Re: About Port Forwarding, Apache and Firewall Rules

[jseymour () linxnet com (Jim Seymour)]

"Jeremiah Cornelius" <jeremiah () nur net> wrote:
>
[snip]
> His "Terms of Service" are a minor contract, 

IANAL.  Please elucidate on this "minor contract" point.  Again: IANAL,
but I always understood that a contract is a contract is a contract.

>                                              and may well have been 
> unilaterally ammended by the ISP after he became a customer.
[snip]

That may well be.  In which case one presumes his ISP wouldn't be
taking measures such as blocking port 80 to him?

> I don't think there is much of an ethical dilimma in helping this fellow 
> out, as long as he is aware that he is risking his service.

Agreed: No ethical dilemma at all.  It would clearly be wrong.

> If, in his locale, he can't get an equivalent ISP without such an onerous 
> restriction, then his ISP is likely an illegal monopoly.  

We don't know that.  I'm not sure it would matter even if we did.  This
is firewall-wizards, not alt.activism or whatever.

>                                                           They block the 
> ability to serve port 80?  They are out of RFC compliance in providing 
> Internet services.  

Educate me: Which RFC would that be?

>                     You probably can't get an uneducated court to agree - 
> but I'd claim that what they are providing doesn't meet the definition of 
> "Big-I" Internet, and are guilty of contratual bad-faith and 
> misrepresentation.

Being in the high-tech industry for more years than I'd care to count,
being specifically in systems & network administration for well over a
decade, being somewhat conversant with how the law works, and even
considering I'm a libertarian by nature (is that educated enough?):
You'd not likely get even me to agree, if the TOS explicitly forbade
servers/services.

There is no God-given, natural law or Constitutional right to Internet
access.  What there is are for-profit companies (mostly) that provide
various levels of Internet access, for a fee, under contractual
agreement.  If I sign a contract that says "No, I'll not run
servers/services," then that's the contract.

Btw: *Most* DSL and cable broadband providers do have SOHO/business
packages that allow the running of services and give one static IP
addresses.  Many areas of the country have alternate (usually DSL)
broadband providers that can supply business-class connectivity.  Of
course: These options all come at a price.

Jim
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