Subject: [p2p-sip] Revised Draft Charter for P2PSIP

From: RADHIKA.R.ROY at saic.com (Roy, Radhika R.)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 12:35:10 -0400

Mike and all:
 
I am commenting on NATs.
 
>From IETF point of view, the use of NATs as it is done these days is
"unfortunate."
 
Let us see what had been the history of NAT standardization in the IETF?
 
The IETF charter had been to help the "scarcity" of IPv4 addresses (before
IPv6 even been proposed). It was hoped that, by the time IPv6 is
standardized, there is will be no more requirements of NATs to provide more
address spaces.
 
Now, people have forgot the original usage of NATs. People are using NATs as
a part of "security" for hiding the configurations behind NATs. It is
completely an "illusion" to be happy to know that people are "secured" by
using NATs. It is still going on in a mass scale throughout the world, and
no one knows when this will be stopped.
 
Should the purpose of the NAT standardization be "SECURITY" or "TOPOLOGY
HIDING in the name of security," IETF would NEVER standardized NATs for
these purposes. The rest is history!!!
 
So, it is UNFORTUNATE so far the MIS-use of NATs is concerned because NATs
are not needed anymore due to shortage of IPv4 addresses or NATs cannot
provide security through hiding configurations.
 
Therefore, the draft charter is CORRECT in this context to use the word
"UNFORTUNATE."
 
Best regards,
Radhika

  _____  

From: p2p-sip-bounces at cs.columbia.edu on behalf of Michael Slavitch
Sent: Thu 9/21/2006 10:24 AM
To: David A. Bryan
Cc: p2p-sip at cs.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [p2p-sip] Revised Draft Charter for P2PSIP

I have but one comment:
 
"The working group takes it as an unfortunate fact that NATs and
firewalls exist in the Internet, and will ensure that the protocols
produced work in their presence as much as possible. "
 
The word 'unfortunate' is editorializing, .  NATs have a purpose and people
use them. The IETF doesn't decide what is good. 
Such pejorative comments have no place in a charter.
 
Apart from that I am happy and we should get on with it.  
 
I agree with Henry that three years is a long time but that is a deadline
for the charter, not for the group itself.  Let's deliver ahead of schedule.

Regards
 
Michael

---

From: slavitch at gmail.com (Michael Slavitch)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:32:49 -0400

The "NAT is evil" argument is a matter of faith and belief, a moral
statement that has no place in a protocol working group charter.
Engineering solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible
reality. NAT exists, therefore it must be dealt with. Period.
>From an engineering standpoint, it creates problems that need to be solved
with solutions that reflect the facts on the ground.

The P2PSIP Working Group must be part of the reality-based community, rather
than part of an ideological community, therefore the working group charter
must distinguish consensus external reality from ideologically created
reality if the working group is to be at all successful.  There is
ample evidence that creating one's own reality despite evidence to the
contrary results in failure.

Given that, the word "unfortunate" has no place in an engineering document.
By definition it must be struck.

Regards,

M

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