[57122] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: is this true or... ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Schwartz)
Fri Mar 28 19:34:25 2003
From: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com>
To: <blitz@macronet.net>, Tomas Daniska <tomas@tronet.com>
Cc: <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 16:31:44 -0800
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20030328120603.00a2b8e0@mail.macronet.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 12:06:56 -0500, blitz wrote:
>If it is, it reveals how utterly clueless our legislators=
really
>are....
=09The text I saw talks about a device's "primary purpose". The=
primary
purpose of NAT is not to hide anything, it's to allow multiple
connections to share a scarce resource. If you download your=
email
over an encrypted link, your primary purpose is to conceal the
*content* of communications, not their source or destination.
Similarly, the primary purpose of a firewall is to enforce=
policies
about security, not to hide the origin of a communication.
=09So the issue is really more narrow. The issue is whether it's=
ever
legitimate to do something primarily for the purpose of hiding=
the
origin or destination of a communication from an ISP. I would=
argue
that most people don't care if their ISPs know where there
communications originate or terminate; however, the law is bad
because there certainly are legitimate cases where my ISP has no=
business knowing who is talking to me or who I'm talking to.
=09However, Felten's claim that "anything that concealed the=
origin"
would be illegal is FUD. In fact, his spin no it is pure FUD,=
IMO.
=09That said, if it takes a bit of FUD to get attention to a bad=
law,
that's maybe not such a terribly bad thing. The risk is that
lawmakers will refute the FUD and then feel comfortable going=
ahead
with a bad law.
--
David Schwartz
<davids@webmaster.com>
