Re: Disabling temporary addresses by default?

[Tim Chown <[e-mail]>]

On 29 Jan 2020, at 09:04, [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]> wrote:

<snip>

The current (draft standard) text in 4941 is:
  "Consequently, the use of temporary addresses SHOULD be disabled by
  default in order to minimize potential disruptions.  Individual
  applications, which have specific knowledge about the normal duration
  of connections, MAY override this as appropriate."

I would like to understand the rationale for removing that text.
Note, 4941bis in it's current form does not have an opinion regarding a default.

Well, in practice some OSes do not follow that SHOULD, but the use or non use is typically governed by the scenario; there is no one-size-fits-all default here, e.g., data centre servers vs users in coffee shops.

RFC 6724 says nothing about the default, being just about address selection not generation, but that "For source address selection, temporary addresses [RFC4941<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4941>] are preferred over public addresses."

RFC 8504 also says nothing about the default, but does say that "devices implementing this specification MUST provide a way for the end user to explicitly enable or disable the use of such temporary addresses.”

So together in principle any user can enable privacy addresses and in doing so they will be preferred over non-temporary addresses.

Tim