Subject: Re: [Int-area] overlay networks and the democratizing of address allocations Re: 202203251442.AYC

From: "Abraham Y. Chen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:16:04 -0400

Dear Dino:

0)    I was made aware of a post of yours on Int-Area with the above 
caption:

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/int-area/fUlWayIT8xNPQ-z6nJvE70jnRbM/

1)    The discussion mentioned a couple HuaWei colleagues who invited me 
to be a coauthor on their work entitled "Internet Addressing - Problem 
Statement and Gap Analysis" that was presented at IETF 113 this past 
week. That connection was more about the "numbering scheme" than the 
"overlay network architecture" in specific of your thread.

2)    Upon brief read of your thread, the following:

     "... You would get a random address allocated out of 240.0.0.0/4 
and so would I. ...I would have to tell you my EID, so you can ping it 
and the system would connect us (even through NATs). ...  "

     essentially describes a process of creating an "electronic 
WhitePages" for registering and publishing compatible routers, then use 
"high-usage trunks" (static links) to make the predetermined connection 
between specific routers, instead of the common Internet practice of 
listening for router availability announcements followed by dynamic mesh 
routing. Since (most of) current Internet routers drop packets with 
240/4 addressing, a group of people can communicate utilizing 240/4 as 
long as they can find one another to establish their own overlay network.

3) I believe that our proposal, EzIP (phonetic for Easy IPv4) may be a 
general purpose solution to the above techniques that you have been 
discussing. EzIP approach can establish a world-wide collection of RAN 
(Regional Area Networks) that "enclose" the entire current Internet for 
providing parallel Internet services with its own set of conventions and 
practices (pick and choose desirable resources, while avoiding those 
with negative effects). Please have a look at the below whitepaper and 
let me know your thoughts, so that we may close the loops.

https://www.avinta.com/phoenix-1/home/RevampTheInternet.pdf

Regards,

Abe (2022-03-25 15:15 EDT)

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From: Dino Farinacci <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2022 12:38:01 -0700

>     essentially describes a process of creating an "electronic WhitePages" for registering and publishing compatible routers, then use "high-usage trunks" (static links) to make the predetermined connection between specific routers, instead of the common Internet practice of listening for router availability announcements followed by dynamic mesh routing. Since (most of) current Internet routers drop packets with 240/4 addressing, a group of people can communicate utilizing 240/4 as long as they can find one another to establish their own overlay network.

Yes, but overlay routers do not drop packets to/from 240.0.0.0/4 addresses. And since those EIDs are in encapsulated packets the underlay routers don't see them.

> 3)   I believe that our proposal, EzIP (phonetic for Easy IPv4) may be a general purpose solution to the above techniques that you have been discussing. EzIP approach can establish a world-wide collection of RAN (Regional Area Networks) that "enclose" the entire current Internet for providing parallel Internet services with its own set of conventions and practices (pick and choose desirable resources, while avoiding those with negative effects). Please have a look at the below whitepaper and let me know your thoughts, so that we may close the loops.

I will have a look. Overlays with VPN support do this too. And do it securely.

Thanks for the pointer,
Dino

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From: "Abraham Y. Chen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2022 18:28:56 -0400

Hi, Dino:

1)    "  ...  but overlay routers do not drop packets to/from 
240.0.0.0/4 addresses. ...  encapsulated packets ...  ":     For the 
first part, correct. All SPRs do similarly, because the entire RAN is an 
overlay network, although appears as a private network to the Internet 
core. For the second pat, packets running around a RAN are using the 
basic IPv4 header. There is no encapsulation, at all.

2)    Re: Ur. Pt. 3): Yes, pieces of EzIP ideas and concepts have been 
around here and there. What EzIP does is to put them together in a 
concise and consistent manner to create a new networking landscape.

I look forward to your comments on EzIP.

