The recent conversations on policy have resulted in much confusion.
My understanding of the intent of such a policy is to prevent
"bad" things from being done in the network while allowing for those
things that are "good" to do. In my humble opinion (IMHO) this is an extremely
challenging task.
Consider gun control. The idea is prevent "bad use" of guns and allow
"good" use.
"Bad" has some society aspects like shooting people, robbery, etc. I
believe that
the greater majority of people from any country would agree this is a
"good idea". The problem is how to write a policy to be effective. Once
can close down the gun manufactures in the USA but that places defence
at a jeopardy and the "bad people" will get there guns elsewhere. One
stop making one kind of gun (like stop OPES) but that is clearly as useless.
At least every example that I can think of keeps guns with the crooks and
defeats the "useful" applications of guns for defence, hunting, etc. or
any other use that society condones as "not bad". Policy for "mis-use" is a
very tough problem.
So, as I said, writing a policy that allows for "good" use of the network
applications
and excludes "bad" network applications is an extreme challenge for the CDT
folks. Maybe they could start by listing those kind of applications that
are "good" and "bad" and send this to the OPES mailing list for feedback?
This would be a strong step in understanding the problem space.
Michael
Michael W. Condry
Director, Network Edge Technology