[ih] The invention of what we now call NAT

[Scott Bradner]

in RFC 1631 Paul credits Van for "address reuse"

Acknowledgments

   This memo is based on a paper by Paul Francis (formerly Tsuchiya) and
   Tony Eng, published in Computer Communication Review, January 1993.
   Paul had the concept of address reuse from Van Jacobson.

> On Apr 23, 2025, at 3:50 PM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>> From: Craig Partridge
> 
>> I'm working from memory for the most part, so flaws may exist.
> 
> Ditto.
> 
>> Van Jacobson is credited as the initial thinker about NAT
> 
> I have him in memory as the co-inventor, along with Paul Tsuchiya. Not
> partners, mind - independent inventors.
> 
> I don't recall why Paul was working in that area (NAT is something I never
> had much time for - among other things, it makes the network more brittle, by
> moving state into the end routers - clearly a hack - even more so than BGP -
> so the details have been GC'd from my memory) - if he's still with us, and
> someone is in touch with him, they should ask him.
> 
>> Van came up with NAT as a concept while serving on the ROAD WG
> 
> IIRC, there was a ROAD meeting on the West Coast (not as part of an IETF),
> and that was were Van introduced his to us. But I had heard of Paul's before
> that.
> 
> I think I still have my email from that era, squirreled away somewhere. I'm
> not up to looking, though.
> 
> Noel
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