[e2e] It's all my fault

[David P. Reed]

Joe Touch wrote:
> Discussions of the issues is, as always, welcome.
>   
No problem.   I am eager to discuss the basic rationale fo9r removing an 
end-to-end capability from users to enhance the value of the network for 
applications.  It should not be based on claims of harm that are 
unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable.

A factor of 80 in harm due to RH0 is baldly asserted.   I'd like to see 
data, or a proof, or even a technical argument.  If someone could point 
us to such a measurement of harm - in particular actual demonstrated 
harm, rather than fear of harm - that would be great.

One known benefit of source routing is support for edge-based multipath 
routing, incorporating knowledge about application needs into the 
decision to have resilient path selection (either concurrently or as a 
hot spare that is kept alive and measured for congestion).   That is one 
of the technical arguments made in Saltzer, Reed Clark - Source Routing 
for Campus-wide Internet Transport (finally published in 1980).  Others 
can be found there as well, and were well-discussed beginning with the 
beginnings of the Internet design, and continuing up to and through the 
standards track evolution of IPv6.  Active use of source routing in 
research contexts continue today - despite attempts by "firewall mavens" 
to declare source routing to be a "security hole" without any evidence.

If a feature is to be effectively removed from IPv6  that has many uses, 
that removal should be justified by more than a vituperative attack at 
CanSecWest on IETF and its processes, coupled with a false assertion of 
a claim that :"source routing" was invented solely for mobile users.  It 
wasn't even invented for mobile users primarily, much less solely.

 From an end-to-end protocol point of view it has always been unclear 
that routing should be centrally controlled.   AS's are in charge of 
their own routing - though many choose to adopt common solutions, the IP 
standard *deliberately* does not specify how routing is to be done, and 
explicity includes the option of source routing as a choice.

>