[discuss] IP Protocols and Intranets

Mon Jan 6 16:26:33 UTC 2014

From:  nathalie coupet <nathaliecoupet at yahoo.com>
Reply-To:  nathalie coupet <nathaliecoupet at yahoo.com>
Date:  Monday, January 6, 2014 10:59 AM
To:  John Curran <jcurran at arin.net>, Brian Carpenter
<brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com>
Cc:  "discuss at 1net.org" <discuss at 1net.org>
Subject:  [discuss] IP Protocols and Intranets

> Hi John et al.,
> 
> I have a few questions:
> 1) Could you please explain why IPv6 creates more security concerns by its use
> of MAC addresses than IPv4?

I can't, because I can't see how it does, especially given widespread use of
privacy extensions.

> 
> 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).

I wasn't there at the time, but my understanding is that a variable-length
address field is harder to parse in hardware than a fixed-length field.  It
is impossible to imagine the Internet of 200 years from now, but to get an
idea of how 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses could be used up:
http://xkcd.com/865/

> 
> 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?)

It would cost more and be slower.  Maybe this depends on what you means.  I
take it to mean that each sovereignty would determine for all networks with
it what protocols would be used (or they would decide not to decide).  For
users in that region to reach content in another region, their traffic
(possibly beginning at DNS requests) would have to go through some kind of
gateway or translator.  This would handily centralize all traffic for
national authorities to snoop, and would increase infrastructure costs by
forcing a route (rather than selecting cheapest path), not to mention the
cost of the gateways.  It would impair performance due to the latency of the
gateways, and by forcing a router (rather than selecting the best path).

It would allow governments to have more control over content.  It would be
awful for the Internet.

Lee

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