james woodyatt <jhw@wetware.com> wrote: > That there is a profitable business to be made in selling NAT appliances > to non-technical Internet users is *not* the root cause of the problem. > It's a symptom, and I think the IETF would do very well to think long > and hard about how to solve the real problem illustrated by the ubiquity > of NAT routers in residential settings: strategic opposition to the > end-to-end architecture among large retail Internet service providers. > The first thing I would suggest is to sit back and contemplate whether > the situation bears any resemblance to other problems in which the user > population engages in behavior that results in short-term personal > benefit in exchange for long-term harm to the welfare of society. IMHO, most people who buy Internet access and/or services are not anywhere near as savvy about what the Internet does as most people who contribute to this list. On the other hand, they are particularly savvy about how they want to spend their money. If it costs them less to give several devices (what they believe to be) Internet access by buying a NAT device than purchasing a block from their provider, that's what they're going to do. --gregbo