[ih] IP addresses are not phone numbers, was Some Questions over IPv4 Ownership

[Tony Li]

> Per the above view, I now believe that the most powerful path is to get "identifier" functions entirely out of the IP Address, and allow IP Addresses to have rather late binding, to permit easier re-binding.  Freedom comes from not embedding lower-layer addressing information into hosts.  That puts me into the "move it out of the core infrastructure camp" which is not where most sympathies or efforts seem to lie.


This implies adding an explicit identifier to the semantics somehow.  Most contributors seem to prefer a map-and-encap architecture, where the outer 'address' only has global locator semantics, while the inner 'address' retains a local locator and identifier approach.  The strong preference for this is largely due to the opinion that we can only reasonably change the network side of the equation, and that changing host semantics at this point is intractable.

Not everyone agrees with this, but it is the popular sentiment.

Shameless plug: This discussion has been going on for about three years now over on the routing research group mailing list: rrg at irtf.org.  While we're officially nearly done with our work, there is still plenty of opportunity to influence the broader audience, and experienced network architects have been in short supply.

Regards,
Tony