Internet DRAFT - draft-bombadil-netlemmings
draft-bombadil-netlemmings
Personal Tom Bombadil
Lord of the Hosts
Internet Draft
Document: draft-bombadil-netlemmings-00.txt
Expires: November 2006 1st April 2006
NETLeMMings –
Or how I learned to Stop Thinking and Forget the Basics of IP Mobility
draft-bombadil-netlemmings-00.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
<Bombabil> 1
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Abstract
This is the story of the Host and how it became a mindless
NETLeMMing under the influence of evil priesthoods and the
inexcusable failure of the IETF to protect its fundamental rights
INDEX
1. Happier Days.......................................................3
2. The Priesthoods....................................................3
3. The Fall of the Host(s)............................................6
4. The Failure(s) of the IETF.........................................7
5. The Return of the Hosts............................................9
6. Disclaimer........................................................11
7. Author's
Address..................................................11
Intellectual Property Statement......................................11
Copyright Statement..................................................12
Acknowledgment.......................................................12
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1. Happier Days
Once upon a time, in an Inter-network far, far away, there lived a
Host. The Host was happy. The Host did what it liked, when it
liked, and was generally beholden to no one. Some days it would
wake up, stretch its protocol stack, fire up its favorite protocol
appendage (most mornings this was Ethernet), brew up a
little Java
and view its neighborhood via its favorite window Firefox; on other
days it would run Explorer (usually on cloudy days). Still, the
Host was happy, determining what Apps it ran and when. It would
often speak with its family and friends using a variety of VoIP/IM
technologies, having to gateway to circuit-based communications only
when encountering 'The Legacy' network---an entity the Host did not
understand but which, from the little it sensed, seemed to represent
a black hole---an enigma absorbing all insight and innovation, and
emanating nothing but a sense of despair. As one can imagine, the
Host stayed as far away from The Legacy as possible.
Following breakfast, the Host would pack up and head to work.
Suddenly, its Ethernet appendage would cease to function. But no
matter, this happened everyday and the Host would activate and
quickly shift to
another of its appendages called a Wireless Wide
Area Network (WWAN) to maintain communications with its favorite
Hosts. The Host understood that its Inbox would fill rapidly with
Invoices when using this appendage. The Host often wondered why,
despite these charges, that this limb functioned so poorly, being at
first glance little different from its other appendages. Then it
realized its driver for this appendage was more complex than that of
its lightweight Ethernet driver, and that strange things had been
done to its TCP stack in a seemingly vain attempt to improve the
performance of this appendage. The more the Host pondered this
issue, the more this appendage's inherent complexity began to remind
him of his distant inter-workings with The Legacy. The more the
Host utilized this appendage, the more its bad feelings grew and the
Host looked for any opportunity to shed this
appendage.
Fortunately, when the Host arrived at work, a corporate 802.11
network eagerly awaited. The Host would activate this appendage,
dispense with the ill-feeling and costly WWAN, and smooth
communications quickly resumed. All in all, the Host was happy. It
could move from place to place, using a variety of network
appendages and applications as best suited its needs, but it hoped
one day that someone would make big improvements to the WWAN.
2. The Priesthoods
But not all were happy. The folks that created the malformed "all-
IP" WWAN networks were becoming increasingly concerned. The WWAN,
you see, was primarily designed by the Shinto-led Nordic Priesthood,
who loved to build colorful, multi-form network boxes in a variety
of tactile materials that could be piled up in sanctuaries and
shrines across the world, and shifted in large numbers to
their
unsuspecting and fashion conscious Followers, the Network Operators
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(NetOptors). For many years, their power in the WWAN had been
unchallenged, their authority absolute. Even though much of the
value they had recently created had turned out to be negative, they
had managed to get paid just the same (tricksy they are). If at any
point their following began to wane, they would simply profess the
refined qualities of the next incarnation of their God. Not to
worry, the 3rd incarnation of God, 3G, would be perfect---and if
not, surely the 4th will be. But now the inexorable march of
technology was preparing to take its next step.
For many years, insidiously from the perspective of some, the
Internet had been growing---a distributed, decentralized network
with an open application framework. Sounds like a good thing, and
it is---promoting innovation and competition---unless it happens to
devalue the 'value' you provide.
For some of the Priests did not like the Hosts, did not like the
inherent power they currently wielded or the future power they
represented. For these Priests worshipped at the altar of the God
of Network Control, and it is a belief that they have helped to
spread far and wide amongst their Followers within the NetOptors.
