Walker: NAT means you are a consumer, not a peer
(from /.) http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/eol/ has a good rant by John Walker on how NAT turns users into consumers. Also Speak Freely maintenance is ending. Sic transit unix to PC secure vox. Note that PGPfone devel ended a while ago, unsupporting PC to Mac secvox. Nautilus is AFAIK PC to PC only. John is also pessimistic about 1. IPv6 deployment and 2. the return of NAT'd broadband users to non-consumer (ie, potential server aka publisher) status. As always, Walker is worth a read. ------ "The right to be left alone - the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
(from /.) http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/eol/ has a good rant by John Walker on how NAT turns users into consumers.
That's partially true, but the situation isn't that bad yet, and there are countermeasures available for some cases. See eg. http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~baford/nat/draft-ford-natp2p-00.txt Walker's assesment is probably distorted by disproportional amount of NAT-related questions on the support board. Not too long ago, I incorporated binding to a defined UDP source IP:port to my sfParanoidPatch <http://213.246.91.154/patches/speakfreely/> for Linux version. This could alleviate some NAT-related problems, and let Windows version developers to get inspired how to do it too. What's sorely missing is some kind of easy diagnostics, a simple packet sniffer showing the incoming/outgoing packets and a server that when asked over TCP (eg, as a CGI script) would send back a short burst of SpeakFreely-like UDP traffic, in order to detect if incoming traffic is possible.
Also Speak Freely maintenance is ending.
Not really. The project is moved to Sourceforge. The only thing ending is Walker's involvement. Now we can only hope that the project will be adopted by someone with strong-enough organization and leadership skills.
Sic transit unix to PC secure vox. Note that PGPfone devel ended a while ago, unsupporting PC to Mac secvox. Nautilus is AFAIK PC to PC only.
There is a need for secure cross-platform VoIP software. With a bit of luck, SF won't die. There are already talks between the hopefully new developers about architecture of new generation of SpeakFreely.
John is also pessimistic about 1. IPv6 deployment and 2. the return of NAT'd broadband users to non-consumer (ie, potential server aka publisher) status.
If I remember correctly, IPv6 rollout is government-supported in eg. Japan, and there are considerations over Europe. If the critical mass will be reached, others will follow. Matter of time. The consumer/publisher differentiation won't be as easy. Even "pure" consumers have desire to run server-like applications; webcams, VoIP, Interget gaming. If there still be some differentiation between ISPs and content providers, there will be a reason - especially on saturated markets - to cater to the wishes of groups like gamers. And once there are methods for piercing holes in NAT for UDP, suitable for games, the same methods are suitable for VoIP, so for SpeakFreely as well.
As always, Walker is worth a read.
Without doubts.
participants (2)
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Major Variola (ret.) -
Thomas Shaddack