[Dagger2]

The discussion was about the behavior of PAT, and PAT has no influence on whether or not an attacker has a route to you.

[icedchai]

The discussion is about NAT and PAT in general. 99% of the time it is used with unrouteable private addresses. This means even in the absence of a firewall there is still some level of security. End of story.

[Dagger2]

It's common to use it with RFC1918 addresses, but that still doesn't change the behavior of PAT. PAT will not drop connections, and thus won't provide you with security.

[icedchai]

Security is not black or white, it is shades of gray. We'll just have to disagree.

[Dagger2]

The behavior of PAT is, though. You can sniff packets and confirm that it behaves the way I'm describing.

[icedchai]

I already know this.