On 11/24/12, John Adams <jna@retina.net> wrote:
Don't conflate layer 5-7 needs with basic communication requirements. IP is not the place for this sort of header.
IP is the logical place for this kind of header, as this information is node dependent, not application dependent. It would be useful for identifying the location of a server, when an IP address does not. For example, in the case of an anycasted service, the source IP address does not uniquely identify where the source came from. The requirement that the embedded location data, be GPS data, however: would seem to be overly restrictive; a simple 8-bit "Site number" identifier could be all the location data needed for diagnostic purposes. "Privacy issues" are policy considerations, that have no place in the determination of protocol header formats; providers of a service will generate location header extensions, if they are useful to them, if they are not, then they would choose to not support the extension. If a provider wants to attempt to implement rights management using header fields, then more power to them.... I never heard of a digital rights management provider implementing an open standards-based approach, and it would be a positive development if they did, but more likely than not, they will ignore header extension options, and implement rights management identification inside proprietary application layer payloads that contain the actual protected content, instead of IP packet headers, which are easily stripped off, and replaced with new IP headers containing the same packet data payload. -- -JH