end2end? (was: RE: Where NAT disenfranchises the end-user ...)

Fri Sep 7 18:56:31 UTC 2001

I seem to be able to connect to port-forwarded services behind my 
office NAT firewall just fine from my laptop behind my home NAT box. 
Whats the problem?

jm

At 11:25 AM -0700 9/7/01, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
>On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Mike Batchelor wrote:
>
>>
>>  NAT rewrites certain packet data fields (src addr, src port, sometimes mac
>>  addr).  So does a ordinary router (ttl decrement).  One breaks end2end, the
>>  other does not.  What is the difference?
>>
>>  I think you will find that a definition of "end2end" is a lot more squishy
>>  than you want it to be.
>
>Actually I think It's very simple... in a world were potentially any
>device can be a tcp based server the fredom to connect to it regardless of
>what network it's behind is critical... if all my devices are on different
>networks, behind different nats connecting between them becomes very
>hard... if we have for example, my cell phone behind a nat at my cell
>provider, my home computer, behind my home nat because my provider will
>only give me one ip, and my home nat behind my provider nat, because my
>provider doesn't have enough v4 address space, how do I initiate a
>connection between my cell phone and my home-computer, or vice-versa, if
>we add a third device, my laptop sitting behind a broadband wireless
>providers nat how do I interconnect them, that fact that they're all ip
>enabled has in fact bought me squat.
>
>end-to-end is the freedom to initiate a connection between any two tcp
>enabled devices. something which some of us take for granted in the ip
>world, but which is being rapidly eroded.
>
>joelja
>
>
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>Joel Jaeggli				       joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu
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