Harald, >> In any event, please note that the suggestion that applications are >> required to use names, rather than IP addresses, is new. ... >> As in, it has not been part of the Internet architecture for the past 25 >> years. HTA> RFC 1958, June 1996: HTA> 4. Name and address issues HTA> yes, "required" is new, and IMHO unspportable. whimsical: ok, so only *20* years... serious: the "required" was intended as the only significant point. (this is worth emphasizing, since it is key to the question of whether apps are "broken" or whether we have a new problem to solve.) Obviously, names have been a part of the Internet architecture dating back before there was an Internet architecture. (My decrepit memory thinks Hosts.txt was present in 1972. If not, it was certainly very quickly thereafter.) d/ -- Dave Crocker <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com> Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com> Sunnyvale, CA USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>