Re: existing (and questionable) application designs [was Re: US DoD and IPv6]

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

> The referral problem he refers to is real, but I see it more as a consequence of the IETF being too rigid in its approach to address numbering.

How would changing IETF's approach to address numbering help the referral problem?

> The basic question here is that we have two hosts that are to connect for a peer-peer protocol in which either endpoint can initiate or respond to a connection request.
> 
> 
> Clearly this is rather challenging if the boundaries between addressing schemes are arbitrary and becomes somewhat simpler in a uniform addressing model.
> 
> But the real Internet is not like that. It is a network of networks and crossing the boundary between a private network and the interconnect space between the networks has consequences.
> 
> One of those consequences is that addresses can change at the private/interconnect border. Another consequence is that crossing that boundary should have security consequences.

In the "real" Internet, the boundary between a private network and "the interconnect space" is fuzzy and arbitrary, especially from a security point-of-view, and becoming moreso all the time. 

> Opening up a port to receive connection requests has considerably greater security consequence than making the request. The requester is opening a communication channel with a single, specified entity, the responder is opening access to any host on the Internet.

And far better mechanisms than "opening up a port" are feasible even within the classic Internet architecture.  If the industry hasn't provided them, that's not the fault of the architecture.

> So opening a port is an event that should be mediated by access control at the host level and private/interconnect border at a minimum. In a default deny network there will be additional policy enforcement within the private network. 

There's a fundamental problem in that people have come to expect that somehow the network is responsible for keeping hosts secure from attack.  Again, that's not the fault of the architecture.

Keith