Re: what about 48 bits?

[Matthew Kaufman <matthew () matthew at>]

Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 11:53:54AM -0300, A.B. Jr. wrote:
>   
> > Hi,
> >
> > Lots of traffic recently about 64 bits being too short or too long.
> >
> > What about mac addresses? Aren't they close to exhaustion? Should be.
> > Or it is assumed that mac addresses are being widely reused throughout
> > the world? All those low cost switches and wifi adapters DO use unique
> > mac addresses?
> >     
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
>
> The IEEE expects the MAC-48 space to be exhausted no sooner than the 
> year 2100[3]; EUI-64s are not expected to run out in the foreseeable 
> future.
>
>   
And this is what happens when you can use 100% of the bits on "endpoint 
identity" and not waste huge sections of them on the decision bits for 
"routing topology".

Of course it comes with a privacy problem if you want to use that 
endpoint identifier globally and not change it for every session (as 
some protocols that separate routable-address from endpoint-identity do)

Matthew Kaufman