Subject: Re: more on IPv6 address space exhaustion

From: [email-masked] (Sean Doran)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 19:37:09 +0200 (CEST)

Fuel for the B Ark...

Brian Carpenter writes:

| Sorry, this makes no sense at all. There is no way to "restrict"
| certain types of domain name that has any meaningful effect

Eh?  I can assure you that my colleagues and I will defend the
brand value of, for example, ebone.net, by only delegating subdomains
to Approved Entities.  I am sure this  is true of IBM.COM, and could
be true of a hypothetical owner of e.g. kids.tm or .kids.   

Likewise, I can assure you that two of the national top level domains
I have history with vigorously and assiduously "restrict" access
to their TLDs according to policies established by the "owners"
of the rights in that TLD as identified by the IANA.

"Defend" here also implies -- and in some cases has meant --
actual removal of the subdomain delegation entirely when 
the "brand rules" (or TLD rules, where the TLD is effectively a brand)
are violated.

| given the absence of international jurisdiction, and IP addresses
| relate to network topology not to content

It's very simple - if you want a piece of my "branded" TLA,
you have to be logically connected to my network.  In order
for that to occur, you first and foremost have to agree to
my brand's rules, and secondly have to have a virtual connection
to my TLA, or in a CIDR sense, you have to be able to announce
subnets.   This *is* done with IPv4 now -- in fact, IBM itself
announces various subnets of 4.0.0.0/8 (e.g. 4.22.193.0/24)
and 9.0.0.0/8 (e.g. 9.2.0.0/16, 9.3.4.0/24, 9.3.5.0/24 (why not aggregate?),
9.20.0.0/17, ...).  Presumably the ASes originating the longer
prefixes have negotiated with and gotten an OK from the entities
delegated the original covering prefixes.

If we can make that last assumption -- that any globally announced
holes blown into a CIDR-style prefix have an OK from the "owner"
of the TLA -- then surely those holes and anything abstracted by
using logical connectivity rather than announcing longer prefixes
count as "restricting the address space".

Obviously this is a fine thing to fit into the next revision of
draft-ietf-ipngwg-default-addr-select-01.txt, since IPv6 has
the cool property of multihoming-done-by-source/dest-address-pair-
selection, and clearly [SELECT] should say that kids-safe end
systems (e.g., in classrooms, at libraries) MUST always prefer
a kids-safe prefix, even if using that kids-safe prefix is
not the optimal choice in terms of fewest hops, shortest delay,
highest availability, lowest loss, or some other metric.

| so they can't be used
| in this way, whatever misapprehensions some of the commission members may
| be under.

No, no, they are really on to something.  They should push for:

	1/ a formal policy that makes a string of numbers an
	   item of intellectual property (following 1-800-FLOWERS example)

	2/ an entity which is "kids safe" to be granted sole use
	   of a particular IPv6 routing prefix, and which will advertise
	   the existence of this "kids safe" prefix to all and sundry,
	   and will facilitate the use of addresses from within the prefix
	   by approved "kids safe" hosts, by -- including but not limited to --
	     i/ forming a virtual topology to which "kids-safe" hosts, sites,
		or ISPs can connect (a la 6bone)
	    ii/ negotiating with ISPs the carriage of globally-visible
	        subnets of the "kids-safe" prefix in some future "native"
		IPv6 internet, if and only if the "kids-safe" protection
		body approves the delegation of a complete subnet

	3/ the adoption by the IETF of a "pre-fabricated" source/destination
	   address pair selection algorithm which will at the very least:

		-- always choose the "kids-safe" source address 
                   (when sending SYNs to web servers, for example)
		-- raise an alarm or reject connections which are
		   not to or from a "kids-safe" source or destination

It is very clear that IPv6's approach to multihoming is infinitely
superior to IPv4 + CIDR's multihoming scheme, and I am glad to see
that even politicians recognize the opportunities that arise as
a result of this wonderful new technology.

	Sean.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 12:55:53 -0500

I'm not going to play any more.

   Brian

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 14:02:15 -0400

> count as "restricting the address space".

After reading the NANOG mailing list for a while, it's becoming apparent
that often, you can't even assume that a hole blown into a prefix has
an OK from the site *announcing* the hole, much less the owner of the
aggregation....

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Mike Truskowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:59:47 PDT

Maybe I read this wrong... but it sounds like you are 
tieing a domain name to domain content?  Is this true?

mike

---

From: Andy Fletcher <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 20:21:44 +0100

Sean Dorin wrote:

>be true of a hypothetical owner of e.g. kids.tm or .kids.

This could be done in the case of Country/region code TLDs under the 
control of the individual registries. It couldn't be done fairly the case 
of the 'international' TLDs such as .COM .NET and .ORG or any new 
non-country/region specific names because no two countries would agree on 
the interpretation of the guidelines.

If it was pushed through it would have the result that one state, the US, 
would be dictating what is right and good to the rest of the world. The 
definition of acceptable is completely different in the US and Saudi-Arabia 
for example.

The same is true of picking address pairs for 'kid safe' connections. The 
criteria for acceptable systems can only be based on the national laws and 
network addresses allocated to each country concerned.  This means that the 
administrator of a system in China may decide that the Australian 
definition of 'Children safe' was OK but would block the networks in France 
and the UK.

<snip>

>            item of intellectual property (following 1-800-FLOWERS example)
In which country, are numbers intellectual property everywhere ?

>                 body approves the delegation of a complete subnet

Fine for one country in their allocated address space but not 
internationally. I guess you could look at peering arrangements, more 
administration .....

>                    not to or from a "kids-safe" source or destination

Make it a generic algorithm which matches number ranges.  This can then be 
used and interpreted as desired wherever it is needed.

>a result of this wonderful new technology.

Politicians recognising the opportunities, fine so long as they realise 
that it is an international issue. Perhaps they should set up a load of 
conferences to determine an agreed and unambiguous definition of 
'Acceptable' - that should keep them from doing too much  damage for a long 
time.

Andy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 15:44:56 -0500

Andy Fletcher wrote:
...
> network addresses allocated to each country concerned

IP network addresses are not allocated to countries.

  Brian

(OK, I'm not playing any more, but somebody has to correct errors of
this magnitude.)