About this interactive
IPv6 has three kinds of address, and the difference is who receives a packet sent to it. A unicast address belongs to one interface, and the packet goes to that interface: one to one. Link-local, unique local and global unicast addresses, and the loopback address ::1, are all unicast. A multicast address names a group, and every device that joined the group takes the packet: one to many. IPv6 has no broadcast; where IPv4 broadcast, IPv6 sends to a group such as all nodes on the link, ff02::1.
Anycast is the odd one. Several devices, often far apart, are given the same address, and the routers deliver each packet to just one of them, the nearest by routing distance. Public DNS resolvers and content networks use it so that users reach the closest server. Because an anycast address is taken from unicast space, it looks exactly like an ordinary global unicast address: nothing in the hex gives it away, only how it is set up.
Nine of the twenty-four cards are drawn each run, and after you check, every card says which kind of address it is and why.
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