NATTED address space is useless address space.
On Sat, 5 Apr 2003, Julian Bond wrote:
> Reading the various discussions here, on meshap, and consume.net I'm
> convinced there is a real issue here. I'm also becoming convinced that
> it's hard.
>
> First the environment. With Meshnetworks, Locustworld and others we're
> seeing the emergence of technology that makes it comparatively easy to
> link WLANs. Initially this will be a whole load of small scale
> experiments with two or three APs linked at a time. But there will be
> local pockets where we get a sudden "Mesh Disease" outbreak, and the
> borders of many pockets touch, creating meshes with 100s of APs. This is
> the epidemic model in disease transmission where isolated hotspots merge
> to become a pandemic. At this point, a client device talking to another
> client device within this meshed area have got numerous alternate
> potential routes between them. Some are purely within the mesh, some go
> via gateways in and out of the wider internet. Similarly, a meshed
> client device talking to a server somewhere on the internet may also
> have multiple potential routes through the mesh and then through
> multiple mesh-internet gateways.
>
> Now the admin problem. As long as the pockets are small and involve
> closely linked administrators who know each other, then sorting out the
> routes and NATing all the client devices using a consistent IP address
> range is do-able with just the cup of tea protocol. We all sit down
> round a cup of tea and argue it out. The moment we break out and start
> involving unknown admins across a wide area we need some method of
> coordination. On the wider internet there are well defined rules and
> processes in a hierarchical structure for doing this.
>
> I think WLAN meshing introduces a new issue that hasn't been seen on the
> internet before. The edges of the network are now involved in routing
> outside their control area. And the owners are not part of the
> hierarchy, are not part of any commercial or non-commercial organization
> and are acting independently. The trad approach is for your own little
> island of control to be NATed into a single point of contact with the
> mainstream internet through an organization that plays by the internet
> rules. Link all those NATed islands together behind the gateway and
> there's a fundamental change.
>
> This has parallels with the growth of alternate namespaces such as IM,
> SIP, gnutella/napster/kazaa, Groove, H232. In each of those cases, the
> NAT boundary had to be modified or else relay-name servers had to be
> created to handle the cross NAT traffic. The solutions are usually at
> the application level and not the network level. This is a sub-optimal
> kludge and not very scalable, but it does work. In Meshed WLANs, we
> really don't want that level of overhead.
>
> It looks to me like WIANA was created by Locustworld because they had to
> have something. It's not a general solution, it's a kludge but for now
> it does work. Jon has said that they were unable to get a suitable IPv4
> block allocated to them. He's also said that they couldn't get a
> suitable IPv6 block allocated either. If this is all true, and I have no
> reason to doubt him, then the current system is broken and cannot cope
> with the new Meshed WLAN architecture.
>
> So how to move this forward? I can understand an IETF view that there is
> nothing new here and the existing protocols handle the situation.
> Therefore there's no need for any IETF work. I can also understand the
> frustration because the current social-political way of implementing
> those protocols doesn't allow for the new situation. Expecting ICANN to
> pay attention to this is likely a non-starter given their current
> disarray. Particularly when the people and groups pushing back this
> boundary are small and/or loose confederations of programmers.
>
> So all I've done here is describe (probably imperfectly) the current
> problem. Has anyone got any solutions?
>
>
--
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Joel Jaeggli Academic User Services [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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