What do you want your ISP to block today?

Thu Sep 4 15:15:23 UTC 2003

Gerardo Gregory wrote:

> these ports.  The "internet" in itself is nothing more than a 
> communications link, and the ISP's are providers to this link.  The 
> purpose of which is the exchange of information over a "public" medium.
> You want an ISP to begin filtering at the 4th layer (OSI 
> Reference...yikes), why????  Besides alleviating the headaches of some 

Hmmm. Perhaps I should shut down my abuse desk and just be a 
communications link. After all, the user's computer wants to transmit 
viruses or spam, so why should I stop it?

If people run layer 7 filtering to stop abuse, what makes you think they 
won't run layer 4 to meet the same goals? A lot of networks already run 
layer 3 filtering for misbehaving networks and bogon filters. Spam 
filtering takes place at anywhere from 3-7, depending on the network.

One can't have it both ways. You either do no filtering and watch the 
system completely crash as you can't afford the overhead of the 
malicious content which is on the rise, or you apply filters to protect 
your network and *the* network overall. Not filtering consumer networks 
will cause issues at the backbone networks, forcing upgrades and driving 
prices back up.

If we don't protect *our* network, then some governments will start 
mandating how they'll protect it. I for one do not wish to give up 
control of what I've designed, built, and improved to people who usually 
don't know what telnet is, much less ssh.

-Jack