Subject: RE: NATs as firewalls

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:25:58 -0000

> Recovering three-quarters of an /8 delays the moment of truth by less 
> than a month. Work hard and you might gain a year or even more, but 
> would that year really make a difference?

And that is why there will never be a market for IPv4 addresses. Any
trading activity can only ever buy a few months of time for the buyer.
After that, they have to migrate to IPv6 like everyone else. Eventually,
some companies will shut down IPv4 infrastructure and release IPv4
addresses, but that is only going to happen once IPv6 is well and truly
proven in their network. In order to shut off a network, 100% of the
traffic has to be shifted to a replacement infrastructure. How many of
you know of X.25 networks still in operation?

--Michael Dillon

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:37:26 -0700

The problem is that until IPv6 has critical mass it is much better to be on IPv4 than IPv6. 

If there are any grad students reading the list take a look at the game theory literature and apply it to the transition. Assume that it's a rat-choice world and that each actor follows their best interest.

An actor can be in one of several states:

Unconnected
IPv4 connected with own address
IPv4-NAT connected with NAT address
IPv4/IPv6 connected Dual stack
IPv4-NAT/IPv6 connected Dual stack
IPv6 connected

There are certain costs associated with the various transitions. The benefit of being in the IPv4 or IPv6 network is proportional to the size of the networks.

I don't have time to run full simulation runs but my preliminary trials suggest that IPv6 is not relevant to the IPv4 exhaustion issue.

The reason is that the participants are all going to cluster into IPv4/IPv6 or IPv4-NAT/IPv6, there is no incentive I can see to transition to the pure IPv6 state and release the IPv4 addresses.

Unless you assume that there is a very considerable value to IPv4 over IPv4-NAT all that happens during address exhaustion is that larger and larger proportions of the net disappear behind NATs. In effect you end up with the two speed Internet we want to avoid.

Rather than fight the dynamics of a market with a billion participants I believe that we should embrace them and remember that taking IPv4 to end of life is not exactly an unacceptable outcome. The key is to channel people into IPv4-NAT/IPv6 rather than IPv4-NAT.

The way that I would go about this is to introduce a gold standard for next generation gateways that provide other features that the consumer is likely to consider desirable. Like being maintenance free, working without the complaints and setup time that current devices require.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:26 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: NATs as firewalls
> 
> And that is why there will never be a market for IPv4 
> addresses. Any trading activity can only ever buy a few 
> months of time for the buyer.
> After that, they have to migrate to IPv6 like everyone else. 
> Eventually, some companies will shut down IPv4 infrastructure 
> and release IPv4 addresses, but that is only going to happen 
> once IPv6 is well and truly proven in their network. In order 
> to shut off a network, 100% of the traffic has to be shifted 
> to a replacement infrastructure. How many of you know of X.25 
> networks still in operation?
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
>

---

From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:53:00 +0000

> IPv4-NAT/IPv6 connected Dual stack

Unfortunately most of the rats cannot choose certain states, so the game
is fundamentally flawed.   The ISPs are keeping the cheese to themselves.

Squeak.

-- 
Tim

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:05:54 -0400

Interesting angle here ;-) 

> The ISPs are keeping the cheese to themselves.
But, the current kind of cheese is running out, and is a little "stinky" 
in ways.  The new kind of cheese is very abundant, but unfortunately comes 
at an opportunity cost to get to it from here. 

Looking at this from game theory angle, looks like a setup for a long 
period of holdoff (protect interests) followed by a massive and rapid 
flood to the other camp (fight for the new pie ... er ... cheese). 
(caveat, armchair game theorist ;-)

-- Peter

Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
15.03.07 10:53
 
        To:     [email-masked]
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: Game theory and IPv4 to IPv6

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 07:37:26AM -0700, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
> If there are any grad students reading the list take a look at the game 
theory literature and apply it to the transition. Assume that it's a 
rat-choice world and that each actor follows their best interest.

Squeak.

-- 
Tim

---

From: Jeroen Massar <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:09:42 +0000

> The problem is that until IPv6 has critical mass it is much better to be on IPv4 than IPv6. 

Yes, because of latency, No because of NAT's.

> If there are any grad students reading the list take a look at the game theory literature
> and apply it to the transition. Assume that it's a rat-choice world
and that each actor
> follows their best interest.

[ postgrad hat on ;) ]

There is a reason why companies like Demonware
(http://www.demonware.net/) exit, they exist solely to provide for a
cleanup of the IPv4 mess with NAT's by providing a stable stack that
allows them to get around most NAT issues by using mechanisms like STUN.

Note that MS has given a very lucrative way of solving this problem by
providing Teredo support; games and other programs simply use IPv6, all
the NAT issues get solved automagically by Teredo.

> There are certain costs associated with the various transitions.

Latency being the number one problem. Every millisecond extra causes
annoyance to users. Unfortunately due to the state of deployment of
Teredo relays and other similar techniques these are not usable (yet).

The quake approach: client<->server works though. P2P is out of the
question in many of those cases though.

