Re: Necessity for NAT remains in IPv6

Mark,

I would guess in the same manner that every application developer that creates an application imposes an
additional cost on the Network Admin (and their companies) to make sure that application doesn't breach
their network perimeter without authorization.... or every person who chooses to use a different
version of web browser imposes the cost of supporting that choice on the web-site operator...and on every
other person that visits that site.

That's part of the reality of the internet. We all impose certain costs on each other for the connectivity
that we share. However, people are different and one man's "unnecessary" is another mans "essential".

Ultimately though, it's upto the individual application developers to determine if they want to sink the
costs of working with NAT into their application or not..... and it's upto individual consumers to
determine whether they want to carry that cost or not.

If the anti-NAT folks don't want to deal with the costs of supporting it (indirectly) the solution is
simple... don't buy applications that are designed to work with NAT... you won't be carrying any of the
costs for it.

If there really is a significant enough number of people out there that don't find NAT useful... you should
be able to convince plenty of application developers not to build support into their products for it. I'm
sure that they would be happy not to have to deal with that hassle anyways, if they can get away with it.

Christopher Engel

-----Original Message-----
From: marka@... [mailto:marka@...]
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 7:01 PM
To: Chris Engel
Cc: 'Keith Moore'; 'nat66@...'
Subject: Re: [nat66] Necessity for NAT remains in IPv6

Chris Engel writes:
> Keith,
>
> The idea that Network Administrators and Corporate IT are some-how
> less quali fied to weigh the cost/benefits of choosing to use NAT vs
> specific applicatio ns then their end users are is a strange notion to
> say the least. As is the i dea that they don't have to deal with the
> consequences of those decisions.

Chris, its not just the network that uses a NAT that pays for the cost of the NAT.  Every network user pays for
the cost of NAT in higher products costs incured from needing to provide products that will work in the
presence of NAT even if that don't actually use a NAT or not.

People are anti NAT because this is a unnecessary cost that pro NAT people are imposing on everyone else.  It
an added complication that is not needed.

NAT44 was a necessary evil as we had effectively run out IPv4 addresses.

Mark

--

Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: marka@...