[discuss] we need to fix what may be broken

Fri Apr 18 21:02:23 UTC 2014

On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 04:46:35PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
> Just make a policy like the smallest routable block is a /32 (IPv6)
> and you have to be able to justify it.

But this very statement imagines a fanciful world in which there is a
Routing Committee of the Universe who gets to make that policy.  There
isn't.

_Inter_networking is, by definition, voluntary.  It cannot be
otherwise, because if it were that wouldn't be an _inter_net, but one
network.  So I am the only one who gets to decide what my routing
policies are, and what I will do for your packets.

If you are right and Memory Death of the Router Universe is coming,
then the "policy" you are talking about might emerge as a BCP all on
its own.  

But if people want instead to create an Internet Routing Ruling Cabal
that makes these decisions, we just don't have the Internet any more,
because we go from permissionless innovation to supplication to the
Cabal.  I do not think it should become necessary to destroy the town
to save it.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com