Addressing plan exercise for our IPv6 course

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Sun Jul 25 07:32:27 UTC 2010


On Sun, 2010-07-25 at 01:42 -0500, Jack Bates wrote:
> This is my concern. A business would rather be assured uniqueness over 
> gambling, no matter what the odds. Given no additional services are 
> needed, the administration cost is the same as handing out snmp 
> enterprise oids. The fact that the community isn't offering such due to 
> politics is disheartening and just plain sad.

"No matter what the odds"? A good business person weighs the odds
carefully and takes calculated risks. 

The chance of a conflict if you choose a random ULA prefix is lower than
just about any other risk an enterprise would even bother considering.
There is much more chance of an employee going postal, of a massive
lightning strike, of a disastrous fire or flood, of a two-week power
outage, than there is of a ULA prefix conflict, and all those things
will cause far more real damage than a ULA prefix conflict.

The risk of a ULA prefix conflict is for *all practical purposes* zero.
It is a far lower risk than almost anything else you probably have
contingency plans for. Not only that, but *even if the event comes to
pass*, it is merely an inconvenience. Not only that but it is an
inconvenience that can be detected in plenty of time and planned for and
mitigated with relative ease.

There may be good arguments against ULA, but the risk of prefix conflict
is not one of them. Please let's stop behaving as if a ULA conflict is
some kind of accident waiting to happen.

If an expert stood up in court and said "the chances that this
fingerprint is the defendant's are a million to one", and the prosecutor
then said "Aha! So you admit it's *possible*!" we would rightly scorn
the prosecutor for being an innumerate nincompoop. Yet here we are
paying serious heed to the idea that a ULA prefix conflict is a real
business risk.

Sheesh, if we professionals can't get a grip on what these tiny, tiny
probabilities really *mean* then how is anyone else going to?

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)

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