Re: IP network address assignments/allocations information?

[Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu>]

> NAT can be used for a variety of things. Perhaps we can agree that it's
> a good hammer when the nail is a home network, and concentrate on what
> to do about the large corporation issue.

NAT is a good hammer for a home network if and only if the only 
purpose of a home network is to allow multiple web clients at home
to talk to servers in the outside world.  

If you want to use a home network to be able to access your devices
at home *from* the outside world - e.g. IP telephony, IP fax, 
instant messaging to your home, IP printing to your home printer 
from elsewhere, setting your vcr, setting your thermostat so that the 
house will be warm when you get there, checking the house temperature to 
see if the air conditioner has died again, taking a peek at the kid 
you've left home with the babysitter (or by himself) to see that 
he's okay, investigating the alert you got from your intrusion 
detection system, personal web server for home or home office -
NATs start to look like a pretty poor hammer even for home use.
(unless, of course, you think the purpose of hammers is to break things)

OTOH, if you combine NAT with 6to4 for home networks, the
picture starts to look a bit better.  Think of 6to4 as the 
generic ALG that rids you of the need to have separate ALGs
for most of the applications that NAT happens to break.

Keith