I'm not sure I can be any clearer about the fact that NAT is both a security feature and an address management feature. I feel like people who weren't practitioners are the time are trying to reason axiomatically that every feature fits into precisely one bucket, or that a security feature isn't a true security feature if it can be replaced by one or more other "cleaner" security features. None of that is true. Practitioners at the time were not confused.

"You can achieve the same effect" doesn't mean anything in this discussion. If that's your argument, you've conceded the debate.

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simoncion 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ah, I see what you're driving at.

It's a security feature in the same way that a power-cut switch is a security feature. A power-cut switch's purpose is cut power to a machine so that it can -say- be safely worked on or relocated (or simply to not draw power when the machine's not in use), the machine also happens to be inaccessible while its power is cut.

Sure. It's not technically a lie to call a power-cut switch a security feature for most pieces of kit. I'd still laugh at the salesman that made the assertion. If I were feeling particularly cunty, I'd ask him if he injured himself from that great big stretch.

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tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I can't emphasize enough how much of a retcon it is to say "it's not technically a lie" that NAT is a security feature. It was deployed in hundreds of networks specifically as a security feature, and it is part of the security posture of hundreds of thousands of home networks today. People who say "NAT isn't a security feature" are simply wrong.

There are lots of security features I personally don't like either. I don't claim they're not security features; I say they're bad security features.

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Dylan16807 an hour ago | parent [-]

The PIX evidence above doesn't make it look like a retcon. Do you have something better to show about those hundreds of networks?

	▲	kortilla 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Since there's no way for anyone on the Internet to know which machine on the corporate network is using a Class C address at any given time, it's impossible to establish a telnet or FTP session with any particular device. This is a security feature ad, nothing else. And it’s 100% because of NAT, not anything else in the PIX feature set.