Subject: Re: [I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-ipv6-unique-local-addr-01.txt]

From: Zefram <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:02:00 +0100

Steven Blake wrote:
>    don't think it is necessary to be unable to guess the date or
>    relative order in which a particular ID was allocated, however.

Someone will have a reason to want such unguessability.  That is
sufficient.  This is one of those cases where making it work in 100%
of cases is worthwhile because it means we don't need to keep in mind
the limitations of the compromise that we chose.

>3.  I don't believe it is essential to have alternative registration
>    methods besides web and e-mail.

I think this should be decided by the other issues that determine whether
it is necessary to charge for allocation.

If it works out to be feasible, I think we should have no-cost allocation,
via an automated web/email system -- no need for distribution of the
registration function, no need for the mechanisms to handle payments,
and so on.  It'd require an investment by someone of the hardware
(roughly a PC plus 256GB disk space plus backup provisions -- total
cost a couple of thousand dollars), and would lead to a fantastically
hassle-free registration process.  I think it's worth sacrificing offline
means of registration in order to get this simplification.

It is only if this really cannot be done that we should accept a
non-zero-cost registration process: the need to handle a payment
complicates the process for everyone involved, and makes it a lot less
accessible than the free-to-end-user system would be.  In this system,
offline registration mechanisms would effectively come for free alongside
the payment-handling infrastructure.

>                         In a dispute one can prove that he or she owns
>    an allocation by producing a non-repudiatable (e.g., signed) message
>    from a registry.

I note that the automated system I suggest above can do this admirably.

-zefram

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