[2600] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
RE: world.std.com (its only an example)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Thu Mar 19 15:54:57 1992
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 14:16:32 -0600 (CST)
From: SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM (Sean Donelan)
To: Jeff.Ogden@um.cc.umich.edu, com-priv@psi.com
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"Jeff.Ogden@um.cc.umich.edu",SMTP%"com-priv@psi.com"
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
Even if I never initiated any connections, the NSF has shown they intend to
hold me responsible for other people's actions. The whole business about
the NSF contacting sites that had certain GIF files in their anonymous FTP
areas had a very chilling effect.
Then there is the problem of the internet technology itself. You can't
tell before hand (with any absolute certainty) where your packets will
be travelling. So if world.std.com allowed ANY traffic to/from the NSFNET,
it is impossible to prevent the possibility that some "bad" packets might get
routed across the NSFNET.
Even "educating" you users won't help you, since your users can't tell what
will happen to their packets before they send them.
For example, if world.std.com was announced to the NSFNET and people at UofM
could access it (Alternet->NSFNET->MichNet) for R&E purposes so it would meet
the acceptable use policy. But lets say people on World also conduct business
with sites on Nearnet via the Alternet-Nearnet gateway. Since this doesn't
use any NSF sponsored gateways, it isn't covered by the NSF AUP (Alternet->
Nearnet). But what happens when the Alternet-Nearnet gateway goes down,
and world.std.com is announced to the NSFNET? The route becomes Alternet->
NSFNET->Nearnet (more or less). Those people that were conducting business
between the World, and Nearnet sites could now be violating the NSF AUP. So
thanks to the great job the TCP/IP designers did building survivable networking
technology, the users are none the wiser where their packets are going. This
could happen at any time in an exchange. So you might start FTPing your
purchase orders across one acceptable use link, but half-way through the
network may reroute your purchase orders through some other acceptable use
domain.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@sdg.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
