North American Network Operators Group

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RE: Providers removing blocks on port 135?

  • From: Mark Borchers
  • Date: Fri Sep 19 15:20:19 2003

> Why do you get to decide that, I can't, from a hotel room, call my ISP and
> put up a web server on my dialup connection so someone behind a firewall
> can retrieve a document I desperately need to get to them?  Why
> _SHOULDN'T_
> I run a web server to do this over a dialup connection?  Why do you get
> to dictate to _ANYONE_ what things they can and can't do with their most
> portable internet access?  How can you say that it is negligent to refuse
> to DOS your customers unless they request it?  (blocking traffic to me
> that I want is every bit as much a denial of service as flooding my link).


The distinction may be blurrier these days, but there *is* a difference
between networking and internetworking.  Whereas I'd agree that
interconnections
between networks be unencumbered to the greatest degree possible, the
administrator
of a network can be slightly more draconian in order to keep the network
running
smoothly.

This statement applies, IMHO, to any provider who sells service to
individual
users.  It may be a huge wide area dialup network, but it's still a network,
in which the average customer is not a professional network administrator
but
rather a user of indeterminate knowledge level.

Now, if as an ISP you operate an internetwork ("network of networks") and a
network of users, the challenge is obviously how do you draw the distinction
between user/customers and network/customers.  I think it's do-able (DHCP
being
one criteria that comes to mind), but there there are a lot of permutations
to
consider.