Charles et al;
On Sat, 2019-07-20 at 15:52 -0400, Charles J. Hargrove via 44Net wrote:
Since most of the new people that I run into on 44Net do not have the same or better networking background that some of us have, a compelling need coupled with an explanatory story should be the approach with these newbies.
I'll +1 your comments and raise you with this:
As President and engineer of EastNet, let me go over some bullet points for those especially NOT in our country or region.
o The average age of those sysops on EastNet is 70+ o They grew up without technology and are most happy to remain ignorant about it o BGP, IPIP, GRE are initial groupings they could care less about. o Many of these guys can't even type in a URL without their hands held. o Virtual Private Network to them sounds like the evil doings of the dark web and they want nothing to do with it. o If it's not standard equipment from my ISP it must be against my contract with them. o If HRO doesn't sell a pre-made appliance to plug in and use for this amprnet thing then it can't be any good or work.
I could go on but I'll stop right there. As Charles tried to mention, just because a very small percentage of hams are familiar with amateur IP or amateur wired internet that doesn't mean the bulk of hams are or that they even wish to learn. Most still immediately think IP = wired only period and that's not what they took a license test for... and they find it to actually be offensive in regards to amateur RADIO. If it's not HF Contesting, it's not "ham radio" it's wire and they don't need nor want to learn about this... but they do wish to offer the services.
The current IPIP mesh network does indeed work... I suppose if it works don't fix it no longer applies? I'm on it and the fact you see this mail is a PoC it works.
The address space is free however I have and intend to make more donations to the cause. I feel now that 25% of the space is sold, we're now commercial in nature (albeit non-profit in label) so IP space should now be sold to the end user. Since it's the internet, there's no reason ARDC can't sell space to end users. ARDC itself isn't providing a single resource on amateur radio so it wouldn't violate any laws. (my personal opinion)
SWIP services should now be offered if 44/9-44.128/10 are now no longer legacy space but ARIN controlled. This has held me back when I've worked for some ISPs in my region getting my 44-net space announced because there was no proof of ownership for the block (something also mentioned in another list). I would guess we now have Arin services to our avail? If so SWIP should be added to the portal when adding/approving blocks.
BGP is filtered at many ISPs in my region. VPN and SSH even are filtered now as too many script kiddies are using VPN for illegal services such as leeching movies and games. Other protocols are as well and their CPEs are deployed deliberately 'broken' so the end user can't change this since much of the filters are within the CPE's firmware to take the load off of their edge routers.
So please remember the following: o your comments (including mine here) are often based on personal opinions based on your own personal environments to work within. o only "we" know what we're talking about, we might as well speak martian to the rest since they have no idea between BGP and FBI. o the bulk of those owning a license who have IP space with 44-net not only could care less about "improvements" they look at it instead as a way to exit this part of being a ham and use that time more for HF/contesting. o don't want to be forced into having to buy a microtik or any other device - they've spent too much in their HF rigs already. o would have to find or hire someone to help them migrate over to whatever would replace existing topologies... and would rather have ARDC sell their IP space too.
Again I could continue but I think you get the jist. Are we in this for ourselves or to offer a platform for hams to experiment on RF with IP and it's services?
On a more personal level, I'd just assume see it all scrapped in favor of IPv6 only and find some new purpose for NDP or the sort that might be able to identify us by callsign somehow. I know there's one idea on the table already. Why play around with IPv4 at all when it IS going to get replaced. Don't put a bandaid on where stitches belong. Set up a test bed and when all the bugs are worked out deploy it out but don't interrupt a working production system. If you did that at work chances are you wouldn't have incoming cash flow for very long.
There's plenty of IPv6 available, and I don't think we even need to have our own block. ISPs now often give out a nice /64 DHCP subnet and you can find even larger ones for free as well as I myself have a static /48 to which I broker some out to various sites within EastNet to run parallel to their 44-net IPs. Works very nicely. Many hams aren't even using 44-net IP space for their services such as D-Star/DMR repeater linking their either using RFC-1918 space or their ISPs IPs.
... but to restructure the network - besides the fact that shrinking the /8 into a /9 and /10 is in itself a restructure of sorts, the current methods of connectivity to should not be depleted at all. If anything they should all harmoniously talk together or else like with the other digital toys (dstar/fusion/dmr) we'd only be creating our own tower of babel which does no one any good whatsoever.