Host Identity Protocol : Achieving IPv 4 IPv 6 handovers without tunneling

In the current Internet, hosts are identified using IP addresses that depend on their topological location. In other words, the IP addresses are semantically overloaded since they identify both hosts and topological locations. The Host Identity Protocol (HIP) introduces a way of separating the location and host identity information. It introduces a new namespace, cryptographic in nature, for host identities. The IP addresses continue to be used for packet routing. In this paper we describe how HIP can be used to implement mobility and multi-address multihoming across the two versions of IP, IPv4 and IPv6.