State legislators could be striking again - NAT become illegal?

[Son Goku]

If they're actually contemplating bills such as this, I think perhaps these law makers should take a networking class to see why we need NAT, and the IP address crisis we could be having without it...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30003.html

I kind of doubt this is related to the DMCA, seems more aimed at trying to prohibit people from using anonymizing services (the components they're listing above)...which people wouldn't feel so impelled to use, if everything hadn't gone so snoop happy over the last year.

But specifically with NATs, one of the main reasons for using a NAT is so a company doesn't have to buy an IP address for every computer they own...and from InterNIC's stand point, there aren't enough IP addresses/networks in the world for every computer to have a real IP address, the way their distributed. One doesn't really have 4 billion IP addresses (the number of possible numbers that can be represented in a 32-bit integer). Reason is for any given network, 2 addresses can't be used (the network address and the broadcast address) for any one device. A router (and not just computers) needs to take IPs. But the final clincher:

- A class A IP network is defined as one in which the first bit in the first quad of numbers is low. This would result in IP addresses starting with 0.x.x.x - 127.x.x.x would be class A.

Out of those, 10.x.x.x was reserved for NATs and non-routable IPs, and 27.x.x.x was reserved for the loopback address in the operating system. So 125 class A networks, and I'm not sure if routers would like one entering 0.0.0.1 as a router address, so not sure that one of the 125 could be used.

- A class B network is defined as one in which the first bit in the first octet is high, and the second low. This would result in addresses ranging from 128.x.x.x to 191.x.x.x I don't remember which address blocks of this were reserved, but there are some reserved addresses

There's only 65 thousand of these, but there are arguably more then 65 thousand entities in the world that have more then 253 computers and other network devices on site.

- A class C network is one in which both the first and second bits in the first octet are hich, aka 192.x.x.x to 255.x.x.x Addresses falling in the range of 192.168.x.x were reserved for NATs and non-routable addresses.

And of the last, I've never tried entering 255.255.255.1 into a router so don't know if a router would take that or not.

These only allow for 253 attached devices (can't assign either the network or broadcast address to anyone) and also one would need some device to route packages out (if one wants to get on the Internet). There are 16 million - 65k of these, but they're so small for many medium to large sized companies...

NAT was a solution to this (as well as DHCP), but if these state legislators begin to make a stink about that...

And oooh, as to hardware firewalls, only someone very daring would put a company out in the demiliterized zone called the Internet without any sort of firewall or protection... :p

[netviper13]

I really don't get the big deal with NAT, because the bandwidth is shared so it's not like they're getting more bandwidth out of the deal. It just means that instead of basically having a T1 line for each computer, they're sharing a T3 over 100-1000 computers.

[Son Goku]

hehe, I don't know of an individual (except perhaps Bill Gates) who would purchase a seperate T3 line, or even a T1 line for every computer. That would get crazy.

But what I read from this, wasn't so much it was the ISPs not getting extra dollars, as people wouldn't know what message, originated from where.

The repression that remains is however impressive. Felten points to this wording:

(b) Offense defined.--Any person commits an offense if he knowingly:

(1) possesses, uses, manufactures, develops, assembles, distributes, transfers, imports into this state, licenses, leases, sells or offers, promotes or advertises for sale, use or distribution any communication device:

...(ii) to conceal or to assist another to conceal from any communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication

Though an argument could be made in favor of sub-paragraph (i), this one obviously is for eave-dropping, and of course a firewall that NAT's... Hell even DHCP or a dialup modem poll which assigns a different IP to a caller could be argued to do just this, esspecially if logs aren't kept to posterity to associate user acct to IP.

But perhaps these legislators aught to realize that NATs and network address translation isn't some subversive trick to try to conceal wrong doing or terrorist activity (would be a bi-word these days). It's a means to allow both what you had mentioned (from the consumers side) as well as to allow (from the Internet's side, the Internet to continue to evolve beyond that which was for-seen when the IP addressing scheme was developed, as number of devices, corporations, or entities that would be "out there". Last I checked IP ver 2 (which would consist of like a 92-bit IP address, part of which is the MAC) isn't ready to be implemented in the near future either...

I'd have to look to see how such language could impact use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and companies that use them in communicating company "secrets" they don't want their competitors to pick up on, before I could comment if it would impact them or not... I'm actually not sure in this latter case.