The Attitude (was: the Internet Backbone)

Mon Apr 15 15:34:31 UTC 1996

At 10:50 AM 4/14/96 -0700, Internet Architect wrote:
>Bill,
>
>	A short answer to your refusal to peer objection in SPRINT's
>policies  in the form of a question. Which is better:
>
>1. peering with everyone at an exchange, including those ISPs who are
>clearly clueless, and whose cluelessness leads to operational problems,
>i.e. injection of bogus routes, black holes, routing loops, routing
>flaps, and BGP peer transitions?

Clue and size have very little to do with each other.  I setup and ran a
router at MAE east for a few months and am about to setup routers at MAE
East and Pennsauken.  To date I have /never/ blown someone else's routes
into someone else unless I was intentionally readvertising those routes as
per someone's request.  My router was properly dampened, didn't cause
routing loops etc etc.  That is /not/ the basis of Sprint's policy.
Sprint's policyu is based on the I'm big and you're not philosophy.  If
peering was based on properly making announcements and not flapping etc etc,
sprint themselves wouldn't have a lot of peers right now.  (Sprint has in
the past advertised routes that were not theirs, and were in fact mine on
numerous occasions).  As for stability, well, things have gotten a lot better.  

>
>2. qualifying each of your peers as being clueful, prior to peering
>with them, such that you (and your customers!) don't suffer from the
>cluelessness of others?

Sounds like a great idea.

Justin Newton			* You have to change just to stay 
Internet Architect		*      caught up.
Erol's Internet Services	*