[ih] Why did location/identity separation not happen? (Was: Internet without entrenched factions?)

[John Kristoff]

On Wed, 20 May 2026 19:39:00 -0700
Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
wrote:

> That choice helps, but does not guarantee, uniqueness, but also
> results in some pragmatic problems - such as the difficulty of moving
> your mailbox from one ISP, corporation, or organization to another.
> Humans still try to contact me using email addresses from decades
> ago.  There is no "email portability" scheme analogous to the
> telephone system's number portability.

Maybe IP address portability is more analogous?  In the ARIN region you
have to be an "organization", you can't be an individual, to obtain
your own numbers directly, but otherwise you can announce prefixes from
practically any upstream, and even transfer it to another RIR, while
maintaining global uniqueness.

Maybe this isn't as convenient, because a phone number is associated to
a specific voice service whereas IP addresses can be associated with
practically any application.  Is the abstraction and flexibility
that makes IP address portability just less user-friendly?

John