From: Brad Templeton <brad(_at_)templetons(_dot_)com>
...
One can make this case, but I have always felt the IETF's broader goal was
suport of an end-to-end internet. As such, ISPs are just there to route
packets, not to enforce policy....
That's mistaken. The end-to-end principle says that ISP routers and
wires should just pass packets and not be smart, but nothing about
enforcing usage policies. Since at least the 1980's (the equivalents
of) ISPs have been expected to enforce usage policies. Remember the
NSFNet AUP. Perhaps the fact that Steve W. only zapped one or two
outfits for violating the AUP and the many gatekeepers at ISPs and
customers (including me) used the threat of the AUP to control their
users is relevant to the failure by modern ISPs to care.
The irony of this is amazing. I remember one day on slashdot there were
two highly active threads. One was about the value of the end to end
principle, and the other was about a UDP for the largest australian ISP which
had
too many spammers on it. (Blocking all usenet postings from the ISP, even
from the innocent users.)
Again, that is entirely consistent. The end-to-end principle says nothing
about ignoring violations of AUPs.
All day long most of us decry when ISPs and firewalls take policy steps,
trying
to ban certain protocols, putting in secret proxies, stopping you from
natting, and we tell them they should worry about their core business, which
is routing packets quickly and reliably. Then when their downstreams
do something we don't like, we blame them for non-enforcement.
I'm not saying we might not, in the end, have to give up some of the end
to end principle to stop spam. But we should do so kicking and screaming.
But you're right that nasty garbage does violate the end-to-end
principle. Lazy, slumlord ISPs prefer to violate the end-to-end
principle as a cheap hack to enforce AUP restrictions.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg