[arin-ppml] Straw poll on special policy for electric energyindustry

[White, Andy]

I think it's a natural that any new technology with multiple billions of
potential endpoint addressable devices (even in North America) would be
encouraged to use IPv6.  Certainly there should be some education
involved.  But there is a fairly instructive parallel in terms of how
broadband internet evolved.  Since I've been mucking around with cable
modems since, oh, 1994, I can say that virtually every cable modem out
there has used RFC1918 private IP addresses, and each cable operator has
"reused" the same space over and over.  Just about every home served has
a single public address, typically serving multiple PCs at this point.

If the utilities want to go down the RFC1918 path, I'll feel sorry for
them in advance - but if they put publicly addressable IPv4 addresses on
my smart meter and other devices in my home or office, I'm gonna be
really scared of what happens when they're hacked.  Regardless, I think
the same principles of justification and "efficient utilization" can and
should apply in allocation to utilities just as they would to any other
organization on the Internet.  Intuitively, the limited supply of IPv4
space should translate to a need for most (if not all) utilities
examining their options as soon as they realize they cannot get
addresses to support anything beyond their initial small-scale
deployments.

--Andy White

-----Original Message-----
From: michael.dillon at bt.com [mailto:michael.dillon at bt.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 6:23 PM
To: ppml at arin.net
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Straw poll on special policy for electric
energyindustry

> This seems like an opportunity for education and outreach, 
> rather than for punitive policy.

Do you just put up a "No Trespassing" sign, or do you put 
up a fence as well?

I think most people would put up the fence first, then the
signs.

The Smart Grid plans appear to be even bigger than the cable
industry rollouts that led to net 24 being allocated, and the
special cable industry policies.

--Michael Dillon