IPv6/IPv6 threat Comparison Paper available for review

Tue May 11 09:31:33 UTC 2004

On 11-mei-04, at 11:19, itojun at iijlab.net wrote:

>> - Smurf

>> I don't think you mention that in IPv6, there are no mechanisms that
>> allow an incoming unicast packet to be turned into a broadcast or
>> multicast packet, and as such, smurf-like attacks are impossible.

> 	There are cases where malicious IPv6 packet leads to IPv4 smurf
> 	attack (due to wacky IPv4 mapped address and API).
> 	i think it worthwhile to look at threats due to IPv4/v6 interaction.

You can obviously craft an IPv6 packet that will be delivered to an 
IPv4 subnet broadcast address through 6to4 or some such, but unless the 
hosts that receive the subsequent broadcast (that shouldn't be 
generated unless v4 isn't properly administered in the first place so 
it's still not an IPv6 issue) reply with something, nothing is going to 
happen.

> 	draft-itojun-ipv6-transition-abuse-xx.txt
> 	draft-cmetz-v6ops-v4mapped-api-harmful-xx.txt
> 	draft-itojun-v6ops-v4mapped-harmful-xx.txt

Yeah, yeah, everything is harmful. I don't think having IPv4-specific 
and IPv6-specific code in applications is the answer, though.