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Re: the alleged evils of NAT, was Rate of growth on IPv6 not fast enough?


From: Matthew Kaufman <matthew () matthew at>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:49:26 -0700

Owen DeLong wrote:
On Apr 27, 2010, at 10:48 AM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

Andy Davidson wrote:
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 11:29:59AM -0400, John R. Levine wrote:
Did you use Yahoo IM, AIM, or Skype?
Yes, yes, and yes.  Works fine.
What about every other service/protocol that users use today, and might be invented tomorrow ?  Do & will they all work 
with NAT ?
Anyone inventing a new service/protocol that doesn't work with NAT isn't planning on success.

Respectfully, I disagree.  There are many possible innovations that are available in a NAT-less world and it is 
desirable to get to that point rather than hamper future innovation with this obsolete baggage.
I would argue that every one of those innovations, if even passably useful, can also be implemented in a NAT-full world.
Do many others work as well or act reliably through NAT ?
Yes.

In reality, it's more like some yes, some not so much.
== Some designed to work properly in the face of NAT, some ignored reality at their peril.
Will it stop or hamper the innovation of new services on the
internet ?
Hasn't so far.

Here I have to call BS... I know of a number of cases where it has.
Ok, you called it... so where's the list of such services that haven't materialized as a result of NAT?

Matthew Kaufman



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