Intra/Inter - was Inet-II

Fri Oct 11 01:21:04 UTC 1996

Bill Manning wrote:

>                Please note that firewalls, Intranets, Market-segment
>                nets (eg ANX, Inet-II, and the raft of MRNs) all are
>                there -because- of AUPs.  And yes it is a mess and
>                it creates business opportunities and things would
>                be much better if we could all get along and do things
>                -my- way. :)
>                AUPs are a fact of life.  We (as a community) have
>                to figure out how to deal with support of thousands
>                of AUPs in a global internet.

There seems to be a confusion between private leaf networks (which nobody
generally cares about) and the major backbone (as I-2 advocates portray it).

Nobody cares about AUPs in leaf networks.  AUPs in transit backbones
are evil.  Or everybody already forgot NSFNET AUP and the tons of
related hackery in routing policies all around the world?

And, then, we all know who pays for all of that, and where a hearty
chunk of our paychecks is going.

I do not see why governments should be in business of building networks.
If academic users (not people claiming to be their representatives) really
have a need for faster networks they have their grant money to pay for
it, ok?  Like they pay for everything else.

For now is looks and smells exactly like pork, with a very bad taste
at that, with all those Gore-Clintonese plans to buy support from
academia for the next elections, and get a strong hand in controlling
the same academia at the same time (it's always a sweet position to
sit on a tap -- you don something government doesn't agree with, like
hosting an encryption archive, or an anarchist website -- poof, here
goes your goverment-paid network connection).  Needless to say, that
commercial entities are unlikely to allow that kind of information to
be stored on their computers, so that academical networks provide most
of really interesting and diverse content.

Actually, that Clinton's network "initiative" is entirely in line with
their other efforts to curb the free flow of information -- particularly
at the place where there is a contingent of young people who would be
affected most by the information.  It is no secret that political views
ofmost people who have spent some time with Internet tend to shift to
more libertaran, as they get taste for free communication not generally
afforded by the "democratic" system.  Hence the effective opposition to
the encryption policy and CDA.  Sure as hell, after such embarrasment
the administation does not like intelligentsia to have a voice.

Don't fool yourself.  The I-2 is not the "faster Internet".  It is
a tool to force those pesky free-thinkers to shut up.

--vadim