Re: Broken Internet?

[woods () weird com (Greg A. Woods)]

[ On Thursday, March 15, 2001 at 17:09:14 (-0600), Stephen Sprunk wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Broken Internet?
>
> Renumbering PCs is a trivial task.  Reconfiguring hundreds (or
> thousands) of routers, firewalls, etc. to account for the moved PCs is
> not trivial.  Renumbering servers is not trivial.

For _small_ networks (where this discussion started) even manual
reconfiguration of all the hosts (including servers) in an office, on a
floor, or even in a small building, would take less time than this
discussion has gone on for!

> Keep in mind that Fortune 100 companies with multiple DS3s in several US
> locations are in the same boat wrt renumbering.  Most don't qualify for
> portable addresses by ARIN's rules.

In essence all that matters are the public servers and hosts.  In theory
none of an organisations internal network will be affected in any way by
renumbering or multi-homing issues.  ARIN's rules are just fine no
matter how big your internal network is.  If you're running multiple
high-speed connections in multiple locations then your organisation
should have the skill set necessary (or the ability to hire it) to
manage renumbering any given location on demand.  If you're doing stupid
things and putting private internal hosts on public networks then you're
asking for all kinds of troubles, not just renumbering and multi-homing
issues.

> Also, try convincing someone like AmEx or Citibank that they should put
> their servers under someone else's physical control -- that'll be good
> for a laugh.  Sure, that's extreme, but where exactly do you draw the
> line on who's "important" enough to host their own servers?

This isn't about telling people whether they're allowed to host their
own servers or not -- that's irrelevant.  Everyone's completely free to
make whatever choice they find most suitable for their circumstances
(though often the average person will make drastically wrong risk
assessments surrounding these issues and will thus inevitably make the
wrong decision).

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods () acm org>      <robohack!woods>
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