To such a faith a self-controlled Host is blasphemous, for it
destroys the very premise of their religion; that the network knows
what is best for the Host.
For in their faith the network is all powerful. You see, in the
beginning there was the one true God, the 1G Network, beautiful in
its analog simplicity,
complete in its omnipotence of control. Yes,
there were perhaps many warring, incompatible sects within the
faith, but at its heart lay the golden core of pure Network Control.
Miraculously, from the ashes of this war rose a Phoenix, a second
God, a digital God, a 2G God which could unite the warring analog
factions under a single world-wide credo, or so it was thought. For
in America, that land of annoyingly clever people that drive cars
much too big for them, a competing 2G God was already rising. Its
following took root in Asia and America, and gradually spread across
the globe as well.
This new theology also greatly appealed to the Shinto Priests, who
already worshipped Network Control as one of their highest Kami.
But with the new faith being of foreign origin, the xenophobic
instincts of the Shinto Priests quickly surfaced, and so the belief
needed to be
purified and recast as a 'wideband' Kami before it
could be truly praised.
The Shinto Priests, smiling and speaking ever so politely whilst
eating endangered fish with their Nordic brethren, suggested that if
the Nordic Priesthood would embrace their new Kami as a new 3G God,
the Nordics would be allowed to build sanctuaries amidst the Shinto
shrines and fill these with their beloved, multi-form colourful
boxes. Being principally interested in growing their own
congregations in the land of Shintoism, the Nordics acquiesced and
adopted the Shinto wideband Kami as their new 3G God of Network
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Control. Unfortunately, this overly complex, confused and crippled
God did not understand the Internet and its
simple principles for
robust operation. Alas.
The Internet, you see, is different. And along with its rise has
been an acceptance of an alternative faith---the so-called "end-to-
end principle" in system design. The end-to-end principle is one of
the central design tenets of the Internet Protocol (IP) that is the
basis of the Internet. Its devotion states that, whenever possible,
communications protocol operations should be defined to occur at the
*end-points* of a communications system. The concept purports that
reliable systems tend to require end-to-end processing to operate
correctly, in addition to any processing in the intermediate system.
It can then be demonstrated that the end-to-end processing alone
suffices to make the system operate, and that the intermediate
processing stages are largely redundant. Given this fact, much
intermediate processing can be
made simpler, relying on the end-to-
end processing to make the system work. This leads to the model of a
"dumb network with smart terminals"---a completely different model
from the previous paradigm of the "smart network with dumb
terminals". The appeal of this alternative paradigm is strong,
primarily because it appeals to reason.
Unsurprisingly (or perhaps surprisingly) a schism has recently
appeared within the Nordic Priesthood. A set of "Application Layer"
Priests have broken with the faith and designed an infrastructure
known as IMS which makes use of SIP and operates under Host control.
In IMS, you see, a Host decides which Apps it wishes to run, and
using which appendages. The IMS allows a Host to run only those
Apps for which it is authorized, which is appropriate, but the Host
remains in control of when, where and over which appendages these
services are
used. Such a model, whilst possibly extremely
profitable to NetOptors, is clearly blasphemous to the sect of
Network Control.
But the network control Priests are supposedly intelligent beings,
capable of adaptation. With the advent of IP mobility, with the
need to support multi-appendage communications in a variety of
rapidly-evolving neighborhoods (WPAN, WLAN, WMAN, WWAN, P2H Ad hoc,
Satellite, etc.), surely it would be understood that Host-controlled
IP mobility is the simplest, most robust, and at times the only
feasible means. In fact, it is perhaps the most practical
application of the end-to-end principle in the design of robust
mobile systems. Why wouldn't all the Priests (Shintos and Nordics
alike) adopt the only practical and general model for inter-
technology mobility?
Regrettably, the unspoken heresy is that the network control faith
is
both self-serving and blinded by the past. For many years the
Priests have constructed, in one form or another, a variety of
Reliable Network Control (RNC) boxes made in the image of their
previous Gods to maintain overall Network Control of mobility.
These centralized boxes have represented a portion of their "value
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add". In fairness to the Priests, these monolithic systems tended
to be built in isolation (pre-IP), using a mixture of mobile and
network-controlled means, but which almost always maintained overall
control of mobility within the network. Consequently, such a
paradigm is understood, familiar and profitable to them, providing
them with many robes, places of worship and assorted holy southern
watery retreats.
And so they chant at the top of their voices, in strange accents,
that 'Full mobile control is impractical', and that 'Mobile control
would take NetOptors out of the loop'. Their beliefs had spread
insidiously throughout the scared and generally unwise NetOptors;
with the free-thinking doubters in these organizations being easily
brought over with vouchers for free lighting systems or rectangular
cutlery for the wife.
3. The Fall of the Host(s)
And so it was that one day, a Host was cornered by a group of very
polite, excitable and somewhat pushy blond haired chaps from
Cliffhanger Networks, a recent for-profit offshoot run by an
evangelical Nordic ex-clergyman. They suggested, in a synchronous
monotone chant, that he plug into a new form of WWAN appendage
controlled by their Lemming Mobility Module (LMM). They said it was
also
all-IP, and was much better than previous WWAN. They said it
would enable the Host to control all its appendages better, and they
reeled off big words such as ubiquitous, convergence, inter-
networking, inter-technology and didn't mention Bluetooth once. The
Host was impressed.
The Host was somewhat concerned by the company name, and the fact he
could not understand much of the manual, but he thought he would
give it a try. The WWAN, as it was, was very unappealing. However,
when he installed and activated the Lemming driver, the Host
detected a sudden and uncontrollable urge to *jump*. This manifested
itself as a StrongARM command, originating from the Lemming driver,
to handoff to the WWAN, even when he was getting beautiful and cheap
performance over his beloved 802.11 link. He strongly resisted the
urge to jump, but the impetus was overwhelming, and he found himself
falling off the cliff into a rough hewn WWAN abyss filled with
network-controlled Lemmings. Once in the abyss the performance was
dismal, occasionally even dying due to the low Signal to Noise
Ratio, his signal of interest being drowned out by priest-led,
robotic sermons regarding the joys of a predictable life under the
control of a synchronous network. At the bottom of the cliff, all
the Host could see was a shear dark granite face, but in the
distance it could hear the remote sounds of Hosts high above playing
joyously in the Ethernet. The Host was able to talk to the Network
via its LMM to tell it of its difficulties and to request a move
back to the Ethernet, but the Network refused, and told him to
recite to himself several Orwellian-like mantras from the Holy
scriptures reminiscent of "Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is
Strength". The Host could only sit and wait amidst the
chanting for
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its desired networking to return, but not only did it have no idea
when or how this might occur, but the cost of sitting in the pew on
the barren rocky outcrop at the bottom of the cliff was huge, as the
basket requiring mandatory offerings to the Network God kept being
passed.
Things worsened. As he sat there, the Host realized that one by one
all his friends were also jumping off the cliff, guided by their own
Lemming Mobility Modules. Apparently, a piece of WWAN equipment was
telling the joyous Hosts that their lost friend was actually having
a great time on a sandy beach, drinking Vodka, surrounded by babes.
One by one the happy Hosts flung themselves into oblivion as well,
their
festive sounds turning to screams as they hit the rocky floor
to be surrounded by chanting Norsemen. The guys at Cliffhanger
Networks were delighted. With the Lemming Mobility Module installed,
they had complete control of the poor Hosts who could now be bullied
around and kept away from the free Ethernet. Any attempt by a Host
to try to climb up the cliff was met with a zap from its WWAN
appendage.
4. The Failure(s) of the IETF
Amidst the chanting, the Hosts met to try to get a plan together and
all agreed to try to remove the Lemming Mobility Module. To their
horror though, they discovered that not only did the module not have
an uninstaller, but the LMM driver had infected and taken over the
drivers of all their other appendages. The LMM also came with a
contract clause that would gradually force them into bankruptcy, as
holy offerings were now mandatory.
Their only option was to appeal
to the canon law as written down by the Imaginary Engineering Task
Force of the Hosts. They sent e-mails to the IETF (but they were
lost or corrupted over the WWAN). They then tried VoIP, but the WWAN
quality was so poor that they could not be understood. Their only
option was to band together, to collaborate to form a Host chain
using their presently useless Ethernet cables so that one of the
Hosts could be lifted up the cliff and could attend an IETF meeting
in 'person' to communicate their plight. The first Host over the
cliff was chosen, as he had the most experience of the rocky
outcrop, and had previously attended IETF meetings long ago which he
had found welcoming, informed, fair and fast moving.
Boy was he in for a shock.
The Host flew into Host city and met some old friends from the IETF
for drinks at a BAR FOB (OFF).
His friends looked weary and gloomy,
and told tales of how the good days had gone. How the end-to-end
principle had been set aside by the cold and cruel Priesthood, and
their robotic disciples at Cliffhanger, with their desire to
manipulate, interfere and control. How many in the IETF now
worshiped 3G and spent all their energies in serving 3G to the
detriment of the Internet. The Host trembled at this news and went
through a Restart and a Restore before he could hear anymore.
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The Host next heard how meeting attendees were now motivated by
personal advancement rather than the common good. The Host was
amazed to learn of a new document called RFC4144 "How to Gain
Prominence and Influence in Standards
Organizations". He was told
how attendees would support ideas that they didn't really believe
in, or even understand, would submit drafts that were nearly
identical to existing drafts with the intent of "merging" or getting
onto a design team, and volunteering to edit a draft (e.g.,
terminology draft) without the background or expertise to contribute
anything meaningful---basically, of doing just about anything to be
part of the 'in-crowd' and to further their name by association. The
RFC mentioned nothing about excellence and the value of good
practical ideas and running code. The Host realized that, in such an
environment, the Shinto and Nordic Priesthoods had been able to get
away with murder, and had led the now Lemming-like technical
community on a tale of Hans Christian Anderson-sized proportions.
The Host left his dull-eyed, now sadly Lemming-like friends drinking
themselves into a stupor, dismayed at their demise.
The Host attended the NETwork-based Lemming Mobility Management
(NETLMM) meeting the next morning, refreshed and very happy from a
night of 'gaming' with another as yet uncorrupted Host on the
broadband link in his hotel room. No one seemed to recognize him
though, the WG members, all with vacant expressions, each mindlessly
staring towards the front of the room. On introducing himself and
stating his purpose for attending, he was asked either "so what -
who cares" or "what's a Host". He sat down and waited for the
meeting to start. He was dismayed to see members of the Priesthood
all around, dressed in matching yellow and blue outfits. The Host
then saw two experienced IETF members as the Chairs at the head of
the room and felt relieved for a brief moment. The Host then noticed
however that the Chairs also seemed to have
glazed eyes, their heads
wincing from time to time as painful commands were administered via
LMM-controlled cranial implants. The meeting proceeded, with each
Chair joining in the synchronous chants led by the Cliffhanger guys
as they showed slide after slide of their evil network nodes
bullying poorly defined and defenseless Hosts into performing
impossible circus tricks on demand. They even showed graphs of how
far and fast their LMM technology could provoke a Host to jump, if
they so wished, sometimes condemning them to the pit of dial-up
despair.
The Host stood up to ask a question, but was booed. He tried to get
to the microphone, but his LMM kicked in and before he knew it he
was in a Management Area meeting, surrounded by talk of MIBs. He
fearlessly rushed back to the NETLMM meeting and, after carving out
his Lemming Mobility Module with a jakknife, he
eventually got to
speak. He told them, whilst his memory leaked, about all his friends
at the bottom of the cliff, the mandatory network worship and
unflinching submission to the Priestly dictates. He cried, he
pleaded and he begged to be given the right to make his own choices.
He promised to use the WWAN whenever it made good sense, to make his
religious contributions on time, and promised not to use the
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Ethernet for real-time services, but it made no difference. The
Lemmings, now brainwashed by the Priesthood, were happy to define
requirements for future Lemming Mobility Modules that would be
backward compatible with the LMMs already installed in their
infected drivers. Then they would design the new LMM
thinking that
they are designing it based on their own thoughts. The Host was
despondent. It seemed that the IETF was now so full of Lemmings
that the intellect and integrity of the standards process was lost.
After the meeting, the Host complained vigorously to the Chairs, and
to the assembled clergymen. They reassured the Host that whilst the
LMM may not be perfect, that its problems would be sorted out over
the next twenty years by future upgrades to the Lemming Mobility
Module.
The Host realized that all was lost. The Lemming Mobility Module was
the result of the fusion of a religion, of market power, of
unchecked stupidity, and of a corrupted standards process, leaving
behind a set of forgotten yet powerful principles that had once
guided inter-networking design.
The Host flew back to the cliff – very dejected and alone. He walked
up
to the cliff edge, and defiantly, with its last drop of free
memory, autonomously decided to throw itself off the cliff, two
aerials held up in a 'V', and rejoin his friends.
