In reply to a post by pluralist:

It's highly unlikely that the prefix would be dynamic.

It's not that unlikely, on Sky the IPv6 prefix is dynamic. I think this is how it should be, having a random address from 18 quintillion addresses doesn't prevent third-party tracking when the first four blocks on the address remain the same every time.

(Side note: I'm aware there are other means of tracking, but the IP address is the only one outside the customer's control, unless a VPN is employed).

Ah, interesting.

I was extrapolating from my time on AAISP, where the customer had a /128 router WAN address, ending in the hex values of their static IPv4 address. Then a different /48 from the one starting that /128, with a single /64 activated/routed at the AAISP end. We could add /56s and /64s from our control panel.

Each connected device was given a fixed for the session and a varying temporary IPv6 address at the time of it connecting to the router, with the temporary one being the one publicly visible. As in detected by tbb BQM if you tried to set one up. You have to manually alter the BQM setting to the router address, which of course applies to IPv6 connections in general.

That temporary address changed automatically whilst connected. Quite how that was engineered is above my pay grade, though clearly the connection to the router was maintained by the fixed one. Seeing as in coming traffic is going initially to the AAISP /32, (in the following link: "At this point we will be routing any IPv6 blocks to your /128 WAN address. Usually a line will have at least one /64 block route"), that shouldn't be too difficult. I expect just route it out to the permanent one.

I left at the end of 2018. Things have changed slightly since then.

I think, though I stand to be corrected, that largely solves the tracking problem because the "tracker" would need considerable sophistication and processing power to make any sense of things. Bearing in mind that the "fancy" way AAISP are doing it is aimed mainly at businesses, many of which will have multiple levels of subnets within their /48.

Answer: AI .

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I think, though I stand to be corrected, that largely solves the tracking problem because the "tracker" would need considerable sophistication and processing power to make any sense of things.

To be honest, I didn't fully follow all that! Sky (and probably BT and others) delegate a dynamic /56 prefix to the router, of which a /64 is then globally routed.

Since the /64 is a de facto standard, an individual user can be easily tracked by the xx bit of:

xx:xx:xx:xx:yy:yy:yy:yy

So I find the temporary addressing feature of IPv6 curious, it really seems of little value.

I've always stood by the value of dynamic IP addresses when it comes to consumer connections, usually at the expense of a fair bit of disagreement, especially when it comes to IPv6.

Maybe some people even remember in the early days of PIPEX when they switched their IP addresses to very sticky/static, and they offered an opt-out to return to dynamic. Yes, I opted-out!

I've been on BT for about 18 months now and was disappointed to find IPv6 was dynamic. I've turned it off.

Basically the xx:xx:xx:xx they see when you next go to them is different. Not just the yy:yy:yy:yy.

They would need to be storing further information about your device, which they can see but may also be different especially on a business subnet.

Even here, long retired, every day I have four, sometimes five, different devices using my router, plus the TV. Both my phones are dual-network as well.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Basically the xx:xx:xx:xx they see when you next go to them is different. Not just the yy:yy:yy:yy.

Ah, sounds good to me. It's a divisive topic, I know there are people who value static, and those who value dynamic.