From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Sep 24 16:19:27 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp04.primenet.com (smtp04.primenet.com [206.165.6.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F781152C5 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:19:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr04.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp04.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA12808; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:18:30 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr04.primenet.com(206.165.6.204) via SMTP by smtp04.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAmrai8y; Fri Sep 24 16:18:25 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr04.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA16152; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:19:10 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199909242319.QAA16152@usr04.primenet.com> Subject: Re: On hub.freebsd.org refusing to talk to dialups To: davids@webmaster.com (David Schwartz) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 23:19:09 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, alk@pobox.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <000201bf06d8$932f5ac0$021d85d1@youwant.to> from "David Schwartz" at Sep 24, 99 03:03:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > Any blacklisting, like the RBL and/or the DUL, is potentially > > actionable under current "Restraint of Trade" laws and under the > > RICO "Anti-Racketeering" statutes. There also may be a cause of > > action under the Sherman Antitrust Act, and under the First > > Ammendment (as "prior restraint" by systems which have not yet > > been abused by an abuser who has found himself placed on a list). > > It is no more blacklisting than requiring a password to log into > a computer blacklists everyone without a password. It doesn't > prevent any content from going anywhere, it simply sets technical > requirements upon the _form_. Legally, you're wrong. The technicality you are trying to use is the "select group" technicality, where you grant priviledge to a select group of people. This is commonly used in defense of trade secrets, where your select group is, e.g., "Everyone who has signed an SVR4 source license agreement". This doesn't work when you attempt to define an "everybody but X" group. It doesn't matter if "X" is "whites" or "blacks" or "people with Brazialian ancestry" or "people who don't have static IP addresses, either because they are unavailable in their region, or because they are too poor". Technically, you are also wrong, since it is the non-existance of the "credential" in the DUL that grants access. > > The DUL is on much shakier ground, since many ISPs dialup address > > assignment blocks have been entered involuntarily, without an > > offense by the particular address being placed in the list. > > Yes, it's one of the many limitations that come with the access provided. It's a social, not a technical limitation. It opens the door for similar enforcement of other social policies, dictated by the larger society rather than the online society. Really, this is a technology problem, in that technology should be built to be inherently impossible to implement non-technologically required controls. > There are tons of others. Access to the Internet is not a blank check to > send any packet to any place you might wish to send it. Actually, it is. Just as you are free to say anything you want, at least if you live in the US. Don't confuse the right to speak with some fictitious "right to be heard" (though the mainstream media seems to be getting good at confusing this). > Being on the DUL is not a punishment of any sort. It's simply a > means to require a technical requirement, namely that mail be > handled by machines that have long-term reachability. Which is a social requirement, not a technical one. Technically, transient connectivity to the Internet is what backup MX's are designed for. To make an analogy: there's no difference between a server doing dialup IP and a cell phone roaming between cells. The only issue is one of identity, and identity should be centralized at the machine (via a certificate) rather than at a central DUL that is so dull that it can't tell the difference between machines with different certificates, but using the same IP address. Nor should it be stored haphazardlay in a random set of databases as login/password pairs. The fix is a per user credential, or minimally, a per machine credential, for the case of a single user machine. Much of the existing "AntiSPAM" practice, while it has been truly well intentioned, has resulted in a balkanization of email connectivity, to the point that the Internet really no longer meets its initial design goals, at least in as far as email is concerned. Having only a single path between all servers for any given source and destination email address is broken. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. 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