[145984] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Outgoing SMTP Servers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (McCall, Gabriel)
Fri Oct 28 08:56:23 2011
From: "McCall, Gabriel" <Gabriel.McCall@thyssenkrupp.com>
To: Pete Carah <pete@altadena.net>, "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:54:37 -0400
In-Reply-To: <4EAA056E.5010006@altadena.net>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
The alternative to centralization is enclosure: segmentation and private ow=
nership of portions of the formerly common resource. Since the internet is =
already thus enclosed, with each portion completely owned by one autonomous=
agent or another, the problem at hand is not a commons problem at all but =
merely one of negotiation and market force. Internet Death Penalties, black=
lists, and unilateral de-peering and blackholing are exactly the sorts of r=
esponses an economist would expect to see to a rogue actor in the network c=
ommunity, precise analogs of various types of economic ostracism going back=
to the merchant consortia of the middle ages.
-Gabriel
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Carah [mailto:pete@altadena.net]=20
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 9:29 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Outgoing SMTP Servers
Maybe he is concerned that the Wikipedia article gets into nit-picking abou=
t the ownership of the commons that isn't relevant to our problem, and also=
is rather long-winded. Hardin got into some things at the end of his pape=
r that probably aren't either (but then, he was a population biologist and =
not an economist). BTW - that paper is a good read and not too long. The =
journal link (reference 1 in the wikipedia article) actually works openly (=
AAAS only blocks full access for a while...)
For our purpose, the ownership of the commons in question truly isn't relev=
ant; the fundamental statement of the tragedy for us is that a "useful" res=
ource that is incrementally free (or even cheap enough) to a large number o=
f participants will get exploited and probably overused.
I'm not aware of any solution to this problem with commons that doesn't inv=
olve a central authority :-( In feudal practice the landlord could do some =
enforcement; the spanish alcaldes were another good example of a semi-centr=
al solution to the commons problem (water rights in their origins, though t=
heir authority grew over time).
Classic economics says that market pricing is the solution, but that tends =
to result in another kind of tragedy.
-- Pete
On 10/27/2011 05:38 PM, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:17:22 -0000, Brian Johnson said:
>> So... I'm in complete agreement with your statement, but The=20
>> Wikipedia
reference is not pertinent.
>
> So I point out the tragedy of the commons, you agree with it, but the
Wikipedia
> reference that talks about the same exact thing isn't pertinent? How
does that
> follow? :)
