NAT is the hack that made 15 quadrillion devices fit into the space of 4 billion. And did it while making them protected. NAT ruined the world of ideas as to what the Internet was, as it built the Internet we have today. NAT is the greatest hack that has ever been hacked.

NAT is the greatest sin. It is an imposition on the idea of heaven. NAT made your world. It is why you need a fundamental understanding of networking theory. NAT broke it, and remade itself in its own image. It is the idea of something you could do, shouldn't, but did.

When people say we live in sin, what they really mean is: We live in the ideas that broke the world. NAT is the idea that broke the world. It broke everything the Internet was supposed to be. NAT is a unique hell and rebuke of heaven. NAT follows the rules. That is the sin.

Rules are not the idea. Rules are what are supposed to bring you to the idea. And that is why NAT is the greatest hack of all. I don't even need to tell you what NAT is. I will. But, in some ways – it doesn't matter. What matters is it broke the contract. It broke it legally.

I am going to tell you what heaven looks like. And then, I'm going to tell you why NAT made it impossible. And then I'm gonna tell you – NAT was correct. Because paradise is the real Hell.

What NAT is, is obfuscation. It is deconstruction. Using the tools of the regime it was intercepted by to destroy it. NAT was something that never should've happened. But it is something the world made. Subjected us. Paradise is not an option. It is damage to be routed around.

@SwiftOnSecurity How much better (or worse) would a widely deployed IPv6 world be in terms of security?

@SwiftOnSecurity World would be dead without NAT. All ISPs around me have 100% ipv6 support. They do public v6, cgnat v4, if you turn off the wan v4 they do nat64.

@SwiftOnSecurity i've done enough to understand the problem, but not enough to understand the solution. are there any solutions that could bridge the transition from IPv4/NAT to IPv6? for example, do both? why is there so much hesitancy here?

@SwiftOnSecurity before NAT every device could directly connect to any other device. pure glory. NAT saved us from running out of addresses, and it made us lazy with security, because our devices weren't as accessible. I've been on ipv6 for about ten years now https://x.com/Gtwy/status/1949...

@SwiftOnSecurity Your thread is very popular today! #TopUnroll https://threadreaderapp.com/th... 🙏🏼@fire_809 for 🥇unroll

@SwiftOnSecurity nat is a bastard when you wanna host a minecraft server

@SwiftOnSecurity IPV6 happened to IPV6. It's utterly unusable for humans compared to IPV4. That's all that really matters when it comes to adoption.

@SwiftOnSecurity NAT only survived because IPv6 is trying too hard the problem is that ipv4 is not enough NAT solved the problem by hacking around it ipv6 solved the problem by making the address space bigger but then it also added 1500 different features no one needed, and no one understands

@SwiftOnSecurity @stupidtechtakes this this this. I can't wait until it goes back to whichever circle of hell it came from. It's gonna make P2P and self hosting so much easier

@SwiftOnSecurity I remember when this was being discussed back in the late 1990s or early 2000s… I asked about NAT. The answer was that it was not needed and wasn’t supported. I asked what about security. The answer was if you have a properly configured stateful firewall everything was good.

@SwiftOnSecurity I miss just giving my IP to people and host bazillions of stuff at home while not having to worry about anything vile (NAT) or evil (states, and bad actors, gnomes).

@SwiftOnSecurity Chris Blask describes the invention of NAT on page 40 of Security Yearbook 2025.

@SwiftOnSecurity https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

@SwiftOnSecurity The REAL question is what happened to IPv5?

@SwiftOnSecurity OK I hate NAT and PAT but I don’t think I can ever hate it as much as you do 🙃

@SwiftOnSecurity It's also technically a firewall so people don't know the weird shit about people scanning the internet searching for unprotected ports

@SwiftOnSecurity Every few years when I renew my CCNP I'm reminded ipv6 exists

@SwiftOnSecurity Especially CG-NATs ngl That said I have both ipv4 and ipv6 with my isp 😎

@SwiftOnSecurity And then there are universities. Mine has it’s own asn. Public ip’s for internal stuff for the win

@SwiftOnSecurity you still havent explained what nat is

@SwiftOnSecurity The addresses are too long to remember so nobody cared about it.

@SwiftOnSecurity I'm happier pretending IPv6 doesn't exist

@SwiftOnSecurity Most networking people don't understand this.

@SwiftOnSecurity A 7-step thread, yet not one quantifiable explained offered, only a romanticized rant that only "insiders" will understand. Not to mention, so solutions or alternatives offered at all. Du redest viel, aber sagst nichts.

@SwiftOnSecurity IPv6 is awesome when it is deployed properly.

@SwiftOnSecurity Truth is that Americans were too dumb for IPv6 so we keep

@SwiftOnSecurity Preach brother

@SwiftOnSecurity Users don't care about NAT, as long as their needs are satisfied So it took off While VPN Tunnels hacked your biggest hacker NAT 😂

@SwiftOnSecurity @threadreaderapp unroll

@SwiftOnSecurity @grok explain this thread to a layman please