[e2e] is IP address portability next?

[Cannara]

Exactly.  An IP address has never been an adequate description of a "user" and
never will, despite IPv6's umpteen addr bits.  DNS security, then, becomes a
big issue, to match the security traditionally associated with telco numbers
as node-identity (not user-identity) sources.  Knowing a phone number, of
course, still doesn't allow knowing its user at that moment.

Alex

Dave Crocker wrote:
> 
> Rick,
> 
> RJ> So, with the US FCC (?) allowing/mandating that people be able to
> RJ> migrate their cell phone numbers from one provider to another, does
> RJ> that suggest that before long, something similar would happen with
> RJ> IP addressess?
> 
> The telephone system and the Internet have some important technical
> differences, of course.  So we need to be careful when we take a
> construct from one and apply it to the other.
> 
> In this case, the way the new capability is described, for the phone
> system, will make an enormous difference in how it is described for the
> Internet.
> 
> Here is my own description of the capability:
> 
>      People who make telephone calls enter a string into the phone
>      system. The telephone system resolves this into a particular access
>      port in the telephone network. Historically, this string has been
>      determined by the supplier of access service for the user the
>      string refers to. Now it can be independent of the access provider.
> 
> Let's translate that to the Internet:
> 
>       People who access Internet services enter a string into their
>       application.  The application resolves this into a reference to a
>       particular Internet access port.  The string entered by typical users is
>       already independent of the network service provider.
> 
> Obviously, I mean that the Internet equivalent to a telephone number is
> a domain name.
> 
> The IP Address is a lower-level construct. The Internet permits users to
> enter it -- and this is quite different from the telephone system, which
> also has underlying addressing strings that are tied to topology -- but
> it is not what users play with. They play with domain names.
> 
> /d
> --
>  Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
>  Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
>  Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>