IPv6 End User Fee

Sun Aug 5 10:22:32 UTC 2012

On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 06:53:48PM -0700, Owen DeLong wrote:

> This ignores the many many studies of the idea of geo-based
> addressing which have proven its unfeasibility as well as the

I disagree that the studies have looked at the problem
space from the right angle. 

> fact that not everyone wants their address to reflect the exact
> coordinates of where the box is located.

Routing efficiency and anonymity are mutually exclusive.

Apart from geoip databases triangulation via time of
flight will nail you down in space in any case.

Anonymization should be a function of an extra layer,
just as Tor and I2P etc. are doing it for TCP/IP.

> Also, any such scheme would depend on defining an arbitrary
> "minimum" sized box and ignores the possibility of needing
> many addresses for the same physical box containing multiple
> virtual nodes.

You cannot have two physical switches occupying the
same space. 128 bits is quite enough to physically
address each cubic micron in 1/3rd of Earth volume.

> It sounds great in theory until you actually compare it to the
> real world.
> 
> IP addresses are not physical addresses and trying to

/64 is enough to abuse parts of IPv6 to encode physical
coordinates.

> correlate them only leads to artificial limitations and other
> problems.

Interesting. I see the current IPv4/IPv6 model full of
artificial limitations that go away if you remove the
centralistic governance model.

> >>> Luckily, /64 looks like large enough to bypass that
> >>> by offering address space sufficiently large while
> >>> co-existable with legacy addressing and routing. 
> >> 
> >> Why on earth would you be messing around within /64? It should be easy enough to get a /48 (it certainly is now).
> > 
> > It's a lowest common denominator, at least as long the 
> > ISPs are playing by the rules. If end users conspire to use
> > a new addressing scheme bypassing the ISP infrastructure
> > as the crow flies, a freely modyfiable address field
> > within your ISP-assigned address space is the best label
> > you can hope for. 
> > 
> 
> Uh, good luck with that.

Do you see problems with this scheme? There's considerable
interest and momentum in end user owned routing infrastructure,
including wireless ad hoc meshes across urban areas.

> >>> I hope eventually somebody will start
> >>> tinkering with mesh radios which also have GPS 
> >>> onboard (as most smartphones and tablets do).
> >>> 24 + 24 + 16 bits are just enough to represent
> >>> a decent-resolution WGS84 position fix. Plus,
> >>> GPS gives you a pretty accurate clock.
> >> 
> >> That could be an interesting project. Limiting it to a /64 still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
> > 
> > I'm actually glad it's a /64. MAC space is a lot more cramped,
> > and that information doesn't travel at all far. 
> 
> 
> You misunderstand... I'm suggesting a /48 (65,536 /64s), not
> a /80 (48 bits to mess around with).

You can't have the same /48 getting routed to random end
users all over the world. But each of these users can
use the local /64 as scratch space that will be preserved
as it travels across IPv6 Internet.