[ppml] a modified proposal 2005-8

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> > 3.  How would IP addresses be "associated with my home address"?
> > Do you envision embedding physical address information in the IP 
> > address, like GPS coordinates, or a database owned and operated by the
> > government?
> > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > I think that either GPS or a government DB is most likely.
> > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Is that what you want?
> Can you provide a way of embedding GPS coordinates into IPv6 addresses?
> Does it scale?

>From a policy point of view, we must remember that the
IPv6 address space is finite. At the same time it is intended
to be very big so that it is very hard to use up all of the
space. Any scheme which maps some locator, like GPS coordinates,
directly onto the IPv6 address space, is likely to result in
large amounts of unusable address space due to the fact that
most territory on the earth is covered by ocean or uninhabited
wilderness. Therefore, the only politically tenable scheme
would be one that uses a database. In fact, this type of
scheme is proven to work for interactive applications since
this is how phone number portability works.

Given that such mapping schemes are almost certain to
be based on a database, then there should be no scaling 
problems.

Security issues are another thing. Even if you propose
some sort of address translation scheme that maps a homeowner's
/64 onto the house's /64, this does not automatically allow
either the homeowner or the house to use an arbitrary range.
The power company who wishes to monitor and control home electrical
systems (presumably in return for a better rate) will want to
implement layers of security. One of those layers is a globally
unique IPv6 address range. Another layer is a entirely separate
physical path from the house for this address range. Inside 
devices we can expect that the homeowner's /48 will touch the
same interfaces as the power company's /64, but the device itself
will have some strict routing controls to prevent exchange of 
packets between the two network. The extent of the mixing is 
unlikely to go beyond allowing the homeowner some visibility of
monitoring data and some ability to override settings (if they
will accept loss of their discount during the override period).

If all of this sounds too pie in the sky for you, then we
have a failure of imagination. This is a bad thing considering
how the developers of IPv6 were already talking about an IPv6
address for every lightbulb and light switch over 10 years ago.
Not to mention interplanetary networking. How else do you talk
to the many satellites and interplanetary probes that we send 
out every year? Also, it would be bad to implement an IPv6 
policy that could not be changed in 10 years or 20 years in order
to handle the very real technological changes are in our future.

--Michael Dillon