I too was a strong advocate and strongly disapproved of LANs that
were not openly connected with full capabilities to the net, until I
had my own home system and discovered that I had no interest in being
totally visible and accessible at all times, especially when I was
not always around to monitor things.
So, now I am very happy behind my little XRouter NAT box, with an ISP
service out there where I can have a login shell if I wish. But I
do not find any need for a shell account and so do not have one, as
long as I have POP or IMAP for my EMail, and an ISP that does not
block any of my desired DNS destinations.
Lets me sleep well! Without hiring a security staff;-)...
But, I also note that I choose this because it is good for me
locally, not because I cannot get an IP number for some reason.
So, much of this argument appears to be based on the simple fact that
IP numbers are scare, and so some companies have chosen to go along
with NATS when they have no other reason than the shortage of
available IP numbers.
If so, then that is the problem to solve and leave those of us who
want NATS alone in our happiness;-)... Even with IPV6, I would stay
the way I am.
In short, not everyone really wants their Internet to be totally homogeneous!
Cheers...\Stef
At 00:16 -0500 03/02/01, Keith Moore wrote:
> BTW, a design that is too simple is not efficient, because it wastes
> resources and does not allow what could otherwise be possible.
granted that there is such a thing as too simple an answer for
most design problems... but one can waste resources and be inflexible
much more easily by making a design too complex than by making it too
simple. moreover, the limitations of a too-simple design are usually
much easier to identify and correct than those of a too-complex design.
Keith