Where NAT disenfranchises the end-user ...

Mon Sep 10 06:23:48 UTC 2001

On Sun, 09 Sep 2001 17:42:25 PDT, Adam McKenna <adam-nanog at flounder.net>  said:
> To tell you the truth, I don't really care what products were shipping NAT
> first -- the fact still remains that NAT was not some hack created by a small 
> group of people so that the "poor dialup user" could take revenge against the 
> evil ISP that won't give out more than 1 IP for $20/month (as Meyer would 
> have you believe).  It is a documented standard, brought about by the IETF as 
> a means of conserving IPv4 space.

1) It wouldn't be the first time the IETF has standardized a hack.  Anybody who
doesn't think so is invited to read RFC822, section 3.1.4, ponder the example
given, and ask why people were surprised that few 822 parsers were non-buggy.

2) It would seem to me that if your ISP is being difficult about giving out
more IP addresses, using NAT to take revenge *is* conserving IPv4 space.
You're restricting your usage of external addresses - just as an end user
you're doing it out of financial considerations, not any grandiose altruistic
for-the-benefit-of-the-net reasons.

But then, we all know that altruistic suggestions are (a) off-topic for
this list and (b) always create a flame-fest anyhow. ;)

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech