The idea below seemed to make sense last night after a couple of margaritas at the Rio Grande Cafe, let's see if anybody else thinks it will fly. If this isn't the right place to discuss it let me know, I will forward it appropriately. -- Walt ======= PROPOSAL FOR A NEW NAME/ADDRESS PARADIGM FOR THE INTERNET April 16, 1994 Walter O. Haas University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 <haas@ski.utah.edu> 1. Internet names are the property of the user, not the network service provider. An Internet name has much the same legal status as a registered trademark, and is suited to appear in advertising and other literature completely independently of the Internet service provider currently employed by the user. Internet names will be issued by a central authority directly to the user. Optionally, a network service provider may handle the necessary paperwork for a user to obtain a name, but this does not give the said provider any right or interest in the name issued and the provider must not attempt to mislead the user to the effect that it has such a right. 2. Internet addresses consist of a <provider-part> and a <customer-part>. The <provider-part> belongs to the Internet service provider, and is used by Internet routers to switch traffic to agreed points of that service provider's network. The <customer-part> belongs to the customer. A complete Internet address is of the form <provider-part>.<customer-part>. If the customer decides to obtain services from a different provider, the customer shall adopt addresses using the <provider-part> of the desired provider. It shall be possible for a customer host to be multi-homed to two addresses with different <provider-parts>, either temporarily or permanently. The <provider-part> consists of two areas: a <provider-id> which identifies the organization providing service, followed by a <provider-specified> part which tells that provider's network how to route to the customer network. Thus a complete Internet address can be specified as <provider-id>.<provider-specified>.<customer-part> Providers are assigned a <provider-id> by a global authority, but may choose their <provider-specified> part according to their internal criteria, which may include (but are not limited to) technology, geography, business plan, and perceived customer desires. All providers are required to forward traffic to any of the globally-defined <provider-id> values, but are not required to process any portion of the Internet address beyond that (except their own). There shall however be a defined upper limit on the size of the <provider-specified> and <customer-part>. 3. Each user host shall be configured with its Internet name. Upon booting, the host shall send a Name-to-Address Request (NARQ) packet to a defined broadcast address. The NARQ packet will contain the host's name. A server will respond with a Name-to-Address Reply (NARP) packet containing the Internet address of that host. 4. If the customer decides to change Internet service providers, it will need to assign a new <provider-part> corresponding to the new Internet address of the new service provider to each host. This will be done by giving the new <provider-part> to the customer's nameserver, which will then send appropriate NARP packets to the relevant network hosts which will then each have two Internet addresses. This operation obviously needs appropriate security. When the customer's network has acquired the new set of addresses and the old service provider is no longer in use, then the customer's nameserver can send an appropriate Name-to-Address Invalid (NANA) packet to each host to invalidate that address from its configuration. This operation also needs to be secure. -------