Subject: Mac number and IP address as URIs

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 14:03:27 -0800

Has anybody else used or seen URIs that serve to carry mac addresses  
and IP addresses?  This draft defines new formats;

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-winterbottom-geopriv-held-identity-extensions-07.txt

Lisa
_______________________________________________
Apps-Discuss mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:45:08 -0500

--On Monday, 03 November, 2008 14:03 -0800 Lisa Dusseault
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 
> Has anybody else used or seen URIs that serve to carry mac
> addresses and IP addresses?  This draft defines new formats;
> 

Well, there is clearly http://#.#.#.#:PPPP/, but you probably
didn't have that in mind.

I've just glanced through the document, but this --especially
doing anything that brings a physical layer device address (like
a MAC address) out to the application/user level -- strikes me
as a singularly bad idea.    If this is really for a physical or
link-level device location and identification protocol --a sort
of super-ARP-- overloading that concept onto URIs strikes me as
a separate Bad Idea (I hope this doesn't mean that someone
should have been following Geopriv more closely from an
architectural standpoint).  

Please note that this isn't just IP and MAC addresses, but a
whole collection of device identifiers, most of them physical
layer or close to it.  See Section 6.3.

In the words of the late Jon Postel, YMBK.

    john

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 08:47:52 +0200

> In the words of the late Jon Postel, YMBK.

Let me suggest you ask for a split of this document in two. One that  
define the URI types, and the one that talk about the application they  
try to build using them. That way you will get better review on the  
URI-review mailing list for the URI definitions.

Then for the application they build, I have the same concerns as John.  
Just talking about Mac-address and IP-address as "identity" make me  
nervous.

The amount of privacy concerns that have to go into the security  
considerations sections will be "not small".

    Patrik

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:01:09 +0100

> URI-review mailing list for the URI definitions.

+1

> ...

Furthermore, independently of the points raised before, my first 
reaction was: wouldn't URN schemes suffice here?

BR, Julian

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:49:00 -0500

> reaction was: wouldn't URN schemes suffice here?

"suffice" is an odd word to use here, because the requirements for URN
schemes are more stringent than those for other URIs.

and no, I don't think URNs are appropriate for this.

But I question their premise that location information can be reliably
derived from source IP address, more than I question the use of these
various identifiers in URIs.  My belief is that source IP address is
quickly going to become much less useful as a location identifier than
it is now.

Keith

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 14:30:11 -0700

FWIW ... UUIDs that are generated using MAC addresses are used for  
some things.

And pretty much every residential NAT made today has a nice web page  
that allows my mom to clone her MAC even if she has no clue what that  
means.