[ppml] Policy Proposal 2005-9: 4-Byte AS Number

[william(at)elan.net]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com wrote:

>> Absolutely.  Colons are ambiguous with current use of community notation.
>
> 	hum... human readability is the only factor here?
> 	i'd settle for a '-' or even '*' or... '#' ... perhaps 'x'
> 	would be a fine choice.

We should minimize number of symbols used to describe network addresses
as both ip addresses and ASNs are used in the context where they need
to be separated as part of more complex data part.

Using "." or ":" makes sense because these are already in use for ip
and other addresses. It has also become a kind-of tradition that ":" 
separates parts of the numbers when they are written in hexadecimal 
where as "." separates when parts are written as decimal.

Also that we separate 32-bit number into several parts in writing does
not mean somebody else can not write and use the same number as full
32-bit [unsigned] integer. In fact as many of you probably know you can 
use use full 32-bit number as IPv4 address, for example just for fun
try "ping 3231054855" from your dos/unix prompt and then also try
"http://3231054855" at the browser and see where it gets you :)

---
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william at elan.net