Re: [midcom] WG scope/deliverables

[Ed Gerck <egerck at nma.com>]

Keith Moore wrote:

> I expressed an opinion that this group should confine itself to addressing
> short-term goals rather than trying to make NATs a part of the Internet
> architecture.

NATs are already part of the Internet, and gaining share.

> I said this because I've looked at the problem quite extensively.
> The more I have done so, the more have concluded that there's no way
> to restore the valuable functionality that NATs have removed from the
> Internet without providing another global address space, and that it's
> much more efficient and less painful to embellish the NATs to become
> IPv6 routers than it is to embellish both the NATs and applications to
> support a segmented address space.

You miss at least one other possibility.  If it is possible to develop
an addressing scheme that works in a heterogeneous network, then
we can have point-to-point functionality across system borders and
do not require a homogeneous address space to do so.   Now, if you
look into the science of Thermodynamics (for example) you will see that
this involves a meta-problem that was already solved two centuries ago.

NATs are a consequence of a choice rather than makers of a choice.
The choice is to use heterogeneous networks. I contend that the reasons
for this choice can be found in Nature -- for example, to adapt to local needs
without imposing more expensive non-local changes.  This is not an Internet
phenomenon, it is IMO the reflection of a more general principle.

BTW, I agree with Noel's solution that a NAT-haters list might be in order.
Maybe you could call it NAT-not list, to avoid the "hate".  Meanwhile, the
rest of the world would continue to pursue ways to deal with the real-world
needs answered by NATs (and things to come).

Cheers,

Ed Gerck