On Wed, Apr 05, 2000 at 12:24:03AM +1000, James Wilkinson wrote:
| On Tue, 04 Apr 2000, Matthew Dalton generated:
| >When Optus says 'no servers', does this mean 'no servers for use by the
| >outside world' or does it mean 'no servers for use by your internal lan'
| >(ie masquerading)... or perhaps both?
Well, I asked about incoming ssh and was told "ok" when I signed up.
Speaking as a sysadmin, it's fairly clear to me from reading their AUP
that the "no servers" rule is there to discourage behaviour which
disrupts the network. Remember:
- you're on a _shared_ 2meg downlink
- you're on a _shared_ 128k uplink
This means that outgoing services like HTTP and FTP servers are not
friendly to the infrastructure because they can easily and accidentally
swamp the uplink for your neighbours.
| Another question: what about apps like icq, irc,
Have you actually read the AUP? Observe:
[...]
Internet Relay Chat
The Services may be used to participate in "chat" discussions.
These discussions may be hosted by Optus @Home network servers,
by third party servers, or may not involve any servers at all.
[...]
| that obviously are bound
| to ports and people connect to them from the outside world? [...]
| Is napster considered a server? Seti@Home? Are you even allowed to set
| up a VPN between other friends on or outside of Optus?
Jeez people. Think things through. Consider the bandwidth asymettry and
ask yourself "will this fuck things up for others"? For several
services the answer is "probably yes" and for some services the answer
is "probably no". Make a decision.
Consider this sentence:
Users must ensure that their activity does not improperly
restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the
Services, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Optus) an
unusually large burden on the network itself.
The "in the sole judgment of Optus" is there to preserve their authority in
disputes. That aside, the intent is pretty clear, yes?
The "no servers" clause is there to give O@H the power to withdraw
service when they find someone abusing things. The phrasing of the AUP
makes it fairly clear that that's not their first step, and that
they're (supposed to be) more interested in monitoring the service for
overall quality for users than wasting their time looking for anything
which can can construed as breaking the letter of the AUP.
Complicated clauses have loopholes. A blanket clause with an unspoken
"look the other way when people do harmless stuff" is useful. If O@H
shift from looking the other way to policing the letter of the clause
without reason _then_ it's time to complain.
| I think that the Optus@Home people should really sit down and rethink
| their AUP, in regards to what a service is. If they're trying to stop
| warez sitez on their network, then as Jamie suggested, monitoring
| upstream bandwidth is a much better method than randomly portscanning
| hoping to catch people out.
And how much port scanning have you seen?
If you're running something (eg IRC service) and have been scanned,
have they contacted you and asked you to shut it down? No? They why are
you so tense?
Get a grip people! O@H may simple want to know what their customers
actually like to do with their connections. It's saner than listening
to marketroids.
I've just dug thru my packet log. Not much in the way of portscans
(except from some O@H _customers... and a few oversea things). [...]
Hmm, except for a big scan from noc5.corp.au.home.com on Mar 27.
We read in the AUP:
Violation of Acceptable Use Policy
Optus does not routinely monitor the activity of accounts for
violation of this Policy. However, in our efforts to promote
good citizenship within the Internet community, we will respond
appropriately if we become aware of inappropriate use of our
Services. Although Optus has no obligation to monitor the
Services and/or the network, Optus and its various affiliates
and partners reserve the right to monitor bandwidth, usage, and
content from time to time to operate the Services; to identify
violations of this Policy; and/or to protect the network and
Optus @Home users.
So... One big scan on Mar 27 and nothing before or since. No letters,
no loss of service, only one accepted packet (on my ssh daemon, which
they didn't try to enter).
That first sentence looks a bit violated to me, _if_ they've scanned
everyone else too. But there've been _no_ repeats from that host.
I'm going to phone 'em to check if this is them and ask them why
they've not notified me about this.
But seriously folks, chill a bit.
--
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/
NOTWORK: n. A network when it is acting flaky. Origin (?) IBM.
- Hackers' Dictionary
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