idea for ipv6 allocation scheme

Robert J. Rockell rrockell@sprint.net
Fri, 3 Aug 2001 08:30:10 -0400 (EDT)


As if the Privacy people weren't paranoid enough already :)  The MAN will
surely know what they are up to then...

Thanks
Rob Rockell
Principal Engineer
SprintLink Europe/Asia
703-689-6322
Sprint E|Solutions: Thinking outside the 435 box
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On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, John O Comeau wrote:

->Since I haven't made a complete fool of myself on the net for a few months
->now, it's time to throw caution to the winds and toss out an idea I got
->yesterday morning in that semiawake state when lots of ideas of dubious
->quality enter the impressionable mind. This one seemed like a winner.
->
->Use street addresses as internet addresses. It's inherently routeable, and
->extremely easy to implement, but frivolously wasteful of address
->space. Here's an example. Let's say a TLA is assigned for this in the
->spirit of 6to4; 2666. My address is 5555 Bogus St, Somecity, FL,
->US. Compressing out the spaces and punctuation to reduce the
->inefficiency, and assigning a planet code TA (Terra) to make this scheme
->last a few years, we get: 5555BOGUSSTSOMECITYFLUSTA. Now inverting the
->byte order, and prepending the TLA, we get &fATSULFYTICEMOSTSSUGOB5555
->which is 27 bytes long, still way too big. Even using RAD50 (remember
->that, anybody?) we could only get it down to 19 bytes. But, due to the
->hierarchical nature of this scheme, an entity such as FL (the state
->Florida) could help by providing two- or three-letter abbreviations for
->each city. And if necessary, each city could provide numbers for every
->named street. Numbers can then be packed into 16-bit unsigned small
->integers. Now my address is 5555 3333 St, SC, FL, US. Packed, that becomes
->&fATSULFCSTS33UU, 16 bytes. Now I have my unique internet address.
->
->Contrived? Of course. Possible to implement? I think so. Each level of the
->hierarchy could provide the scheme for compressing the next lower level's
->data. This could all be made available publicly in a way such that my Aunt
->in Bingham, Maine only needs to find out my street address and type it
->into a browser, and the browser can fetch the compression rules from each
->level of the hierarchy and generate the address, and she can then see my
->webpage.
->
->An address in China would begin &fATNC and the remaining 10 bytes could be
->Unicode (big5 would't go too far, would it?). I doubt if 5 characters
->would work either, but then again, that country, or city, or city block,
->could establish its own method of ensuring that every address can fit into
->the 16 bytes of an IPv6 address. Of course, the planet and country codes
->can be squished into a byte each, also.
->
->This is probably not precisely the best venue for this discussion, but
->there are a lot of intelligent people on this list with the necessary
->diversity of viewpoints to give this a thorough beating. And if it meets
->dead silence, I'll know it was a complete waste of time typing this in.
->
->Thanks in advance - jc
->
->jcomeau@world.std.com aka John Otis Lene Comeau
->Home page: http://world.std.com/~jcomeau/
->Disclaimer: Don't risk anything of value based on free advice.
->"Anybody can do the difficult stuff. Call me when it's impossible."
->