Quo Vadis IPv6 - Was: Re: [governance] IPv4 - IPv6 incompatiblity (was Re: Towards Singapore)

[Karl Auerbach]

On 06/18/2011 09:48 PM, parminder wrote:

> On a more practical note, Karl makes a clear case of how the Internet
> has become lumpy and today largely consists of a few mega spaces
> completely owned and run by corporations.

Actually I didn't say exactly that.

Rather, what I was saying was that one *possible* future that *could* 
occur in lieu of IPv6 would be the fragmentation of the net into several 
distinct IPv4 address spaces, connected to one another at the 
application layer rather than at the IP layer.

In other words I was conjecturing that the net could evolve and expand 
in a way that does not require IPv6 but could, instead, be done with 
existing technology and deployed equipment - and often without users 
even knowing that a change has occurred.

My prior note addressed the fact that such a lumpy net would be 
attractive to those who like, or even prefer, internet choke-points - 
and thus would be attractive to governments, intellectual property 
protection interests, data miners, and censors.

But I forgot to mention that *anyone* could set up such a lump - in fact 
we have prototypes of that kind of thing already in the form of NATs.

(NATs have a weakeness in that they need to map things into an address 
space that is logically extended by the 16-bit TCP and UDP port numbers, 
which is a number that is too small for any serious sized lump.  It is 
for that reason why I stress the possibility of a lumpy internet 
connected by application layer gateways - proxies if you prefer - rather 
than NATs.)

Moving away from IPv6:

Personally, I prefer internet structures that enhance the ability of 
individuals to define their own mode and means of communication.

In addition, I believe that it is useful to try to convince people to 
look beyond the baubles of their apps and make them understand the 
value, to each of them personally, of preserving end to end principle. 
However, the pessimist in me says that people will not look beyond their 
baubles and that thus the end-to-end principle is doomed.

Moreover I have not seen enough successful examples of benevolent 
philosopher kings that I would feel safe irrevocably handing over my own 
personal ability to shape my use of the internet to some body that 
claims that it defends (and defines) the public benefit.

	--karl--


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