It has been interesting to watch this discussion, but Eitan and
others have it correct.
The purpose of network addresses is to locate an entity in the graph
of the network. Network addresses are intended to facilitate
forwarding. For forwarding, only the structure of the graph is
important. (Notice I did not say "topology." A topology refers to
the invariant properties of a mapping among sets. A graph is not a
topology. A set of graphs might be. Yes, I know the field abuses the
term all the time. Another failure of education.)
Physical location has nothing to do with the operation of the network
layer. It is all about forwarding packets within the graph formed by
the layer. When one says that network addresses are location
dependent (and they are) it is with respect to the graph of the
network. This is also why addresses must be assigned *by* the
network. Only the network knows where in the graph the nodes are.
(Yes, this means that so-called MAC addresses are not addresses. They
are serial numbers. Neither were IP addresses pre-CIDR.)
All identifiers in computing are addresses and locate something. As
Saltzer says, to resolve a name is to locate an object in a given
context. Things like a so-called flat address is really just an
address used outside its context. For example, MAC addresses locate
the manufacturer and however else the manufacturer used the space.
This is all pretty basic stuff.
At 18:22 -0500 2012/11/11, Eitan Adler wrote:
On 11 November 2012 17:15, Ammar Salih <[email protected]> wrote:
>They use IP address instead, and it's not always about http
applications, how about VoIP applications, now you need another
mechanism?
I believe you were referring to Google here. The wonderful thing
about software is that it is possible for not very good programmers
to do dumb things that will work for awhile. As we have seen in this
field since its inception, it is dangerous to confuse economic
success with good science.
"Well, it works!" is merely an excuse, not an argument for good science.
Take care,
John Day
Nothing stops application layer protocols from sharing one mechanism
.. how about detecting your preferred language for layer-3 routing?
Why does language matter ever matter in the network layer?
It has nothing do with physical location either. So, if you would
put that in why not something else.
as there are many countries with more than one popular language, not
mentioning that many ip registrations does not even reflect the traffic
originating country.
Exactly. You can't infer language from location. Some locations have
multiple valid languages. This isn't a valid use case.
I've explained this in previous parts of the document, mainly
because Layer-3 devices won't be able to recognize the feature, and
also to unify the location implementations at different layers.
Why do layer 3 devices need this information? So far you have
mentioned exactly one use case that *might* be useful.
It doesn't have to be always .. at least now you partially agree :)
I didn't say that. I said that this is the first time I you have
mentioned anything that *could* (not necc. should) be acting at layer
3.
Users currently have absolutely *NO* control over IP<->location
mapping, it's totally how your IP owner has
registered the IP subnet, what I am suggesting is that your local
ISP *can* tag the city location "if it's required", unless you want
to share your exact location or set the location to all zeros, in
this case you are asking the ISP not to tag your location, but in
this case you give up all location based services.
Unless the ISP decides to ignore your "request" and provide the
information anyways. Also, what if your actual location differs from
the IP address range your request is coming from. This can easily
occur from tunnels or mobile networks.
Response: It does not have to be in every IPv6 header, only when there
is location update, also the host should have the option of not to
send location updates.
How does the IP layer know when the *application layer* needs this
information?
*BUT* if it's required by the government/or any other
organization or third party in the future for the sake
of >protecting the copyright laws then the feature will
be >available to support that as well.
How would my ISP know my GPS coordinates? Once again please think
about this in the context of tunnels and mobile networks.
Google.fr example is confusing many people, which I will modify,
policy based routing has much more than routing tcp:80 traffic.
Why should the policy differ based on GPS coordinates?
--
Eitan Adler
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