Dear All,
My apologies for not being clearer - my intention was not to criticize WG or
IAB actions in the past, but to point out that we are now in an escalating
game of whack-a-mole with our applications as the moles that NATs and FWs
are finding new ways to frustrate.
The security guys have taught us that holding the mallet and waiting for the
next mole to pop up is not fun; I think the NAT/FW guys are teaching us that
being the mole is just as bad ("gee, this used to work, until someone
decided that yet another normal operation was a security threat and
configured their FW to block it, or someone just installed a NAT that is
broken in some new and exciting way").
Thanks,
Spencer
p.s. I apologize for the use of culture-specific analogies. For an
explanation of "Whack-a-mole", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole
or http://whacamole.com/ ("the official website" - now, that's scary).
From Wikipedia:
"Colloquial usage: The term Whac-a-Mole, or Whack-a-mole, has been used in
the computer and networking industry to describe the phenomenon of fending
off recurring spammers, vandals or miscreants. The connotation is that of a
repetitious and futile task: each time the attacker is "whacked" or kicked
off of a service, he only pops up again from another direction. Also used in
the military to refer to opposing troops who keep re-appearing: Whack the
mole here and it dies, but another pops up in a different spot."
From: "Melinda Shore" <mshore(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com>
On 3/25/06 7:47 PM, "Spencer Dawkins" <spencer(_at_)mcsr-labs(_dot_)org> wrote:
So my point was, I'd really like to take a chance on some IAB statements
about things that need to be stated about our architecture. They might be
ignored. Would the result be any worse?
This is a somewhat bothersome case, because the IAB *did* issue
an RFC explaining what many of the problems were with "Unilateral
Network Self-Address Fixing" (i.e. STUN). They included a list
of conditions they felt that an UNSAF protocol had to meet in order to
be published, including a description of a transition mechanism away
from itself and towards something more robust. I don't know what
more the IAB could have done in order to kill what I think is
a clearly pathological approach to NAT traversal (and I chaired the
working group that standardized it, so I accept a great deal of
responsibility for this mess), but if putting out a document that
says "These are the reasons that this isn't a good protocol" isn't
enough, well, I'm not sure. But it seems to me that trying to
fix it this late in the process (my other .sig is "software longa,
hardware brevis") has less to do with architecture and more to do
with oncology.
At any rate, I do think that in this case the IAB did do their job
and it was the rest of us louts who messed up. And I'll tell you
where I think it happened: when we accepted the idea that something
might be transitional and would eventually go away.
Melinda
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