Network Working Group Christian Vogt Internet-Draft Ericsson Expires: September 5, 2009 March 4, 2009 On the Harmfulness of Address Translation draft-vogt-address-translation-harmfulness-00.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on September 5, 2009. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Abstract Address translation is widely considered harmful because its existing variants conflict with well-established design principles of the Internet engineering community. Still, address translation has become common practice despite technical problems because it Vogt Expires September 5, 2009 [Page 1] Internet-Draft On the Harmfulness of Address Translation March 2009 constitutes an easy-to-deploy solution to a set of common operational needs. Since some of these needs will continue to exist in IP version 6, there is concern within the Internet engineering community about the potential proliferation of harmful technology from IP version 4 to IP version 6. This paper investigates these concerns. It analyzes feasible address translator designs, explains why the problems of address translation, as used today, are to a significant extent specific to IP version 4, and shows how the problems can be mitigated in IP version 6. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vogt Expires September 5, 2009 [Page 2] Internet-Draft On the Harmfulness of Address Translation March 2009 1. Introduction Address translation is widely considered harmful because its existing variants conflict with well-established design principles of the Internet engineering community. Still, address translation has become common practice despite technical problems because it constitutes an easy-to-deploy solution to a set of common operational needs. Since some of these needs will continue to exist in IP version 6, there is concern within the Internet engineering community about the potential proliferation of harmful technology from IP version 4 to IP version 6. This paper investigates these concerns. It analyzes feasible address translator designs, explains why the problems of address translation, as used today, are to a significant extent specific to IP version 4, and shows how the problems can be mitigated in IP version 6. Author's Address Christian Vogt Ericsson Research 200 Holger Way San Jose, CA 95134 United States Email: christian.vogt@ericsson.com Vogt Expires September 5, 2009 [Page 3]