Subject: RE: Reality (was RE: Stupid NAT tricks and how to stop them.)

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:24:48 -0700

> Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> The problem is that nothing matches historical growth, because it
> contains elements that have proven resistant against modeling.

That's the way I see it myself.

> Until that time, I'll continue to assume 2010 - 2015 with
> 2012 as the most likely moment for IPv4 to run out.

In the big scheme of things, I actually don't see what it changes to
know the exact date now anyway.

> We only get to cry wolf so many times.

And we have cried a lot over the last 10 years (including doom
predictions over Y2K). As of today I don't see people doing anything
until they actually see the wolf. And I think they won't even do
anything then until the wolf proves to be a big annoyance, which remains
to be seen.

> When we run out of IPv4 space obviously very many people will
> have IPv4 addresses and they'll want to keep using them.

Indeed. And in the case of the US (and to a lesser extent other
industrialized countries) 3 to 4 addresses per capita are enough for a
very long time. It is possible that the US will remain a v4 deal
forever, as many Americans are not interested in what happens elsewhere
in the first place.

To me, the interesting thing is not WHEN it will happen; it's WHAT
happens when it does and what we can do about it.

> There is however and interesting policy question: should we
> allow IPv4 addresses to be sold? Some people are in favor of
> this, but I  don't see the upside of formally allowing it.
> (People are going to do it to some degree anyway.)

I think it's too early to have good decision arguments about what to do
about this. The wealthy (meaning: can afford to pay $10/month for an
address) will have an address no matter what. The supply is limited but
so is the demand, it certainly will be interesting to see what an IP
address is really worth.

My take on it is that we have to wait a year or so and see how the black
market develops and how bad it is. Generally speaking, the addresses
already are where the money also is; unless dramatic socio-economic
changes happen I don't see much movement there. The demand is not how
many people want IP addresses; the demand is how many people want
addresses times how much they can spend on one. Also, some governments
might actually like the double-NAT idea, as it somehow restricts free
flow of information and might appear more controllable.

> Noel Chiappa wrote:
> Some clever people worked out this ugly hack, which the
> marketplace judged - despite its ugliness - to be a superior
> solution to the forklift upgrade to IPv6.

I don't think the market decided it was "superior". The market decided
it was good enough, cheaper, and easier.

> Don't be surprised if the world, facing "complete exhaustion of the
> IPv4 address space (Version 2)" decides, yet again, that some sort
> of Plan B is a better choice than a conversion to IPv6.
> I have no idea exactly what it will be (maybe a free market in IPv4
> addresses, plus layered NAT's, to name just one possibility), but
> there are a lot of clever people out there, and *once events force
> them to turn their attention to this particular alligator*, don't be
> surprised if they don't come up with yet another workaround.

I agree with Noel here.

Michel

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From: Peter Sherbin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:00:43 -0700 (PDT)

> it certainly will be interesting to see what an IP
> address is really worth.

  It is worth about the same as a postal address that comes naturally when they build a new house. In a similar way when a new device comes to existence it gets an address out of infinite universe of 0 and 1. 
   
  The actual cost driver here is a need for an operator (e.g. Postal Service or ISP) to maintain a list of all existing addresses to be able to provide their services.
   
  Technically IP address is an enabler of a service rather than the service itself such as e.g. delivery of a message from A to B. As such addresses should not be sold or rented, they just come with devices. IP addresses, in particular IPv6 ones, is more a common good that we all share such as air rather then an item produced for sale by someone who incurres costs during production.
   
  [email-masked]

I agree with Noel here.

Michel

		
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From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:39:35 +0200

Peter Sherbin writes:

> It is worth about the same as a postal address that comes
> naturally when they build a new house. In a similar way when a new
> device comes to existence it gets an address out of infinite
> universe of 0 and 1.

That would only be true if IP addresses were geographically assigned,
which they aren't.

You know, you could assign IPv6 addresses in a strictly geographic way
and you'd have more than enough for everyone, everywhere, with very
simple routing.  But of course that won't be done.

