I have to admit I like this part... It somewhat addresses my concerns
about the monopolies that Chris Morrow and Sean Donelan are
perpetrating on us (just kidding guys...).
you are an evil man :)
My fingers are tented... can you see?
Since port 80 and port 25 are lawful services everyone offering
broadband will have to drop filters and provide full routing! Can
you hear me now? Why yes, port 80 and port 25 are open, of course I
can hear you.
Interesting, the filtering in question (for uunet atleast, SBC is in a
slightly different position) is put in place at request of the
customer,
who might be 'protecting' their customer (radius port 25 filtering). I
wonder who's responsibility this situation covers?
I think Dial is "safe" from this Bill. It looks to be targeted to
Broadband. Personally, I was thinking about Verizon's port 80 and 25
blocking and the verbiage that has been attributed to SBC regarding
making content providers pay to see SBC customers.
---snip-----
SEC. 104. ACCESS TO BITS.
(a) DUTIES OFPROVIDERS.—Subject to subsection2
(b), each BITS provider has the duty—3
(1) not to block, impair, or interfere with the4
offering of, access to, or the use of any lawful con-5
tent, application, or service provided over the Inter-6
net;7
--end snip----
What about outside the boundaries of the USofA? Hrm... good thing
all that
legislation we put in place is cleaning up the 'bad content' all
over the
Internet... Wait, it's not :( Legislation isn't the answer to this
problem, unfortunately the gov't hasn't realized this completely :(
Well, I have to agree that legislation typically does not help. If
we end up with state run Internet it would probably stink even
worse. How about just leaving the pipes open and charging for last
mile service? It seems like an easy enough task and seems like you
can make money. Sigh, it used to be all about getting folks high
bandwidth connectivity. More and more it seems like folks are
focusing on ways to sell bits and pieces of service (blocking ports
and sites to charge premiums for "business class") instead of coming
up with their own new and innovative services.
Sorry, I have plenty of buddies at Verizon/MCI and SBC/ATT... Not
slamming you guys, just worried and watching.
Port filtering as an ongoing routine is bad practice for the Internet
in general and eventually leads to folks shifting ports and making it
even harder to track traffic types and worms. I am always quick to
take the filters down when the worst of the worms were over. Let
folks use the natural ports and they will be much easier to track
down and deal with. Force everyone to high ports and they will be
all over the place. If the customer has, or is a, problem then deal
with them! If you offer "Internet" service your base level of
service should be completely open. If you feel like you must filter
ports then offer a "firewall" package or something that folks can
remove if they desire.
Regards,
Blaine