[11027] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS and the CIX - have they really connected? (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert G. Moskowitz)
Fri Mar 18 10:01:13 1994
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 07:35 EST
From: "Robert G. Moskowitz" <0003858921@mcimail.com>
To: com priv <com-priv@psi.com>
Cc: Karl Denninger <karl@mcs.com>
>You ARE reselling IP access to those people. If not, then you could
>firewall the accounts so they could see only your hosts via IP. But
>that's not what you're doing, nor is it what we're doing.
>We <used> to have SLIP accounts that could only see our systems. Those
>were not "IP resale" by definition, since you couldn't telnet off-MCSNet
>(as an example) from them. What I do within our infrastructure is my
>business. As soon as I reach out to other networks it no longer is my
>business alone.
>I suspect that if you asked the customer what he was buying, he would
>perkily say "IP access to the net". If that's not IP resale I don't know
>what is. Its double-speak to try to claim that is not what you're doing;
>you know darn well that is what the customer is <buying>, and <why> he or
>she is buying it -- because he or she wants to route <packets> -- IP
>packets - to and from the net. You're doing that job for money. How can
>you possibly claim you're not "routing" those packets? You sure as heck
>are!
Speaking for my colleagues that are getting this type of service for their
homes, I disagree with you Karl.
People want 'IP access to the net' to get better interfaces and
functionality than a shell account offers. I am an exception and I will
discuss that later in this note.
Now it is easily arguable that a person with IP access with put more load on
the net than a person with a shell account. A person with IP access will be
surfing with Mosaic, FTPing a lot of files, and other things. A person with
a shell account is principally doing EMail. Thus IMHO Doug is not reselling
network access as I will define later, but he is putting more of a load on
the net than a provider that is only offering shell accounts. Perhaps this
might be put into the fee structure for access somehow...
Now as I indicated, I am a different sort of user. A fairly educated one.
I have LAN at home and do not want to pay LAN rates. I also know
firewalling technology. I could set up a UNIX system in my house and get it
a PPP account from a local provider. Then I could run SOCKS or TIS on that
box to give all of my home systems access to the net. And for IP addresses
for my home, I would just use one of the C numbers listed in RFC 1597! In
fact I could (but won't without a more up-front approach to my provider, not
my style to cheat) then offer IP dialup to my friends and neighbors with the
NetBlazer I have at home and the net would only see the address of my
firewall. How would my provider guess that I am doing more than just my one
system should? By the connect time and by the number of unique connections.
It is that connect time point that might change me from a dialup user to a
dedicated user. And that is why I am investigating 56Kb or ISDN dedicated
circuit into my home with an up-front agreement with a provider....
Finally for a plug for firewalls. I foresee a big market for simple, secure
Dual-homed host firewalls as a result of RFC 1597. As a small businessman,
I could go to a provider and buy the firewall as a part of my service and
have my whole private net connected fast and securly. I would not have to
go to IANA or have my provider do it for me. The only 'public' address in
my business is the the outbound interface of the firewall.
I think if someone could port SOCKS as an NLM, this would really break out
into a big business. Lots of business would see adding the NLM to their
server and the line directly into the server. They would use LAN Workgroup
from NOVELL. They could even run a WWW server on a Windows box (code
already available) right now, and probably as a NLM in the future.
I hold this out as a business model for you providers. Really open up the
NII to businesses and work out an effective pricing mechinism and a
no-settlement arrangement for users like this....
Bob Moskowitz
Speaking for my home business (Contributing Editor to Network Computing).
