I'm pretty much excited for IPv6 because of the large address room and (potential?) owning of more than one IP, or even tens of IPs (/122 subnet?)
Though one magazine has now confused me.
In a current issue (no. 3) of "CT", a German computer magazine, I read that when using IPv6 your IP address consists of your MAC address and various other things, and that this address will be public on the web, no matter what access point / LAN you connect to.
My knowledge of IP(v6) is in contrary of this. I thought you will normally always have a a local network IP and NAT takes care of your Internet access, and your provider gives the NAT router an IP.
I've heard of the 6to4 interface, but does this one give you your own ip in the IPv6 net?
Personally I hope it still is through a personal IP space (like 192.168, 127.16-31, 10. in IPv4) in private networks with a NAT going to the Internet. And also I hope that providers will offer subnets to private customers so they don't have to use NAT anymore. Yay for converting your LAN into the WAN and using better security (so Computers from the same subnet still get access rights like normal).
Best Answer
Your magazine is right. IPv6 address consists of two parts: network prefix and host address.
If host address is not assigned, then computer autogenerates it, usually by using MAC address. Which means your IP includes something that uniquely identifies you, not depending on what network you are using.
See for example Wikipedia page for more information. There is also another post in superuser.com explaining how to disable using MAC address in different operating systems.