Re: local IP address (was Re: Request for feedback: Media Capture and Streams Last Call)

> On Aug 18, 2015, at 4:02 , 🔓Dan Wing <dwing@cisco.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 18-Aug-2015 05:16 am, Mike O'Neill <michael.oneill@baycloud.com> wrote:  
>> That’s why IPv6 had autoconfig privacy extensions, so the local IP addtress is based on a random number (i.e. not the MAC address) + the network prefix. 
> 
> Major OSs only change the privacy address every 24 hours (iOS, OS X, Windows).  Is that sufficient to avoid tracking, compared with the relatively-permanent local NATted address (which due to how DHCP clients and servers work, will often re-assign the exact same IP address, so long as it is available in the pool).
> 

I have wondered whether we need a new DHCP method “give me a DIFFERENT address, please!” as, as you say, DHCP servers usually try to give you the same address as it previously gave to this MAC address. But, I think the IETF is not enthused about rev’ing IPv4, and indeed most users get to hide their true IPv4 address as they are behind a NAT anyway.

The IPv6 privacy address cycling could, of course, be different.  One concern is over networks where the network prefix effectively identifies a single host (I think this is the case in cellular, for example); fiddling with the device part may be immaterial if the attacker can work out “that prefix is one assigned by a cellular network, and therefore the prefix identifies a single host”.


David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Tuesday, 18 August 2015 16:27:37 UTC