Mobile Inter-networking with IPv6 : Concepts, Principles and Practices

24

Mobile IPv4 Route Optimization using Return Routability

You become a writer by writing. It is a Yoga.    –R. K. Narayan

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24.1 INTRODUCTION

Return Routability mechanism for Mobile IPv6 [1] specifies a mechanism for establishing shared secret between a mobile node and an arbitrary correspondent node (CN) node on the Internet in order to enable route-optimized communication. It does this based on the assumption that the underlying routing infrastructure is able to route packets correctly based on their destination addresses. In other words, if a node can demonstrate that it is able to receive packets at an address by responding to messages sent to that address, assigning ownership of that address to the node cannot make the current Internet less secure. This is an important design point. The objective is not necessarily to design the best (or even better) possible security solution, but to design a mechanism that does no more harm to the current Internet than what might already be possible. Arguably, this position is moot. However, engineers are often faced with the challenge of balancing design with deployment considerations. Iron-clad security may be appealing but may turn out to be overkill in some scenarios. On the other hand, without provably secure tools, some applications may not be deployed at all (e.g., VPN). Keeping these concerns in mind, in spite of its documented ...