I-D: Unique Identifiers for Network Objects and Subjects

Mark Baker (mark.baker@canada.sun.com)
Fri, 22 Oct 1999 14:18:33 -0400


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------92C713863006A3DBFD0716C7
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Just came over the ietf-announce wire.

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-borella-uid-00.txt

This should have been the introduction!

Caveat: This draft discusses issues that would require a major change
to the architecture of the Internet in order to be implemented. We
are not suggesting that these changes actually be implemented in the
short term; instead, we are offering a framework and model for
thinking about and further discussion of the pros and cons of UIDs.
Thus, we have kept many of the details of this draft at a high level.
It is possible that the framework discussed here will have minor or
major drawbacks or limitations that we have not discovered. This is
a true "work in progress".

Routing doesn't appear to get its due consideration

UIDs do not appear in packet headers. Routing and addressing is
either that which is currently used with IPv4 and IPv6, or some other
mechanism. UIDs only exist at the socket layer to bind communication
sessions. IP addresses are still used to deliver packets to and from
a host's interface.

Neither does trust

Authentication is a fundamental requirement of all messages that
originate with or are destined to a location server. Such
authentication may require the deployment of a global public key
infrastructure (PKI) [RFC2510].

However, DNS gets its 8-)

8.2. DNS is No Longer Necessary

Mapping UIDs to IP addresses and ports will be handled by the
location server architecture. Mapping services to UIDs requires a
richer language than is currently supported by DNS. A possible
replacement could be based on search engine technology. The
result of all this is that DNS is not necessary, and the fully-
qualified domain name (FQDN) may be obsoleted.

My newbie-ish opinion; a good first version I-D that will
hopefully spark some interesting discussion and action.

Anybody done a survey on naming systems? I checked the IRUS
site and workshop papers, but couldn't find anything that
put all these naming systems in perspective for me, a
newbie to this space.

MB
--------------92C713863006A3DBFD0716C7
Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;
name="mark.baker.vcf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: Card for Mark Baker
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="mark.baker.vcf"

begin:vcard
n:Baker;Mark
tel;cell:(613)261-5172
tel;fax:(613)562-3468
tel;work:(613)562-9255
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:http://www.sun.com/software/personalapps/
org:Sun Microsystems Inc.;Consumer & Embedded
adr:;;126 York St., Suite 325;Ottawa;Ontario;K1N 5T5;Canada
version:2.1
email;internet:mark.baker@canada.sun.com
title:Personal Apps Lead
fn:Mark Baker
end:vcard

--------------92C713863006A3DBFD0716C7--