Redploying most of 127/8 as unicast public

Fri Nov 19 07:20:35 UTC 2021

Subject: Re: Redploying most of 127/8 as unicast public Date: Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 01:46:04PM -0800 Quoting William Herrin (bill at herrin.us):
> 
> The detractors for this proposal and those like it make the core claim
> that we shouldn't take the long view improving IPv4 because IPv6 is
> going to replace it any day now. Each day that passes with the end of
> IPv4 still not in sight demonstrates how very wrong that strategy is.

Aw, come on. There is noone (except naive ones in power) who expect this
to happen immediately.  We all knew there would be a transition
period. The "improvement" part was CIDR. And a very good one it is at
that -- it sort of sets the standard as to what an improvement should
be to count. 6,25% new addresses from Net 240 is not an improvement in
that regard, and neither would the much smaller contribution from Net
127 be. Both are no more than holding paper money on the deck of the 
Titanic. 

The essence of an IP address is that it is unique. The larger the network
area is that recognizes it as unique, the better it is. That's why RFC
1918 is free and useless.  We all know this.

The only viable future is to convert.  This is not group-think, it is simple math. 

> If there's a change we can make to a standard now which will result in
> IPv4 being better 20 years from now, we should make it. We should hope
> that we never need the result because IPv6 takes over the world but we
> should make the change anyway. Because hedging our bets is what
> responsible people do.

You are proposing a deal involving paper money you have on your person
to your fellow passengers on the Titanic; that is the essence of your
proposed bet hedging. Having studied the market for IPv4, it is a no-
brainer to realise the driving force behind all these schemes. Delaying
the inevitable is just going to make some people richer, to the detriment 
of others.  I see no reason to support that. 

-- 
Måns Nilsson     primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina
MN-1334-RIPE           SA0XLR            +46 705 989668
Yow!  It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank!
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