[174] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: acceptable use policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tom Molnar)
Thu Nov 15 23:48:40 1990
From: Tom Molnar <molnar@CAnet.CA>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 90 23:35:03 EST
John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> wrote:
If you want a band-aid, bandage the acceptable use policy by
rewriting it to the REAL rules -- e.g. sexually oriented
material is banned from the NSFnet. That would be the EFFECT
of the traceroute hack, so what is your problem, Mr. Wolff,
with saying so?
It seems to me that it is not possible to write guidelines for
acceptable use of a resource that goes into specifics. Guidelines, I
think, have to be somewhat vague to give the authoritative body some
leeway in interpretation. Specifics can almost always be circumvented
somehow, and can get in the way of enforcing the "spirit" of usage
policies.
As a Canadian, I don't quite understand the outrage at the NSFnet usage
policy. As far as I am concerned, NSF gets to call the shots in how we
use NSFnet since they pay for our use of it. The policy doesn't look that
bad to boot.
Regards
Tom Molnar
