[ppml] Dynamic IPs and IP runout

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of
>mack
>Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 8:17 PM
>To: ppml at arin.net
>Subject: [ppml] Dynamic IPs and IP runout
>
>
>This is sure to create a firestorm so flame away:
>
>The biggest consumer of IPs is for end workstations.
>These could be converted to NAT but there is currently no 
>incentive to do so.
>My home ISP still allocates dynamic ips for each DSL modem.
>
>On the other hand most of these end users are concerned with 
>services available
>on the internet ie. smtp, ftp, http, https, IM,
>voip (which has various implementation some of which don't work 
>well with NAT).
>
>These service for the most part don't work with both parties behind NAT.
>Additionally, high BW http sites can't be easily placed behind NAT 
>due to flow
>limitations on network equipment.
>
>Some cable providers have already converted to NAT and I routinely 
>deal with
>double NAT issues at work from end users.
>No one who does actual networking likes NAT, but I think more home 
>users should be
>pushed behind it.
>
>Obviously some home users operate home businesses and such.
>We all have sidelines.  Therefore if this direction is headed we 
>need to provide exceptions.
>
>If most users were placed behind NAT they wouldn't notice (except 
>the ones running
>bit torrent, slingbox and VOIP). 

The newest NAT devices do not have a problem with VoIP phones.  I
have been deploying Linksys RV042's at certain customer sites and
their VoIP phones wok fine behind them.

All NAT code contains exception routines for the icky protocols.
Look at the code under the free BSD unixes (where NAT was first
written and made available - I had FreeBSD NAT boxes running in 1997
at the company I was working at - at least a year before it came out
in Cisco IOS version 11.2) and you will see a ton of them, and
more added every year.

>Most of my relatives use two applications
>http and smtp (ie. web and e-mail) and wouldn't recognize the acronyms.
>Most businesses don't use much else either and they restrict bit 
>torrent and the like.
>

Some of those are used almost exclusively for sharing illegal
pirated stuff and frankly my personal feeling is I'm not pouring
my blood, sweat and tears into my network just so some jerkoff
can download a movie illegally that he could walk 5 blocks to
the video start and buy for $9.99  (or check out from the
library for free)  If NAT breaks their stuff, so what.

>Perhaps we should be pushing reclamation efforts this direction.
>I know the legacy blocks look nice and juicy but the fact is home 
>users are a softer target.
>

It won't happen.

I'll use a simple example.  About 2 miles away from here is a
grocery store.  In it, you can buy apples for 80 cents a pound.

About 1 mile away from here is a large vacant abandonded field
that has a parking lot next to it.  About 200 feet away from the
lot is an apple tree. (part of an old orchard)  When the apples
are in season they are delicious.  The ground under the tree is
covered with rotten ones that have fallen off the tree.

To pick apples off a tree like that requires a fruit picker which
is basically a coffee can on a pole. (I have one)

When the tree is in season you can spend about 10 minutes and
pick a bag of apples. (I do)

When apples are in season, how many people do you estimate
actually do this?  If your estimate is zero, you would be
just about right.

Most people would rather do the grocery store routine because
they all feel their time is so valuable that they cannot afford to
take the 10 minutes to get a result that tastes 100 times better than
the stuff in the store.

Your not going to see ARIN tell a large ISP with hundreds of thousands
of customers to put all of them behind a translator and then hand back
over part of their IPv4 holdings that are freed up - even though as
you point out, it may be technically rather easy to do it.

The politics of it are just wrong.  Your going to get more support
for going after a lost /8 that isn't being advertised in BGP
than for going after the softer targets.

Nobody in the US or Europe wants to be out in the field, picking
the apples one by one by one.  They are all going to go into the
store and buy them.

In other countries they don't have this problem - people will pick the
apples.

But in the Western culture the people will not accept a scheme like
what your proposing.  It goes against what they think is the normal
way to do things.  They will accept a scheme of going after the juicy
ones because "that is what common sense would tell someone to do"
Most have not come to understand that common sense is a cultural
thing that is programmed into them.

Enjoy the apples, though.

Ted