IP addresses to local network devices, as well as the practice of creating unique interface identifiers based on MAC addresses. Privacy extensions certainly created an alternative to the modified EUI-64 address format; however, because the prefix of an IPv6 address is also sufficient to create a user’s movement profile, a new prefix that is dynamically assigned by the ISP for maintaining anonymity on the internet would be desirable in addition to the privacy extensions.