Yet a different perspective on NAT

First let me say, that I hesitate long to differ with John Walker. I am
a long time user of AutoCad and  somewhat more recent admirer of his
handiwork with SpeakFreely. I think we can all agree that Mr. Walker
ranks as one off the towering contributors to what we consider "personal
computing". That said, I must respectfully disagree with this notion
that NAT somehow constitutes "big brother" run amok!

I venture to guess that the vast majority of NAT servers are precisely
like my case where I have a home LAN connected to a higher bandwidth
internet service, where the bandwidth is shared by three to five users.
For every large institutional setting that employs NAT I venture to
guess that there may be hundreds that will  become thousands that look
just like my case. In short, if Mr. Walker's scenario were correct, I'm
the "Big Brother", and so are many of you. There is a large and growing
market of consumers who will pay for network firewalls and NAT servers
that provide the capability of intelligently and securely traversing
same for SF-like peer transactions. Rather than spelling the end of peer
networking, the Internet is enabling an age of cottage industry
communications that one could only dream of when Mr. Walker and I were
beginning to be interested in computers (I am just about precisely his
age and have observed much the same history, albeit through somewhat
different perceptual filters I gather).

I agree with others that this is no case for weeping, wailing, and
hand-wringing; but rather, with great thanks to John Walker for the
enormous contributions he has made, and acknowledging his need to take
some much needed respite, it is a time for others to take up the mantle
and carry it forward to tackle these new challenges. The internet will
change and grow and likely become many things we do not today envision,
but it is first and foremost the world's most democratic marketplace and
will continue to defy the efforts of any individual to constrain it
much. I am among those who wish there were some way to restrain certain
of its most offensive excesses, and hope we can find some means of
taming it a bit in the best interests of the majority of users, knowing
full well even that is a very tall order.

Make no mistake, if the NAT and firewall security issues can be
addressed successfully and this tool made easier to master for a larger
marketplace of users, perhaps requiring improved NAT and firewall tools,
it can become successful well beyond our imagination. One of the
requirements that has delayed such applications for a long time, readily
available endpoint bandwidth, is rapidly becoming available to vast
numbers of users. In this time of austere economic spending, restricted
travel budgets, and internationalized markets, I have little doubt in
the viability of VOIP and V&VOIP applications. I suspect that without
much difficulty, some technical advances of the kind that this community
is discussing,  could catapult SFng and applications like it into a kind
of success that none of us can imagine. I will be very surprised if our
children don't view casual video and voice discussions with others half
a world away as casually as we have come to view color TV (yes, I
remember when it seemed peculiar and B&W TV was still new).

It is likely that John Walker, like many visionaries, has been well
ahead of his time, and having become discouraged at the pace of the rest
of us trying to catch him, despairs of his vision every being realized.
History will tell which future we will have, but I will be very
surprised to find a future where we don't take very much for granted
much that would please John Walker. 

Ps: Pleae forgive the longwindedness, I hope it has not seemed just so
much "hot-air"!

 
- Tom Scott


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