[11154] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: What is an "Internet reseller"?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Denninger)
Wed Mar 23 05:12:24 1994
From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
To: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 21:00:43 -0600 (CST)
Cc: karl@mcs.com, matthew@echo.com, fidelman@civicnet.org, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <199403230224.AA00517@world.std.com> from "Barry Shein" at Mar 22, 94 09:24:12 pm
> Odd Karl, I've never heard anyone but you say that this was unethical
> or even a problem. My impression always was that quite simply the line
> is drawn at providing routed IP addresses to the net to others.
Yep. That is indeed where the line is drawn. What made you think I drew
it in some other place?
What I DO think is unethical is concocting devices to provide routed
traffic to others and not pony up to the bar.
> Is there any other authority this derives from or is this just your
> personal opinion? I'm just curious. Something I'm thinking of is
> "lynx" which provides a character-cell interface to WWW, though "term"
> is a good example.
I CERTAINLY don't think this is a problem coming from World or anywhere
else!
Please don't assume that I have a position just because it <might> follow
from some other, stated position. 'Tis not necessarily the case.
> How different is term from someone telnet'ing into a shell account
> host, doing a "setenv DISPLAY them:0.0", and just firing up xmosaic on
> the shell account host? Should that require full provider status? (Why
> they might do this begs the question, but I know people do this,
> perhaps their site is cranky and simply refuses to put up the xmosaic
> binary, and probably other things, no newsfeed or whatever, enough to
> justify purchasing access somewhere else.)
Well, that's exactly the point. If you are doing this as a device to evade
having full connectivity then I think you're unethical. If you're doing it
because your host is cranky then its not so clear-cut.
At issue is the entire provision of IP service, really. World currently
enjoys Alternet's CIX membership, and I have no problem with that. Just as
I have no problem with the sites that I connect enjoying their connectivity
which we provide by virtue of our membership.
What bothers me is when people start talking about using SOCKS, some custom
package, or some "IP to OSI gateway" to evade the issue. Can I do anything
about it? Probably not. Do I think its a practice that is unethical?
Yep.
--
--
Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.COM) | MCSNet - Full Internet Connectivity (shell,
Modem: [+1 312 248-0900] | PPP, SLIP and more) in Chicago and 'burbs.
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