IP addresses currently serve two completely separate functions: they
identify *who* you are talking to, and they identify *where* they are.
there's a tad more to it than that which is essential:
in a non-NATted network, IP addresses identify where a host is in a way
that is independent of the location in which they're being evaluated.
in a NATted network, at least some IP addresses are location-dependent
which removes the ability to hand those addresses to a host in a different
part of the network.
even if IP had identifiers for hosts that were independent of locators,
they wouldn' t be worth very much without a way to map them to locators.
and locators are a lot easier to deal with if they're location-independent.
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