Keith, In a just world, people freely purchase the things they want and believe solves a real world problem for them.
The Internet has grown at an incredible rate and I suspect in large part due to NATs. I wonder if the Internet would sue the NAT vendors, or thank them for establishing a broader customer base, especially customers who pay for broadband? (in the u.s. they would certainly be honored for accomplishments and sued! ) I would like to close this discussion with: the Internet has v6 coming in the pipeline, and the AT of NATs will go probably go away as a result. apps in general need transparent connectivity amongst peers, but the tacit assumption that all an app has to do is send a packet is not realistic and things will just work is unrealistic. In other words, NATs becoming personal firewalls is a growth market. Like almost every other resource, the network is something that will be managed, inspected, measure, and controlled by some policy. This will be manifested in a collection of protocols from the host "asking" the network to do things. MobileIP is an example, authenticated firewall traversal is another. I predict you will see what some have called the "remote bind" problem of opening holes in firewalls and NATs for listening services behind firewalls to be an important protocol to get nailed. The extent to which we can help people NOT be firewall admins, the better off we all will be. I would not be wasting my time sending mail to this list if I did not suspect the IETF knew where the problems are. What I am hoping will arise is action and results. Cheers, peterf P.S. lighten up. We will get v6 tunneled over v4 over NATs as well. What bliss!