Abe (2022-03-26 18:28)

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From: Dino Farinacci <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2022 15:56:42 -0700

> 1)    "  ...  but overlay routers do not drop packets to/from 240.0.0.0/4 addresses. ...  encapsulated packets ...  ":     For the first part, correct. All SPRs do similarly, because the entire RAN is an overlay network, although appears as a private network to the Internet core. For the second pat, packets running around a RAN are using the basic IPv4 header. There is no encapsulation, at all.

If you do not encapsulate and can hide the 240 addresses then you translate. Which means your solution is like 128T’s session/flow based routers, that also create an overlay. 

> 2)    Re: Ur. Pt. 3):    Yes, pieces of EzIP ideas and concepts have been around here and there. What EzIP does is to put them together in a concise and consistent manner to create a new networking landscape.

That sounds good. And might imply non-proprietary?

Dino

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From: "Abraham Y. Chen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2022 22:40:03 -0400

Hi, Dino:

1)    Re: Ur. Pt. 1) "  ... hide the 240 addresses then you translate.   
":    I do not understand the terminology "translate" here. Within a 
RAN, all packets use the basic Source and Destination address fields in 
the IP header to carry the 240/4 addresses. Simple as that. I believe 
that this is how all on-premises networks operate with one of the three 
private netblocks. There is no "translate", correct?

2)    Re: Ur. Pt. 1) " ...  your solution is like 128T’s session/flow 
based routers, ...   ":    Again, I have no clue about this terminology. 
My apologies for not being able to respond.

3)    Re: Ur. Pt. 2) " ... might imply non-proprietary?...  ":    This 
is an incorrect interpretation of our EzIP work. Almost every and any 
thing "new" these days are based on something in existence somewhere, 
except perhaps Einstein's E=MC^2 related Theory of Relativity. A more 
down-to-the-earth case would be Edison's invention of the incandescent 
light bulb.

     So, patent claims are normally disclosed as "discovery", not 
invention. More often than not, it is the "novel" combination of the 
existing information known by some, but unknown by others that qualifies 
to be claimed as patent-able. One basic test of this is whether the 
discovery is "obvious". This is very tricky, because to get a claim 
granted, the applicant must describe the discovery sufficiently clear in 
detail so that others familiar with the skill in the same field can 
replicate (called the requirement of teaching the general public). These 
two requirements are fundamentally contradicting to each other. Finding 
the proper compromise is the challenge in patent prosecution.

     One of my patent applications got into this chicken-or-egg loop 
after I responded to several cycles of Office Actions (OA) for 
clarifications. The Examiner finally stated that he understood the 
subject matter now, but it was "obvious". So, he denied to grant the 
patent. Since I had used up the normal OA cycles, it was like a dead 
end. In desperation, I wrote back by saying since it took so much effort 
to make him understand the concept, even without revising the 
specifications, the discovery must be "not obvious". The next 
correspondence from USPTO informed me that the patent was granted!

     For the current EzIP patent application, I was ready to tell the 
examiner how much ridicules that I received over online forums as the 
proof that it was not obvious. But, he could not find any prior art even 
vaguely related to our disclosure. Instead, he started to give me a hard 
time on my writing style and document organization format issues. These 
consumed up the allowed OA cycles. So, I am confident that US Pat. No. 
11,159,425 does qualify to be proprietary.

Regards,

Abe (2022-03-26 22:39)

On 2022-03-26 18:56, Dino Farinacci wrote:
>> first part, correct. All SPRs do similarly, because the entire RAN is 
>> an overlay network, although appears as a private network to the 
>> Internet core. For the second pat, packets running around a RAN are 
>> using the basic IPv4 header. There is no encapsulation, at all.
>
> If you do not encapsulate and can hide the 240 addresses then you 
> translate. Which means your solution is like 128T’s session/flow based 
> routers, that also create an overlay.
>
>> 2) Re: Ur. Pt. 3):    Yes, pieces of EzIP ideas and concepts have 
>> been around here and there. What EzIP does is to put them together in 
>> a concise and consistent manner to create a new networking landscape.
>