and sooner or later a significant number of those in-house LANs will
be connected to the internet, because the convenience in doing so
far outweighs the risk.
and if you think that the LAN will be behind a firewall, think again.
every new internet protocol requires authentication, the old ones
are being refitted to support authentication, and the digest framework
allows single sign-on. there will be far less need for a firewall,
than there is now, and firewalls are a poor mechanism for access
control anyway.
it is really starting to sound like folks want IETF to bless the
practice of making limited-functionality devices so that those
devices don't intrude on the markets for more expensive devices.
Keith