Subject: RE: why market picked up NATs [Re: Writeups on why RFC1918 is bad?]

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 01:47:11 -0800

> Tony Hain wrote:
> The market doesn't pick technology for technologies sake, it
> picks tools that solve an acute problem.

Indeed.

> This means that nat will be with us until it becomes part of
> the problem that needs solving. Consumer friendly p2p is the
> obvious catalyst, so the answer to your 'at what point'
> question becomes, when there are applications that consumers
> want to deploy.

Note that p2p is not that unfriendly as of now. I just had a look at one
of the pieces of p2p I use at home; there are some 230k users on the
server I connect to, plus a load of other ones with 100k+ users. Some of
the files have 500+ simultaneous sources. These guys are not all network
geeks, and a fair number have broadband and are behind NATs or behind
some kind of a firewall (I ran a few probes). It means that the point
where Joe-six-pack that bought a $50 NAT box is able to type
"http://192.168.1.1", figure out that the password is "admin" and use
the web interface to open the one port that the p2p app needs open has
been reached. Out of the million something users I see right now on
_one_ p2p app, I'd be damned if there are not 100k Joes and Janes that
don't understand squat about networks but that spent the time to read
what they had to do in order to get free pr0n, warez or free mp3s. If it
has reached that kind of mass acceptance, it must be easy enough.

Michel.

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From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 21:41:32 -0800

> of the pieces of p2p I use at home; there are some 230k users on the
                   ^^^
> server I connect to, 
  ^^^^^^
And the inconsistency with that statement is ???

> plus a load of other ones with 100k+ users. Some of