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In theory we can use MAC addresses, but there are problems: 0) Privacy: You don't want all traffic to be labeled with your hardware ID. 1) Flatness: MACs are es
by nayuki 9y ago
In theory we can use MAC addresses, but there are problems: 0) Privacy: You don't want all traffic to be labeled with your hardware ID. 1) Flatness: MACs are essentially random, and a router would need a huge table to keep track of who's where. IP (v4/v6) assigns addresses hierarchically, making routing tables manageable.
- noahl 9y agoThe idea would be to use IP addresses for all levels of routing, and MAC addresses only on the endpoints to identify the connection. So routing actually becomes simpler. However, you have a good point about privacy. One of the other commenters also mentioned non-unique MACs. Another point against using MACs which I want to point out is that they don't make much sense if you have a service running on multiple hosts. I mean, you could introduce "virtual MACs", but it seems better to keep the idea of "service ID" separate from "device ID". Session IDs solve the multiple hosts problem too, by completely avoiding it.