Changes
IPv6
,→Stateless Autoconfiguration and Privacy Extensions
In IPv4, a computer would need to be told its address either manually or by using a network service called DHCP. In DHCP, the computer asks a server to assign it an IP address that is not in use by anyone else.
In IPv6, the address space is so large that a mechanism called "stateless autoconfiguration" can be used. In stateless autoconfiguration, a computer asks a nearby router for the network prefix (the first few digits of the IP address that will be the same for all computers on the network), and then the computer fills in the rest of the bits on its own. Most Linux distributions do this by using the hardware address of the network adapter. This means that by default, your IP address could be used to uniquely identify your computer anywhere on the Internet, threatening your privacy online.
That's where privacy extensions come in. You can configure your Linux machine to generate an address randomly rather than by using the hardware address. We do that by adding a udev rule that enables temporary addresses when a network interface is enabled.