[ppml] IPv6>>32

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

> The net result is that we're poised to burn through a /1 to a /4
> of the IPv6 address space in the next 60 years based on our best
> current guesses.  This makes me extremely nervous. 

I'm sorry but I cannot understand this sentiment at all. IPv4 has
not even been deployed for 60 years yet and nevertheless we still
have spare addresses and we have created and deployed an IPv4
replacement. I strongly suspect that the engineers of the next
generation, 30-40 years from now, can do the same thing if it
proves necessary. And with the benefit of hindsight that we cannot
have (i.e. a view of the next 30-40 years) they will do a better
job of this than we can.

ARIN should completely avoid this type of policymaking. It is
not the job of ARIN or any RIR to drive today's policy based upon
the hypothetical needs of people 60 years from now. In any
case, nobody will be here in 60 years to use any network protocols.
In case you hadn't noticed, an asteroid will pass close to the
earth in 2029 and if that does not destroy modern civilization,
then it's return some few years later will likely do so.

If people today insist on preparing the groundwork for the
people 60 years in the future, they would do better to set up
classes in stone age technology, identifying metallic ores
and primitive smelting technology. It will be of more concrete
use to the future than attempting to build the present on 
a fantasy that is 60 years too early.

> What the IETF has done is separate a "host portion" and a "routing
> portion" on a /64 boundary.

And our job is not to change IETF designs.

> One item not addressed in any IETF documents is that most sites
> will probably continue to use DHCP to assign addresses. 

Sorry, but I am not going to run a DHCP server on my mobile
phone, on my fridge, on my TV or my stereo or my home lighting
system. I won't be running a DHCP server on my home environment
monitors, on my furnace or on any of my automobile networks
either. I won't be running a DHCP server on my shower control
system or my bathtub or my heated toilet with robotic sanitary
arm. (Don't laugh, this toilet is already on the market in Japan).
In short, I think that you are starting from wrong premises in
your use of the word "host" and "site".

IPv6 is not the same as IPv4. This is not your father's IP protocol.

> To preserve the good, and eliminate the bad, I propose a simple
> change.  Shift all of the current policies to the right by 32 bits.
> That is, the host portion becomes a 32 bit quantity.  EUI-64's
> would no longer be used, all hosts would simply randomly generate
> addresses for autoconfiguration. 

As I said, our job is not to change IETF designs. You are on
the wrong list.

You also fail to see why I do *NOT* want privacy on all my
IPv6 attachment points. When my stove wants to use my Internet
connection to send a message back to the factory with usage
statistics and performance parameters, I am happy to let it
use the IPv6 EUI-64 that the factory encoded in the device.
Of course, I am concerned with privacy so I will route all
this traffic through my time-lapse proxy. This proxy runs
on my mobile phone. When a device in my home sends traffic
through the proxy, the phone network stores it on my
128 gigabyte SD card (I carry around Russian TV series
to watch on the train). When I am away from home, perhaps
on the train or walking down a street somewhere, I tell
my phone network to route the time-lapse proxy traffic out
of a nearby Wi-Fi (802.11z3) network rather than through
my mobile provider.

If you can't get your head around the concepts that I 
have just described, then perhaps you should not be planning
for situations which will not arise for the next 60 years.
By the way, the phone network that I described does not
look like a modern cellphone. Only the handset is similar
to a cellphone but it is lighter because is is just a handset.
The guts of the phone network is in my jacket. I have the main
server/transmitter in the phone pocket (you know, most jackets
have a special pocket to hold your server/tran) and the antenna
is built into the jacket itself. For handsfree, when I don't 
mind looking stupid in public, I use the built-in collar mike
and flip up one of the collar earphones. When my jacket is
hanging in the office, the short range BlueZeeTooth transceiver
in the handset takes care of network connectivity. And I 
have a pocket computer that is usually plugged into the 
computer pocket of the jacket when I'm not using it. Yes,
it also has BlueZeeTooth but that doesn't work so good when
I'm downloading TV shows to watch later. I have a terabyte
compact flash card in the pocket computer. Yes, things will
not be the same in 60 years from now.

> - If we're off by an order of magnitude or more, we don't run out
>   of space.

I think it would be a good thing to run out of IPv6 space in
60 years. It would provide engineers of the future with a great
object lesson in humility. They will know firsthand that an 
engineer cannot always predict the future with confidence and
that some problems just cannot be solved today but must wait
for tomorrow.

> Finally, I'd like to close with a discussion of why I'm posting
> this to PPML.  I've spoken with a number of people about the IETF
> process, and what has been made abundantly clear to me is that the
> IETF is not even remotely interested in opening this issue for
> discussion.

Have you ever heard of something called "working code". There are
hundreds of people making rather smaller changes to IP (v4 and v6)
than you have described and they are actually coding these changes 
into running code, either in network simulators or on real boxes that
they experiment with in the lab. Why should the IETF listen to an
idea that has no running code to back it up?

> This is why PPML is involved.  I think the community needs to think
> about this issue and if it is worth discussing.  I'm not sure my
> proposal is "the best" or even good, but without a straw man to
> dissect the discussion will not be complete.

Well, you can see my opinions. I don't think this is worth
discussing in PPML and I think this particular straw man is
actually made out of synthetic straw with the same chemical
composition as the membrane covering the zeppelin airships of
the 30's. This same material was used in the United States
as the fuel for early ballistic missiles and spaceship engines.

--Michael Dillon