IPv6 IP pollution

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IPv6 gives you a huge address space where you can use anything from 0-f in eight notations to create an address. This allows IPv6-users do create creative IPv6 addresses which are viewed as IP pollution by some dead-inside system administers. Other more hacker-minded people see creative IPv6 addresses as another form of the playful cleverness which underpins hacker culture.

Why "IP pollution" Is Bad

The reasons why the simple act of idling on IRC with a "IP Pollution" address is a bannable offense at the SixXS IPv6 tunnel broker is beyond our understanding. We can only speculate that the Google and IBM employed people who run that service are dead inside.

Why People Use "IP Pollution" Addresses

When Rome was still a functioning republic, Roman judges would always ask the simple question:

Who benefits from this crime?

When asking this simple question, we see:

  1. It's fun.
  2. It shows that some effort was made to configure a machine to use a custom IP
  3. Want-to-be 1337 teens who may want to look cool can use a IP pollution IPs to do that. They benefit by getting dozens and dozens of n00b fans.

Apart from that? Who knows.

It must also be noted that if you have a /48, which was very easy to get (lots of) once upon a time, you could play with provided with:

  • YYYY:YYYY:YYYY:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX

...where Y are parts of the IP that's given to you while X are parts you can choose. If you only have a /64 then you've only got 4 blocks of 4 to decide:

  • YYYY:YYYY:YYYY:YYYY:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX

Now, the obvious thing to do when you have a huge address space to play with is to use :1::1. But that's no fun. So people (those bastards?) IP-pollute.

Examples

The XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:XXXX address space you can play with on a /64 IPv6 subnet has room for several "hexwords" (words made up of 0-f). You can be very creative. Here are some examples:

  • 2001:0DB8:0400:0a20:1337:b00b:babe:cafe
  • :::dead:beef:cafe
  • ::c0de:1337:6374:babe
  • ::c01d:babe
  • ::b:ea67
  • ::caba:cafe
  • ::c01d:f00d:cafe
  • ::bad:dad
  • ::d0:ea1:f00d
  • ::d0:bad:deed
  • ::be:bad
  • ::f01d:ab1e:7ab1:e

(Advanced examples may require l33t-sp33k skills)

Here are a few shorter hexwords thay may be of interest:

  • ace
  • add
  • bad
  • bed
  • bee
  • cab
  • cad
  • dab
  • dad
  • ebb
  • fad
  • fed
  • fee

Some longer words you may want to consider:

  • ba5eba11
  • baff1e
  • bada55
  • bedabb1e
  • be5077ed
  • b0a710ad
  • b01dface
  • b1a57
  • beef
  • b0bb1e
  • b00bs
  • cab005e
  • cafe
  • cab1e
  • f00d
  • ca11ab1e
  • ca55e77e
  • c0ffee
  • deadbea7
  • d00d
  • deface
  • fab1ed
  • fa9907
  • feeb1e
  • fe110e
  • feed
  • f01dab1e
  • f005ba11
  • 0ddba11
  • 1eaf
  • 5ca1ab1e
  • 5a1ad5
  • 5ca1e
  • 5ea1ed
  • 5eeded
  • 7e1eca57
  • 7ab1e
  • 7ac0be11
  • 70dd1e
  • 707a11ed

Remember. Words longer than for characters have to be split into sections of four.

The AAAA record for facebook.com pointed to 2a03:2880:f13d:83:face:b00c:0:25de as of December 2019. The face:b00c part is a good example of the playful cleverness people who are dead inside see as evil IP Pollution.

beef:cafe

Using beef:cafe as part of an IPv6 IP was highly recommended by the BT exact IPv6 Tunnel Broker on their HOWTO page. BT exact seized their tunnel broking operations sometime between 2010 and 2015.


Topic: IPv6

How to get it

How to configure it

IPv6 services


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