Re: IAB Statement on Dotless Domains

[Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/12/2013 09:28 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 8:58 AM, Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 07/12/2013 08:16 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

And before people start bringing up all the reasons I am wrong here, first consider the fact that for many years it was IETF ideology that NATs were a terrible thing that had to be killed. A position I suspect was largely driven by some aggressive lobbying by rent-seeking ISPs looking to collect fees on a per device basis rather than per connection.

You are weakening your argument.   NATs still are a terrible thing that need to be killed.   They break applications and prevent many useful applications from being used on the Internet.    That much is more widely understood now than it was 10-15 years ago.

The Internet has less than 4 billion addresses for well over six billion devices.

No, the Internet has approximately 2**128 addresses.   NATs are a large part of the reason that IPv6 adoption has been delayed.

I think that at this point you are the only person still making the argument that the world should reject the easy fix for IPv4 address exhaustion that solves their problems at negligible cost to them for the sake of forcing them to make a transition that would be very difficult, expensive and impact every part of the infrastructure.

You are wrong both about solving the problems and negligible cost.   (And the real issue isn't so much the cost, but who pays.)

But it would be nice if at least one of those people who argued against me when I was making the case for NAT that has now become the accepted approach would say 'hey Phill you were right there, I am sorry for implying that you were an evil heretical loon for suggesting it'. Not that I am holding my breath waiting.

If you were right, someone might say that.

Most folk here value consensus. I do not value consensus when it is wrong.

Nor do I.

Keith