[afripv6-discuss] IPv6 Magic --- New from Microsoft --- SecureDirectAccess end to end

[Leo Vegoda]

Hi Latif,

> Many email servers are behind NATs :-)

Indeed. But not for a lack of readily available IPv4 addresses from AfriNIC. I know that AfriNIC have reached out to governments as well as industry and academia to make sure that they are all fully aware that they can have as much IPv4 address space as their networks need. True, IPv4 will be harder to come by in a few years time but AfriNIC has plenty available at the moment and the IANA free pool has 32 /8s in it. If a ministry needs IPv4 address space for its network it can get it without a problem.

I suspect the lack of external access to e-mail is down to security policy. I have friends working in both private industry and public service who do not have external access to business e-mail as a matter of their employer's security policy. It is not unusual in some industries and I don't think we should be surprised if some government ministries have security policies that don't allow this. Further, I disagree with the implication that ministers using free webmail services are sending sensitive e-mails unencrypted when free text encryption software has been around since 1991.

None if this should be read as me turning my nose up at the work Microsoft has done. I am glad to welcome this development and I am sure that this and similar implementations will make our lives better over the next couple of decades. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean that security policies will be relaxed or that e-mail sent today via free webmail services cannot be protected from prying eyes with high quality encryption.

Regards,

Leo