nanog mailing list archives
Re: Reporting Little Blue Men
From: Phil Howard <phil () charon milepost com>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:22:11 -0600 (CST)
Dean Anderson writes...
If I am paying you to carry packets, you have an obligation to carry them. Blocking some of them is illegal. (ala AGIS). Every packet that goes through your network is paid for by one of your customers, one of their customers, and so on.
If you are the customer then by all means if you want them you can have them. OTOH, it is not always cost beneficial for ISPs to be both in the business of carrying _all_ packets and in the business of carrying _some_ packets. Many ISPs are in the latter category. If you want to buy a sub sandwich, and are willing to pay for it, you have a right to do so, but McDonalds doesn't have an obligation to sell you one unless they have agreed (in their advertising, for example) to do so. Many ISP are indeed shifting roles from the carrier of all packets and messages to carriers of only those packets and messages that their paying customers actually want, to whatever level maximizes their return on investment.
If my server checks message headers to determine validity before transferring to a spool file, I am not intercepting, I am determining message routing. As above, if you aren't paying me, I have no obligation to deliver something you handed me for delivery. Or are you suggesting mail servers should deliver mail without determining who it is for?Nope. Thats service observing. Illegal.
Calculating the checksum of an arriving packet, in order to determine if it is valid or not, would be observing, too. Every byte will have been examined. Looking at the header to see where it is supposed to go is also observing. So can you define what kinds of observing you think is illegal? I consider illegal any kind of observing that is not a specific function of the obligation to carry out the services agreed to. And our customers want the kind of Internet services that give them the most benefit for the least hassle. That includes blocking spam.
I cannot block mail espousing causes I disagree with, but I have no obligation to deliver them either. Find yourself another path to my client; I won't do anything to permit or prevent it. I am not blocking you. I am also not assisting you. That is neither illegal nor immoral.You are obligated to carry the packets you are paid to carry. You may not look at their contents other than for incidental reasons, such as routing and delivery. (and correct routing and delivery.)
And you are NOT obligated to carry the packets you are not paid to carry. How big of a list can you come up with of customers that actually _want_ to pay to carry spam packets? -- Phil Howard | eat1this () dumb2ads org no5spam6 () spam4mer com no66ads1 () noplace7 org phil | no42ads6 () anywhere org no7way16 () no9place com blow4me9 () no0where edu at | stop8374 () anyplace org no0way60 () anyplace net eat42me4 () s4p9a6m5 net milepost | crash141 () s4p8a8m1 edu no45ads9 () anyplace com no43ads2 () anywhere com dot | a9b1c5d8 () no0where com a8b5c2d6 () dumb1ads com eat12me1 () s1p7a4m5 com com | eat28me4 () spam5mer net a0b4c0d3 () s4p3a1m1 net a3b0c0d6 () anyplace edu
Current thread:
- RE: Reporting Little Blue Men, (continued)
- RE: Reporting Little Blue Men Dave Van Allen (Jan 20)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Eric Wieling (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Dennis Simpson (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Patrick W. Gilmore (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Michael Dillon (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Patrick W. Gilmore (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Patrick W. Gilmore (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Phil Howard (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Dean Anderson (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Patrick W. Gilmore (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Taner Halicioglu (Jan 21)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Phil Howard (Jan 21)
- Message not available
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Dean Anderson (Jan 21)
- Re: ridiculous misreadings of laws John R. Levine (Jan 22)
- Re: ridiculous misreadings of laws Dean Anderson (Jan 22)
- Re: ridiculous misreadings of laws Howard Goldstein (Jan 22)
- Re: ridiculous misreadings of laws Jeremy Porter (Jan 22)
- Message not available
- Re: ridiculous misreadings of laws Jay R. Ashworth (Jan 22)
- RE: Reporting Little Blue Men Dave Van Allen (Jan 20)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Steve Sobol (Jan 23)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Dean Anderson (Jan 23)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Howard Goldstein (Jan 23)
- Re: Reporting Little Blue Men Dean Anderson (Jan 26)