North American Network Operators Group
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RE: more on filtering

  • From: Owen DeLong
  • Date: Fri Oct 31 12:18:06 2003 
I'm well aware that law!=logic.  In fact, I have often said that there
are two sayings which when recombined provide a more accurate picture
of the true situation in the american legal system:

	1.	Possession is no excuse.
	2.	Ignorance is 9/10th of the low.

(Fee free to run that past your attorney as well)

I was stating that although legally, I can't do anything to X's customer
directly, I certainly can, for example, block all traffic from Y at
my ingress points if X won't get Y to correct their behavior.  As such,
while the agreement is not legally transitive, the authority it gives
me allows me to effectively deal with Y indirectly.  Obviously, it also
provides an incentive for X to deal with Y directly, but, while I can't
effect legal remedy against Y, the contract does allow me to effect
network remedy against Y by dropping Y where X connects to me.

Owen


--On Friday, October 31, 2003 11:18 AM -0500 [email protected] wrote:


-----Original Message-----
From: Owen DeLong [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 11:12 AM
To: Daryl G. Jurbala; [email protected]
Subject: RE: more on filtering


[...]


> NOT transitive in this way, unless each agreement is included by
> reference in the other.

Yes and no.  If my agreement with cust X says that they take
responsibility for ensuring that any customers to whom they
resell my service (or any traffic they transit into my
network, to be more specific) must conform to my AUP, then
the fact that it is cust Y that originated the violating
traffic has little effect.  I can still hold cust X
responsible.  As a good guy and for good customer service, I
will, instead, first ask X to hold Y accountable and rectify
the situation.  If that doesn't work, you bet X will get
disconnected or filtered.

I 100% agree with this (other than the first three words;) ).  But
legally, the agreement is not transitive.  Legally it's YOUR customer
only that is responsible to your AUP.  It follows logically, but not
legally, that your customer binds their customers to an AUP that is at
least as restrictive as yours, or YOUR CUSTOMER will be in breach with
you, if their customers exercise practices violating your AUP...whether
they are "allowed" to in the contract with their upstream or not.

I'm speaking legally only (yes, by random chance, I had my contract
attorney on the phone when I first read this post).  Logically, you're
correct....but law != logic.

Daryl



--
If it wasn't signed, it probably didn't come from me.

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