[discuss] IP Protocols and Intranets

Mon Jan 6 17:24:20 UTC 2014

Off list for now, since I need to understand more and there's some
pressure to minimize list traffic.

On Mon, Jan 06, 2014 at 07:59:59AM -0800, nathalie coupet wrote:

> 1) Could you please explain why IPv6 creates more security concerns by its use of MAC addresses than IPv4?

Why do you think it does?

> 2) Why doesn't the IETF design a protocol for IPvX with a pool of addresses we *know* will never run out instead of renewing the difficult task of changing the routing hardware every so often when faced with the threat of depletion? (even though this might not be the case before several centuries with IPv6).
> 

The way to do this is to create variable-length addresses.  There's a
cost to variable-length addressing, because everything that deals with
addresses has to cope with the variable length in order to make sure
they have the right address.  

To see a (very) rough analogy, consider parsing English sentences.  If
we didn't have initial capitals and end-of-sentence markers, it would
be harder to understand the meaning.  For instance:

    We need some more salad.  Who'll run to the store?

    we need some more salad who'll run to the store

For machines, it's just easier to know "this address is _n_ bits long"
than to have to figure it out.  (You could carry the information with
the address, but this introduces security concerns and yet more
trade-offs.)

So, this was the best engineering judgement of the participants in the
various WGs that decided these things.  Is that an adequate answer?
If not, why not?

> 3) What would designing multiple geographic Intranets do to the overall operation of the Internet (besides wreaking havoc on the business model of Big Data companies such as Google, Facebook and the likes?)
> 

We already have this.  But I think I don't fully understand what you
mean.  Could you say more, please?

> 4) What happened to the project of assigning the IANA function and ICANN responsibilities to the IAB? Why was it dropped?   
> 

Please tell me what you mean by "the IANA function" and I might be
able to hint at an answer.  As I've noted on list before, there's more
than one.  You might also like to look at Jari Arkko's blog post on
IANA and the recent Internet-Draft on the topic.

Best,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com