Every Vista PC to get a domain name (6 Viewers)

gray

Senior Member
Moderator
Apr 22, 2003
30,260
#1
http://apcmag.com/node/4332

Every Vista PC to get a domain name

Want to be able to access your machine anytime, anywhere? Can’t be bothered purchasing a domain name and configuring Dynamic DNS? Microsoft has a solution: the "Windows Internet Computer Name" -- a unique domain name for your computer.

There is one small catch though: you have to be using the next-generation networking protocol IPv6 which, although thoroughly integrated into Windows Vista, isn't supported by most home routers yet.

The Windows Internet Computer Name is an advancement on the Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP), which is a name registration and resolution protocol initially developed for Windows XP.

Unlike traditional DNS, where domain name servers are used essentially to store a list of domain names and their corresponding numeric IP addresses, PNRP does all the domain name resolution peer-to-peer. Put another way, users of Windows Vista provide PNRP domain name resolution services for other Windows Vista users.

If you are still trying to wrap your head around how exactly this can work efficiently, rest assured you're not alone. However, a Wikipedia article on the topic makes it sound suitably clever (speed of the system is 'logarithmic to the size of the cloud', for example.)

On a basic level, here's how PNRP works: your PC has an IPv6 address -- a much longer string of numbers than the typical xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IPv4 address. IPv6 addresses are, by design, accessible to everyone on the public internet, because there's a practically unlimited number of them available (unlike IPv4). You specify a name for your PC, and PNRP makes that available to other PCs on the internet, allowing them to connect directly to you.

Yep, you're going to need a very solid firewall to ensure your PC is kept secure when running PNRP.

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Mmmm... I'll just use DDNS thanks
 

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mikhail

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2003
9,576
#5
Looks to me like it's just a way to set up p2p connections. Not that that has an interesting implications for the future of Windows [*cough*rampant piracy leading to a restriction of Windows users' control over their own machines *cough*]
 

sateeh

Day Walker
Jul 28, 2003
8,020
#6
i agree with u guys it sounds fishy and very insecure.

i have a question for you heavyweights though, isnt this gonna take up alot of the IPs in IPv6 then there will be the same problem as the one there is in IPv4? or is really unlimited
 

Martin

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
#7
sateeh said:
i have a question for you heavyweights though, isnt this gonna take up alot of the IPs in IPv6 then there will be the same problem as the one there is in IPv4? or is really unlimited
No. IPv4 uses 32 bits to store an IP address, 2^32 = 4,294,967,296.

IPv6 uses 128 bits.... 2^128 = 340282366920938463463374607431768211456


So we can safely give one to each Windows computer without a problem.
 

sateeh

Day Walker
Jul 28, 2003
8,020
#8
Martin said:
No. IPv4 uses 32 bits to store an IP address, 2^32 = 4,294,967,296.

IPv6 uses 128 bits.... 2^128 = 340282366920938463463374607431768211456


So we can safely give one to each Windows computer without a problem.
aha ok thanx for the explanation Martin,you're a gun... didnt know that version 6 uses 128 bits
U think windows actually thought about the security for this one ?
 

Chxta

Onye kwe, Chi ya ekwe
Nov 1, 2004
12,088
#10
sateeh said:
aha ok thanx for the explanation Martin,you're a gun... didnt know that version 6 uses 128 bits
U think windows actually thought about the security for this one ?
They always try to pass themselves off as good...:rolleyes:
 

Martin

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
#12
It's not that I'm concerned with the security implications over this, it's not like DNS is a particularly dangerous thing (then again MS went ahead and redefined the protocol themselves, hm..), just that I don't really get why it's so important. Tying IPs to domains, what's so amazing about that? So from now on you're no longer 121.212.312.13. you're customer2342342342.windowsvista.microsoft.com?

One thing I do support is rolling out ip6. This is a cultural shift that is hard to bring about, just like utf8 (also done by Windows in XP [or was it earlier than that?]). The one benefit of having all this control over a closed system is imposing changes (but this time for good, kids) in our favor.
 

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