[ NNSquad ] Re: Civil Rights Groups Wants P2P Throttling to Preserve Rights (or something like that)

[jbartas <jbartas@speakeasy.net>]

 While blocking spam is a worthy cause, "owners" of network components 
blocking things at will is a slippery slope.

What if Microsoft decides tweak their Windows DNS client to forge 
replies redirecting "google.com" to their own search engine. I may own 
my computer, but Microsoft owns the windows code. If I don't like it, I 
can go to their competition ;-). Or my Linksys router (again, I may own 
the hardware but Cisco owns the code) "helps" my bandwidth even more by 
blocking my non-Cisco "SIP" VoIP serivice (Cisco uses SCCP VoIP, the 
rest of the world uses SIP).

Meanwhile my ISP, having gotten away with blocking BitTorrent, might 
block any VoIP service other than the one they sell. Coupled with Cisco 
SIP stomping, above, this means no VoIP for me. And my Realtek 
(Taiwanese) Ethernet NIC start dropping any packet with a destination IP 
mapped to Yahoo (in retaliation for Yahoo helping the mainland Chinese). 
And Firefox refuses to link to MSN. There go all my search engines.

Eventually nobody can reach anything. The whole Idea of Internetworking 
is (or was) that all these parts should should make a best effort to 
forward all traffic, not pick and choose. Blocking should only be done 
as a last resort, with the express informed consent of the end users of 
the network. My ISP blocks spam, but I'm aware of this and free to 
unblock it anytime I want. I assume Brett's customers have the same 
option. As Lauren pointed out, senders of spam deserve jail, not blocking.

-JB-

Brett Glass wrote:
> At 10:19 AM 3/5/2008, Vint Cerf wrote:
>  
>   
> > Are you saying that your service is private and therefore you can decide what I can and cannot send through it?
> >     
>
> Yes. For example, I can tell you that you cannot spam.
>
> --Brett Glass
>
>   
--
John Bartas - Director of Network Engineering
Packet Island, Inc. www.packetisland.com
jbartas@packetisland.com
cell: 408-857-0605