On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Erik E. Fair wrote:

> The Private IP address space stuff was originally done in RFC 1597.
> 
> There is a reply entitled "Net 10 Considered Harmful" in RFC 1627.
> 
> The final version became RFC 1918.

Yep.

> Use of Private IP address space should only be used when there are no
> alternatives, and the network managers involved are sufficiently savvy to
> understand the tradeoffs that are being made.
> 
> NAT is Evil, because it violates the End-to-End model that the Internet was
> built on: smart ends, stupid middle, with particular emphasis on the middle
> just moving the bits correctly, and not trying to second-guess the
> applications (server and client) on the ends. You can imagine what happens
> when a second-guessing middle guesses wrong...

Evil though it may be, without NAT and the ability to "hide" private
address space the Internet would not be what it is today, and I wouldn't
be able to pay the mortgage!   :)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Paul Goyette      | Public Key fingerprint:    | E-mail addresses:        |
| Network Engineer  |   0E 40 D2 FC 2A 13 74 A0  |  paul@whooppee.com       |
| and kernel hacker |   E4 69 D5 BE 65 E4 56 C6  |  paul.goyette@ascend.com |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------