a comment on Summary for Congress of proposed NN Act Proposal

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joe Touch <touch () ISI EDU>
Date: June 21, 2006 12:04:04 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Summary for Congress of proposed NN Act  
Proposal



David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Gerry Faulhaber <gerry-faulhaber () mchsi com>
> Date: June 21, 2006 10:07:41 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: faulhaber () wharton upenn edu
> Subject: Re: [IP] Summary for Congress of proposed NN Act Proposal
>
> [for IP]
> Amazingly, I find myself in agreement with Dana Blankenhorn.  This
> business of restricting the use of Internet to only service that  
> follows
> IETF/RFC protocols really is fairy dust.  Does anyone think that
> customers really care about "IETF/RFC Inside"?

Dave,

There are plenty of customers who care about this; they made their
fortunes talking about "RFC compliance", even to the point of saying "we
implement all RFCs" (and when asked, claimed even to support RFC 1149 -
Internet over Avian Carriers).

Most of those customers are IT staff, though. The general public has
been using pseudoInternet service for many years, AOL having being the
most prominent example. AOL is a useful example - at one point, all
access was through their portal, through which they could track usage
and add advertisements in the frame. Prodigy had a similar system in the
late 1980s. Whether the general public cares about this or not is a good
question.

I'm not at all clear that the Government needs to legislate a definition
of the Internet or what constitutes Internet service, especially given
it's fuzzy (at best) definition in the Internet community (does it
include NAT'd service? is it limited to only IETF standards-track
protocols? etc.).

We even came up with our own definition for a meeting two years ago
(appended), though it's not clear that the capabilities noted there
wouldn't be 'extra fee'. We already have ISPs 'breaking' those rules for
most home customers, e.g., by providing only NAT'd addresses or by
issuing real IP addresses with short leases so they can spin addresses.
One reason is to support _their_ model of differential pricing -
commercial vs. home - where commercial means 'runs a server' and home
means 'runs a client'. That breaks when home users need to run
server-based applications, e.g., VoIP, web servers, etc.

One reaction to such limited access to 'server' capabilities is the
development of peer-to-peer nets, where hosts elsewhere in the net are
used to help home hosts connect to each other like a client-server
would. Other systems make use of predictability in the way some NATs
assign ports to enable such handshakes.

I personally foresee attempts to block network service to edge users as
similarly encouraging those (and other) overlay and tunneling
technologies*. Given that existing ability, I'm not entirely sure that
any particular legislative restrictions are necessary, as users could
tunnel to a service provider that would sell them whatever access
service they choose.

I would hope that a free market would then resolve the issue, as it
should, without the need for the government - who cannot even decide
what "organic" means, to define what is or is not the Internet.

Joe

* Disclaimer: my experience may be biased since I've been working on
overlays for 9 years, but we use our own technology to support demos
requiring 'real' Internet service in places we find NAT'd service for
years - www.isi.edu/tethernet

-------

Bill of Internet Access Rights
http://www.isi.edu/touch/internet-rights
Joe Touch
USC/ISI
June 21, 2006

(this is an update of a set of rules originally presented at "Preventing
the Internet Meltdown", Los Angeles CA 2004; the original is also
presented at the URL above)

Internet is an association of communicating parties. This necessarily
results in a number of rights which are required for consenting parties
to communicate. Consenting parties should be able to communicate in an
unrestricted fashion, insofar as they do not impinge on the
corresponding rights of other parties. The following is a list of
specific rights to that end:

1. REAL IP: Users have the right to obtain a real IP address, routable
from anywhere on the Internet.

2. REAL DNS (& REVERSE-DNS): Users have the right to obtain a valid
reverse DNS name for that IP address, and the forward lookup of that
name should match the same address.

3. RECEIVE ANY: Users have the right to receive any valid IP packet,
using any valid transport protocol on any valid port (if applicable), up
to the limits of your local resources and network connection.

4. SEND ANY: Users have the right to send any valid IP packet to any
valid real IP address, using any transport protocol, on any valid port
(if applicable), provided it uses an inconsequential amount of resources
of the network and potential receiver until mutual consent is  
established.

5. ENFORCEMENT: Users have the right to know the ISP responsible for
traffic from any valid IP address, sufficient to register a complaint
regarding violations of any of these rules.

--------------------------------------------------


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