> The benefit of being in the IPv4 or IPv6 network is proportional
> to the size of the networks.
> 
> I don't have time to run full simulation runs but my preliminary
> trials suggest that IPv6 is not relevant to the IPv4 exhaustion issue.

IPv4 will run out either way. IPv6 won't slow it down for a even a day.
Most, if not all, people using IPv6 also have IPv4 connectivity. IPv6
connectivity in general is non-NATted, while IPv4 is behind a NAT. Want
to connect to that box behind the NAT? Just use IPv6 and problem solved.
Some people tend to just throw around VPN's to those places though.

> The reason is that the participants are all going to cluster into
> IPv4/IPv6 or IPv4-NAT/IPv6, there is no incentive I can see to transition
> to the pure IPv6 state and release the IPv4 addresses.

The whole idea of transition is dual-stack. Some people will be on IPv4,
others on IPv6. Servers and gateways (SMTP style) will connect them.

For instance if you have a IPv6 enabled Quake server (thanks Viagenie)
then IPv4 players can also connect to it.

> Unless you assume that there is a very considerable value to IPv4 over
> IPv4-NAT all that happens during address exhaustion is that larger and
> larger proportions of the net disappear behind NATs. In effect you end
> up with the two speed Internet we want to avoid.

No, there is no considerable value of IPv4 over IPv6. There is a
considerable value of IPv4 over IPv4 NAT though due this the simple
concept called End-To-End, which with IPv6 gets restored so that hosts
at least get their own IP address again, avoiding all the rattraps
introduced by NAT's. Then again, firewalls can block those people off
also again, but that is then the network policy, not because they can't
at all do it. (Don't play games at work folks ;)

> Rather than fight the dynamics of a market with a billion participants
> I believe that we should embrace them and remember that taking IPv4 to
> end of life is not exactly an unacceptable outcome. The key is to channel
> people into IPv4-NAT/IPv6 rather than IPv4-NAT.

It also depends on game companies. They should make their games IPv6
compliant so that they at least support it. I am explicitly not saying
that they should do IPv6 per default as that will hurt performance in
all the cases where quality IPv6 connectivity is unavailable. A toggle
to enable it though would be a great step forward. Servers supporting it
on the public Internet will then be a second step.

> The way that I would go about this is to introduce a gold standard for
> next generation gateways that provide other features that the consumer
> is likely to consider desirable. Like being maintenance free, working
> without the complaints and setup time that current devices require.

Greets,
 Jeroen
 (hoping that Enemy Territory - Quake Wars supports IPv6...)

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:58:15 -0700

So the rational choice actors here are the ISPs not the end-users.

Build that constraint into the model. 

> From: Tim Chown [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:53 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> > If there are any grad students reading the list take a look 
> at the game theory literature and apply it to the transition. 
> Assume that it's a rat-choice world and that each actor

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:58:15 -0700

---

From: "Eric Gray \(LO/EUS\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:35:31 -0500

Not sure I'm phrasing this correctly in this context, but I don't think
that service providers are the "rational choice actors" in this scenario
- any more than equipment vendors are.

It seems to me the main "actors" in applying gaming to this problem are
still the end users.  It is the case that their actions are limited by
multiple levels of indirection, since end users affect service provider 
choices (via service selection), which then affects vendor choices (via 
equipment purchases).

In the "actor" mix are equipment vendors (who must justify R&D expenses
in terms of their customer willingness to spend money), service
providers 
(who likewise need to justify the amortization of capital expenses and 
the expected additional operating costs in terms of their own customer's

willingness to spend money) and end users (whose willingness to spend 
money on both services and equipment is somewhat vaguely assumed).

On the flip side, the services that a service provider may offer are
limited by the capabilities of the equipment that vendors provide and
- obviously - the services end users may choose are limited by what's
offered to them by service providers.

I suspect that what makes this hard to use predictively in general is an
entirely subjective "guess" that has to be made with respect the degree
of flexibility the actors have in accepting choices presented to them
by other actors.  At what point will end-users choose no services over
any of the service options presented to them?  At what point will
service 
providers, end-users, or both, choose not to buy any equipment over the
equipment choices presented to them?

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> From: Hallam-Baker, Phillip [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:58 AM
> To: Tim Chown; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Game theory and IPv4 to IPv6
>

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:53:47 +0900

Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:

> there is no incentive I can see to transition to the pure IPv6
> state and release the IPv4 addresses.

Just FYI,

INTERNET DRAFT                                                   M. Ohta
draft-ohta-address-allocation-00.txt       Tokyo Institute of Technology
                                                            Geoff Huston
                                                     Telstra Corporation
                                                         Masaki Hirabaru
                                                     Merit Network, Inc.
                                                               Jun Murai
                                                         Keio University
                                                                May 2000

           Usage Based Address Allocation Considered Harmful

The More Restricted Assignment Plan

      No IPv4 address space should be allocated to an ISP, unless the
      ISP support fully operational fully transparent IPv6 service with
      at least 64K IPv6 subnets to all the end users.

							Masataka Ohta
PS

Your mistake is insisting on release of IPv4 addresses, even though
exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is an incentive for IPv6 transition.