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

[Dave Crocker]

On 5/20/2026 7:39 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> So, the architectural issues of name/address/routing appear at 
> multiple levels of the mechanisms implementing them.  I'm using 
> "levels" instead of "layers" because there's no relation to the OSI 
> model.
>
> At each level, a name is provided by the level "above", specifying the 
> target destination for the information.  At every level, there are 
> mechanisms that convert a name into an address, and another mechanism 
> that converts an address into a plan for how to process the 
> information, at least making a decision on the next stop in a route.  
> One level's name is the lower level's address.

That's the most concise and complete and clear operational summary of 
name/address/etc. I've seen.

I also appreciate that it exactly matches my own model.



> To answer Dave Crocker's question about what problems occur... One of 
> the characteristics of our email is that its architecture mixes 
> together names and locations.  E.g., a mailbox such as 
> "jack at 3kitty.org" specifies a name (me) and an address (3kitty.org).

Except  that 3kitty.org isn't actually an address.

It is unrelated to topology -- and I think Joe's concise point about 
this requirement is helpful.  (Also, ahem, it is after all, called a 
domain /name/...)

We talk about it as an address, and say that it is 'where' the mailbox 
is located.  But while that field's value is unique, it has no 
information that directly supports create a path.  The MX record does 
that mapping, to something called an address.



> 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.

Well, sort of, yes there is.  There are services supporting an email 
address that is independent of the ISP mailbox you use. They are, of 
course, just aliasing services.   Besides some commercial example, 
alumni email address mechanisms do this.

Whether these services offer sustainability and sufficient independence 
is arguable.  To the extent they don't, I suspect we don't know how to 
satisfy the requirement.  Most proposals that claim to go beyond this 
seem to entail a degree of magical thinking.



>  I think X.400/X.500 tried to address issues such as "roles" but OSI 
> didn't work out.

I don't recall hearing about X.400 having 'role' addresses as a formal 
construct.


d/

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Dave Crocker

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