Well, perhaps if you view the IETF as a "religion" and NAT as something which violates it's dogma that analogy makes sense.
Here is the thing, not everyone agree's on a common defintion of "harm". Is sex out of wedlock "harm"? How bout eating pork? Drinking wine? It all depends upon the "religion" of the person you ask. Regardless of that, the scientificaly responsible thing for organizations that are concerned with public health issues to do is talk about condom use (including the fact that they are not foolproof). It isn't going to cause people who regard sex out of wedlock as "sinful" from going wild... and isn't going to stop people who don't from engaging in that activity. It's just going to mitigate some of the more negative side effects that behavior might cause. The factual thing that can be said about NAT is that it obscures the literal IP address assigned to an end device from a source on the other side of the NAT boundary. For some that is a desired effect for others it's an undesirable problem. Where you fall on that spectrum is more akin to religion. IETF is never going to get people to reconcile thier conflicting interests there. What it can do is describe the effects that obscurity causes...it can also describe the method by which that obscurity can be performed....so at least everyone can understand and predict how it works...making it easier to account for it when it happens. You are not going to achieve that level of "obscurity" without some form of address translation....and any solution that you do provide to achieve that obscurity will have much of the same side effects that todays NAT does. Christopher Engel > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Moore [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 2:09 PM > To: Chris Engel > Cc: 'Fred Baker'; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [nat66] Terminology: Definition for "IPv6 Realm"? > > > Keith, > > If there is a real desire to do something, people will > do it regardless of what IETF wishes or pronounces. > > > [...] > I would think the wiser course for IETF, rather then to > attempt to control peoples behavior...something which it > cannot do in practicality.... would be to recognize when > there is a legitimate demand for some > function/technology....and provide some guidance/standards > about how that functionality can be implemented...so that > there is a higher level of predictability about how > individual implementations of such functionality would work. > > > That's a bit like saying that some people will go to Hell no > matter what, so religions should encourage everyone to do as > much harm as possible while they're alive. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ nat66 mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nat66