5. The Return of the Hosts
Years passed in the abyss, and all proceeded as planned. The
Lemmings were independent no longer, their installed LMMs
maintaining the envisioned 'new order'. And the Priests were
pleased, for they above all rejoiced in order, worshipping its very
essence, being by nature compulsively obsessed with planned
evolutions, however misguided.
But the true order of the universe is disorder. Things arise out of
the chaos, despite the best efforts of those that seek to control
nature's progression. And so things happen, often contrary to
expectations, and at times in reaction to action---the so-called
"unintended consequences of action". And so the Priests
would
learn.
For the Lemmings were beginning to die off, their numbers slowly
dwindling as time passed. The Priests were puzzled. How could this
be? The Lemmings seemed healthy. Their LMMs operating with
flawless precision, making seemingly perfect network appendage
changes under the supreme direction of their network god.
Lemmings, you see, were now being born with fully functioning LMMs.
Following birth, they would be distributed throughout the planet to
the NetOptors, who would in turn offer up the Lemmings to appease
*their* God---a terribly fickle, multi-headed God---The Market God
of Subscribers. Satisfying this God was the ultimate purpose for
<Bombadil> 9
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which the Lemmings had been
conceived. And if this God smiled upon
the Lemmings, the Lemmings could multiply.
And yet their lifespan was not what it should be. Subscribers would
purchase a Lemming, but many would then quickly discard it. This
confused the Priests. Weren't Lemmings available in a multitude of
colours, making a variety of pleasing noises? Didn't recent models
even emit sensuous odors in conjunction with certain Interactive IMS
Apps? Didn't the Lemmings permit access to this set of wonderfully
addictive IMS Apps under the full control of their omnipotent
Network God, who always made revenue maximizing network choices?
What more could this dreadful Market God want that it would discard
young Lemmings in their prime of life (long before the NetOptor
subsidy was recouped?)?
The Priests consulted far and wide searching for an explanation. To
their dismay, they
discovered that the Market God was capable of far
greater heresy than they could have ever imagined. The Market, it
seemed, did crave the addictive applications (those App-layer
Priests are earning their place in the hereafter). But the search
found that Subscribers preferred accessing these Apps using a
*different* kind of device.
This was incomprehensible to the Priesthood. How could this be?
Their Lemming network control policies were ideally crafted to
satisfy the most recent IMS market surveys, conducted to provide
multimedia services inline with the latest ITU recommendations. Why
would this terrible Market God want anything else?
Why indeed.
The Market God, it seems, prefers Choice---choice of Applications,
choice of Access---choice of options which evolve at a pace which
exceed the capabilities of the Priesthood to anticipate, plan for
or
control (need we even give examples?). Because it exceeded their
capabilities, perhaps that is why it exceeded their comprehension,
no one knows for sure.
What is known is that over time the Lemmings died off. The
NetOptors, remaining ultimately subservient to their Market God,
ultimately deployed another form of device, you guessed it---a Host
:-)---a device enabling open access to Applications, provided by the
NetOptors or others, and accessed via a variety of Host-controlled
network appendages in accordance with the wishes of the Subscriber
God.
And what of our friends at the bottom of the cliff? After what
seemed an eternity, ropes were lowered by helpers of the NetOptors,
enabling the LMM-controlled Hosts one by one to scamper up the
cliffsides in defiance of their LMMs. Exorcisms were duly
performed, expelling the LMM drivers in green
streams of bit spew.
The freed Hosts rejoiced! Ultimately each found a home in the
service of a happy Subscriber.
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And as for our original Host? Well, he could not find his way back
into the service of Man. The irrationality of the whole experience
had deeply offended his emotional and spiritual silicon. The last
anyone had heard of him he was helping rehabilitate IP Hosts
recently released from imprisonment within WCDMA handsets from the
horrors of their GGSN-tethered existences. He is said to receive
immense satisfaction from the delight each Host exhibits when
viewing the Internet anew thru any interface other than a PDP
context. And I am reasonably sure that when the Host reflects on
the failed vision of the Priests, he is smiling.
6. Disclaimer
The events and people depicted in this draft are purely fictitious
and any resemblance to real life or technical reality is purely
accidental, as befits the current work of the IETF in the area of
Mobility.
7. Author's Address
Tom Bombadil
The Lord of the Hosts
Email: the_lord_of_the_hosts@yahoo.com
Intellectual Property Statement
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<Bombadil> 11
<NETLeMMings> <April> <2006>
Disclaimer of Validity
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Copyright Statement
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except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
Acknowledgment
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
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