Subject: Central registries (was RE: Chinese IPv9)

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 10:00:41 -0700

Paul, this IPv9 hoopla strikes me as another research project harping
the nationalistic chord in order to get funding. This is not exactly
news. It was a common undertone in many European research proposals in
the 1980's and 1990's, and it is also a classic line in NSF or DARPA
proposals. The officials in the Chinese government may fall for that
line a few times, but I believe that they are smart and will eventually
allocate their grants based on technical merit rather than non-technical
arguments.

There is however an interesting technical point behind all these
discussions of number allocations. The general Internet architecture is
largely decentralized, but we have accepted to rely on a few centralized
functions. The obvious ones are DNS names and IP addresses, but there
are many others, such as port numbers and generally the various
registries held by IANA.

Centralized registries are expedient, and are not a big concern when the
network is small, or when the central authority is virtuous. However,
the network is big and the central authority becomes a locus of power.
The history text books teach us that loci of power attract politicians
and politician-friendly profiteers, and the Internet does not appear to
be an exception.

It seems that we, the IETF community, have been complacent to
centralization and have dug ourselves in a centralization hole. We may
hope to get out of it by ensuring that ICANN remains in charge and
remains virtuous, but that goes very much against all historic
precedents.

When in a hole, one should obviously first stop digging: that would mean
a moratorium on the creation of IANA registries. One should also think
hard about technical alternatives to central registries. In some case,
that may mean a slightly larger field in a protocol format, so a large
random number can be used instead of a short registered number. In other
cases, like name resolution, that may require a technical break-through.
But we should definitely think about it!

-- Christian Huitema

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From: Nathaniel Borenstein <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:38:14 -0400

Christian -- Your mesage seems to presume rather optimistically that 
there can be a workable technical alternative to central registries.  
If not -- and I'm skeptical -- your "stop digging" advice might 
translate into "stop improving the net."

At the very least, it's an open question whether it is possible to 
build an Internet without central registries.  Until we prove otherwise 
-- and I  would certainly support research and experiments to devise an 
alternative -- central registries will remain essential, and no amount 
of wishful thinking will eliminate the need for a *political* solution 
to the management question.

The IETF is in the business of technical solutions, but that doesn't 
mean that there *is* a technical solution to every problem.  Where 
there isn't (or might not be) it is our duty to make the public and 
politicians aware of the political issues and the technical tradeoffs.  
(The fact that such political discussions tend to be messy and 
unsatisfying doesn't make the duty any less real.)  We should be 
careful not to dodge this responsibility by pretending that we're sure 
we can come up with an alternative when there isn't one on the horizon.

In short, I think it would be a mistake to declare a "moratorium on the 
creation of IANA registries" without at least a plausible theory about 
what kind of alternatives might be possible.  -- Nathaniel

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:28:37 -0400

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "Nathaniel" == Nathaniel Borenstein <[email-masked]> writes:
    Nathaniel> Christian -- Your mesage seems to presume rather
    Nathaniel> optimistically that there can be a workable technical
    Nathaniel> alternative to central registries.  If not -- and I'm
    Nathaniel> skeptical -- your "stop digging" advice might translate
    Nathaniel> into "stop improving the net."

  I think that there are many places where we can do without a central 
registries. Alas, the places that are the easiest are also the places
where it matters the least.
  
  This doesn't mean stop improving. It means do so with some thought.
  And the places where it matters the most - allocation of prefixes for
IPv4 and IPv6, are already done deals.

  This is why I was and I still am interested in geographically based
allocation of addresses. Something that does not require any registry,
such as Tony Hain's proposals, or various mutations of it. 
  Even if they do not result in efficiencies in the routing table, I
think they would go a long way to making people happy. It won't make
China happy --- the last thing they want is every rice farmer to have
his own /48 that he can number each of the rice grains he produces with.
  China wants their own central registry, IMHO. Geo-allocation would
make any arguments about central registries more clear -- it would tell
us which people are concerned about being on the wrong end of the
scarcity stick, vs which ones want their own sticks.

    Nathaniel> research and experiments to devise an alternative --
    Nathaniel> central registries will remain essential, and no amount
    Nathaniel> of wishful thinking will eliminate the need for a
    Nathaniel> *political* solution to the management question.

  This is true.

    Nathaniel> The IETF is in the business of technical solutions, but
    Nathaniel> that doesn't mean that there *is* a technical solution to
    Nathaniel> every problem.  Where there isn't (or might not be) it is
    Nathaniel> our duty to make the public and politicians aware of the

  It is a question of constraints. Right now, central repositories have
not bothered the people who have been involved -- equipment makers and
ISPs. It might bother other people, but they haven't been invited to the
requirements discussion.

    Nathaniel> In short, I think it would be a mistake to declare a
    Nathaniel> "moratorium on the creation of IANA registries" without
    Nathaniel> at least a plausible theory about what kind of
    Nathaniel> alternatives might be possible.  -- Nathaniel

  I think that Christian actually did propose some things:

    >> should also think hard about technical alternatives to central
    >> registries. In some case, that may mean a slightly larger field
    >> in a protocol format, so a large random number can be used
    >> instead of a short registered number. In other cases, like name
    >> resolution, that may require a technical break-through.  But we
    >> should definitely think about it!

  I think that reducing the number of IANA registries should be a goal
simply because it takes IANA a lot of work to manage them.  

- --
]     "Elmo went to the wrong fundraiser" - The Simpson         |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson,    Xelerance Corporation, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked]      http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/mcr/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:09:54 -0400

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:28:37 EDT, Michael Richardson said:
> think they would go a long way to making people happy.

If you want to make people happy by promising technically infeasible solutions,
I suggest a career in politics rather than technology.

Geographically allocated addresses are a *dead* *dead* *dead* end, unless you
have some new work-around for the *very real* routing table explosion issues
they cause.  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride - but we're the IETF,
so we'll settle for a *workable* design for a new bicycle. ;)