Hear - Hear!!! I don't recall Daniel attending the v6 working group meeting with ARIN in Atlanta this week. Notwithstanding, he very succinctly summarized the WG discussion, concerns/issues, raised by ISP representatives and their companies who make the tremendous investment in network infrastructure to ensure worldclass reliable and survivable networks. The overall network infrastructure cost to support the routed network, Internet-based, products and services requires operators/carriers to be (to use Randy's term) "NAZI" like filter freaks. Add fraud, intrusion, and erroneous advertisements, the cost go up exponentially. Fortunately the economics still justify the investment. ...Ed Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg@ripe.net> on 04/15/99 11:21:47 AM To: Bob Fink <fink@es.net> cc: Brian E Carpenter <brian@hursley.ibm.com>, David Kessens <david@Qwest.net>, Philip Smith <pfs@cisco.com>, 6bone@ISI.EDU, ipv6-wg@ripe.net, Edward M. Mayhugh/MCLEOD@MCLEOD, Kim Hubbard <kimh@arin.net>, Paul Wilson <pwilson@apnic.net>, Mirjam Kuhne <mir@ripe.net>, Bob Hinden <hinden@iprg.nokia.com>, Steve Deering <deering@cisco.com>, Tony Hain <tonyhain@microsoft.com>, Alain Durand <Alain.Durand@imag.fr> Subject: Re: new IPv6 policy draft - real soon now

Bob Fink <fink@es.net> writes: It is a built in discriminator for the future.

Yes it is. I have been quite frank about this at the IETF. Look at it another way: Engineers agree that currently the one major concern when making adress space distribution policy is routing system complexity. This is governed by topology and the number of prefixes. Address space distribution policy can only address the number of prefixes. Experience shows that policies cannot ultimately establish an upper bound on the number of prefixes routed. Even worse, the number to design to is a moving target about which the IETF cannot even agree at a particular instant in time, let alone make predictions for the future. When a routing system problem is going to hit, providers will have to make a choice about which prefixes to drop. They will make that choice no matter what. They can base that choice on any consideration. We hope that the consideration will be somewhat rational and hopefully somewhat consistent across ISPs if it is based on a rational measure. The prefix length (amount of justified address space) is established by a policy established by community consensus and implemented by neutral and impartial entities, the registries. It is such a rational measure. If such a rational measure is not available there is a lot of room for instability and lots more room for arbitrary decisions. There are other desirable properties of the proposed policy, such as effective discouragement of stockpiling, etc for which I have not seen workable alternatives. But this is besides the point being discussed. Now Bob raises the concern that this measure could be used by the big guys to squeeze the smal ones even *without* a routing problem existing. I cannot see how this concern can be relevant because the big guys, or anyone else, can do this at *any* time based on *any* criteria. It is even being done now, i.e. small ones have to *pay* bigger ones to be routed. I'd be much more worried about the case where a routing problem exists but no rational descriminator and the routing problem will provide a perfect exuse for anyone to make arbitrary decisions. This is when the small guys will get squeezed. This is when it is an enourmous help if you can point to a rational and neutral measure. Daniel PS: I do not understand you presenting this as a hidden agenda. It has been out in the open and I have explained this to you personally during the last IETF.