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In other words, the reason NAT is seen as security is that it provides security (imperfectly, like almost everything else).
by tptacek 2mo ago
In other words, the reason NAT is seen as security is that it provides security (imperfectly, like almost everything else).
- unethical_ban 2mo agoIn such a way that it can partially break connectivity and in a way that fails to have users think about security explicitly, yes. Imperfectly.
- tptacek 2mo agoYes when has a security mechanism ever pissed off Unix-on-the-desktop nerds like us before.
- Dagger2 1mo agoNo, the reason is that people incorrectly believe it provides security. It doesn't actually do that.
- tptacek 1mo agoI know that's an article of faith among networking people but it's not actually true.
- Dagger2 1mo agoIt is true. NAT only changes the source address used for outbound connections, it doesn't deny inbound ones. You don't need to take that on faith either -- you can just test it.
- tptacek 1mo agoGo ahead, make an inbound connection to my dev laptop. I'll even give you the IP address: it's 192.168.8.21.
- Dagger2 1mo agoGet me onto the network that's on the WAN interface of your router, disable the firewall on it, and I will. How do you want to go about doing this? Although, 100% of the time people have asked me to do this they chicken out at actually doing it, so I suppose you will too. You might prefer to test with some network namespaces instead.