Re: NATs *ARE* evil!

[V Guruprasad <[e-mail]>]

> IMHO what we need to change is the *implicit* association between
> "host" related identifiers and "network topology" related identifiers -
> so that coders treat them as separate entities, and provide a way
> for the two to be different at the IP layer - while still allowing
> the optimization to take place where it makes sense.  then you
> only need to maintain the mapping for the case where the identifiers
> are different.
> 
> I'm still waiting for folks to see this "overloading" as a design compromise

A fundamentally different approach that does achieve this separation
is described in draft-guruprasad-addressless-internet-00.txt.


> rather than a pure evil.  not overloading at all would be even more evil.

You don't have adequate grounds for the second statement unless you can
formally establish that you have considered all *possible* alternative
architectures. In other words, experiences with Nimrod or early-day relative
addressing, or with UUCP, ATM, SNA, etc, cannot be adequate foundation.
That also excludes potential knocking down of my I-D, but you evidently
haven't read it anyway.


> as it happens, I'm in the NSRG.  but I also think it's useful to have these

Especially where we need to be more careful in positing opinions, lest we
prematurely block out good solutions because of such prejudices and shun away
"newbies" proposing them (to borrow from another thread!).

One might recall that astronomers had a similar complexity problem with the
celestial routing of planets at one time, and the solution, taken for granted
today (but not taught in all schools!), contradicted most educated and
carefully conservative opinions.

I submit a more open attitude might be healthier for the Internet and my I-D :-)

-p.