[1114] in Kerberos
Re: RE - Potential misuse of th
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (vcerf@NRI.Reston.VA.US)
Sat Sep 29 11:58:30 1990
To: Dan Nessett <Dan_Nessett.NSD@lccmail.ocf.llnl.gov>
Cc: fox@motcsd.csd.mot.com, kerberos@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, iab@venera.isi.edu
In-Reply-To: Your message of 24 Sep 90 10:36:04 -0500.
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 90 10:01:59 -0400
From: vcerf@NRI.Reston.VA.US
Dan,
this is absolutely an abuse of the system, if not legally,
then at least by common consent. As you may know, many of
the service providers in the Internet community (and there
are now MANY of them) have been tussling with expressing
acceptable use practices. The initial government limitations
expressed by DARPA in the earliest phases of Internet are
no longer fully applicable because there are so many
parts of the system which are not supplied or subsidized
by the government.
However, the community of users has come to accept a kind
of tacit set of "rules of the road" which sets limits on
the kinds of "advertising" which is considered acceptable.
Solicitations of the kind you sent to me are absolutely
out of bounds on distribution lists intended for technical
exchange. Job solicitations are also considered out of
bounds for the simple reason that employers who pay for
access to Internet have a right to assume their employees
will not be subject to head-hunting in the technical
distribution lists. If someone set up a distribution list
which was devoted to job solicitations or product offers,
perhaps the rules could be more accommodating, but then
the providers of the underlying Internet communication
service might have some strong opinions about the
admissibility of the distribution list.
I appreciate your sensitivity in bringing this particular
incident to my attention. I will be working with the IAB,
IESG and FNC as well as with the regionals to clarify the
question of acceptable use as much as possible. It is
quite possible that the net result will be a kind of
ethical statement which, while not having the force of law,
could influence the user community. A stronger result could
possibly grow out of this discussion, but it might only be
strongly enforceable for parts of the system subsidized
by the U.S. or other governments. The fully commercial
portions of the Internet may not want a priori limitations
on what is permissible to send, although the users of the
various mailing lists have a right, in my opinion, to
ask that certain rules of propriety be observed for specific
lists.
I would be very interested in any further thoughts you may
have on this topic.
Vint
