Subject: Re: [nat66] Necessity for NAT remains in IPv6

From: Roger Marquis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 18:14:48 -0800 (PST)

Keith Moore wrote:
>> My impression is that there is considerable pressure in IETF to
>> NOT publish a standard for NAT66 ... or even discuss the
>> potential utility of this technology in the hopes that somehow
>> ignoring it will make it less likely for it to be utilized.

It's not strange if you follow the money.  Large IPv4 netblock holders
stand to make a considerable profit in the resale market if there is an
address shortage.  These vested interests and their proxies have blocked
honest discussion of IPv6 NAT.

> On one hand it's been reluctant to be honest about how much harm NATs
> cause

Given that somewhere over 90% of devices connected to the IPv4 Internet are
NAT'd, allegations of "NAT harm" would seem to be like those funded by
insurance interest against single payer i.e., without basis but repeated
often in the hope that someone will believe them.

> On the other hand, it's been reluctant to develop any solution to the
> NAT problem that would raise the bar for NATs much at all.

Probably due to the fact that NAT is the best tool for the job, and
substitutes actually raise more issues than they solve.

>The assumption seems to be that we can't fix NATs

This is not an assumption, and there is no fix.

> To me this is the worst of the alternatives available.  Either NATs in
> IPv6 should be discouraged in the strongest possible terms

That's been the approach of the large netblock holders, and, as you can
see, it has effectively blocked adoption of IPv6.  This because end-users
demand NAT, and there is no market for network devices that do not support
NAT.

If there were a better technology than NAT it would have surfaced long ago,
VCs would have funded it, and network managers would be buying it.  But
nobody's onboard the anti-NAT train (except those 'follow the money'
interests noted above).

Roger Marquis