> The actual cost driver here is a need for an operator (e.g.
> Postal Service or ISP) to maintain a list of all existing addresses
> to be able to provide their services.

Not necessarily.  If the addressing is strictly geographic--n
addresses for each area of m square metres on the planet--routing
would be very simple and wouldn't require much in the way of tables.

With 78 bits, you can address every millonth of a second of arc in
latitude and longitude on the planet.  That's an area of about 0.00095
square millimetres.

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:26:21 +0200

>> device comes to existence it gets an address out of infinite

Maybe in some part of the universe addresses are infinite, but in the  
part where I live it's mostly 32 bits.

> simple routing.  But of course that won't be done.

No, routing would be more complex. Routing is the art and science of  
getting to a place, which is a lot harder than simply knowing where a  
place is.

However, geographic addressing could give us aggregation with  
provider independece. If you examine European routes in the routing  
table of a router on the American west coast, you'll see that the  
vast majority of those routes point towards the same next hop. So if  
you could express an aggregate that encompasses all those routes and  
point that aggregate towards that next hop, you could filter out all  
those specific routes and the routing table in that one router would  
be a lot smaller. At each hop the number of routes that have a  
different next hop than the aggregate increases, until at some point  
the aggregate doesn't serve a useful purpose anymore. But by then  
you're in Europe or at least on the American east coast, where you  
can heavily aggregate Asia.

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From: Peter Sherbin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:34:52 -0700 (PDT)

>You know, you could assign IPv6 addresses in a strictly geographic >way and you'd have more than enough for everyone, everywhere, 
  > with very simple routing. But of course that won't be done.
   
  In fact some people are doing this today within their networks. IPv6 marveles ability to "address every millonth of a second of arc in
latitude and longitude on the planet" drives the entire excitment and funding.
   
  Private networks aside IP address allocation maybe needs to be done on a strictly geographical basis in a politically neutral fashion, e.g. via UN sponsored RIR / LIR. We may need an RFC on how to fund IANA activities through UN allowing "free" allocation of addresses to any interested individual or establishment.
   
  [email-masked] 

"Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]> wrote:

			
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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:58:29 +0200

...
> However, geographic addressing could give us aggregation with  provider 
> independece. If you examine European routes in the routing  table of a 
> router on the American west coast, you'll see that the  vast majority of 
> those routes point towards the same next hop. So if  you could express 
> an aggregate that encompasses all those routes and  point that aggregate 
> towards that next hop, you could filter out all  those specific routes 
> and the routing table in that one router would  be a lot smaller. At 
> each hop the number of routes that have a  different next hop than the 
> aggregate increases, until at some point  the aggregate doesn't serve a 
> useful purpose anymore. But by then  you're in Europe or at least on the 
> American east coast, where you  can heavily aggregate Asia.

You'll have to produce the BGP4 table for a pretty compelling simulation
model of a worldwide Internet with a hundred million enterprise customers
and ten billion total hosts to convince me. I'm serious.

     Brian

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:11:46 +0200

On 11-apr-2006, at 15:58, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

>> provider independece.

> and ten billion total hosts to convince me. I'm serious.

Which properties would you like to examine in such a model? It  
shouldn't be too problematic to simulate a routing table of 100  
million entries (I'm assuming there won't be any host routes...) in  
non real time, but simulating the interactions between several  
routers per AS for several ASes will be harder at this scale.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:29:49 +0200

Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> shouldn't be too problematic to simulate a routing table of 100  million 
> entries (I'm assuming there won't be any host routes...) in  non real 
> time, but simulating the interactions between several  routers per AS 
> for several ASes will be harder at this scale.

Yes, simulating convergence times would be quite a challenge.
So I think a sufficient initial target would be the converged
BGP4 table in a core ISP. Even that will need a model for how
enterprises, ISPs, ASes, peering and exchanges are distributed
around the world. Lots of assumptions to specify.

    Brian