To continue that (cute | silly | pick-your-choice) analogy...

=> I only want a fixed frontdoor (1 fixed IP address), but I am trying to for ce => my landlord into letting me have it without paying tripple rent, by asking => the government (RIPE) to give me a building permission to install more => doors. Not because I want more doors, but to keep the landlord from moving => my single door every day :) => = =Hi, = = Hmm... this analogy isn't correct. RIPE is not the government in this. =RIPE, or your local LIR can give you a door (address assignment), but =you still need to get a permit from the local counsil to place it =(Getting your service provider to actually route it). = =One of the things your local LIR may require before selling you a door =is having a permit. Buying the door somewhere else (RIPE) does not =automagically entitle you to a permit.

...what we are seeing in reality, though, is something like the "government" (the RIPE NCC) coming back with a question about the colour and style of the door. And - depending on your answer - either going ahead issuing a _permanent_ permit for e.g. an Ethernet- or leased-line-style door ("static"), but limiting the validity of the permit for an xDSL- style or dial-up door to as long as you, or someone from your family, happens stay at home ("dynamic"). As soon as you go to work, or even worse - take a couple of days off, duhh!!! - you have to submit another application for installing a door.

Hi, As I said before, RIPE is not the government in this. The permit mentioned in the example above is the willingnes of your provider to actually route the traffic to you. If you can convince your provider's LIR to allocate you some IP space, _AND_ you can convince them to route it to you then RIPE won't object as long as the proper forms have been filled in. Using dynamic IP space for residential dial up users makes sence for most appications. Giving every computer out there a static IP address even though it's turned off, or not connected to the internet 98% of the time just doesn't make sence.

And, the "government", suggests to the manufaturers of the doors (and/or to the landlord), to give you a call on the phone every, say, 8 hours, to confirm that you haven't left for shopping (physicly) or turned to RTFM (virtually/mentally logging off).

That's exactly what happens to me, back home, with my ADSL link being dropped every 8 hours by the ISP *on purpose*, because the NCC sort of "suggests" to the ISPs to use dial-up ratio mechanisms for 24x7 xDSL, flat rate billing.

Very clever, indeed, in particular when someone tries to do stuff that is security-aware.

Like what? Almost anything is possible from behind a dynamic IP address. If you want to run services then get a commercial account from your provider, or find a provider that will allocate you static IP space. - marcel