nanog mailing list archives

Re: Addressing plan exercise for our IPv6 course


From: Tim Franklin <tim () pelican org>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:45:43 +0000 (GMT)

I look at this as water under the bridge. Yep, it was complicated code
and now it works. I can run bittorrent just fine beyond an Apple
wireless router and I did nothing to make that work. Micro-torrent
just communicates with the router to make the port available.

So, the security model here is that arbitrary untrusted applications, running on an arbitrary untrusted OS, selected by 
people who have no understanding of computer or network security are allowed to update the security policy on the 
perimeter device.  I can see why those secure NAT boxes have *totally* stopped the Windows botnet problem in its 
tracks...

Of course, no disagreement there. The real challenge is going to be
education of customers so that they can actually configure a firewall
policy to protect their now-suddenly-addressable-on-the-Internet home
network. I would love to see how SOHO vendors are going to address this.

Permit any outbound
Permit any inbound established
Deny any inbound

Achieves essentially the same functionality as a NAT device without the annoying mangling of addresses.

Vendors could then continue to offer the UPnP "request a hole" functionality that they do today, or tweak the labels on 
their "forward this port" web GUI to say "permit the port" instead.

For end-users who want to carry on doing exactly what they do today, the changes required for both them and their CPE 
vendor are trivial.  For end-users who are currently frustrated by NAT, they have their real, honest-to-goodness 
end-to-end Internet restored.

Everybody wins, apart those with a vested interest in "upselling" to "business" connectivity plans, or those who would 
prefer that the Internet is TV on new technology, and that end-users remain good little eyeballs, dutifully paying for 
their Big Business Content.

Regards,
Tim.



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