More Sidgemore on per-bit pricing

Sat Dec 5 20:15:57 UTC 1998

On December 5, 1998 at 14:01 karl at denninger.net (Karl Denninger) wrote:
 > On Sat, Dec 05, 1998 at 02:38:57PM -0500, Barry Shein wrote:
 > > 
 > > One possible positive effect (for the consumer) of "per-bit" pricing
 > > is the opportunity to buy larger pipes but only pay for what you use.
 > 
 > The other possible effect is that you buy one of these, and then someone
 > launches a DOS attack at you and you get the bill for it.
 > 
 > The economic impact of this should not be underestimated.  Per-bitrate 
 > pricing is a problem as long as the receiver pays for the receipt of 
 > transmissions they may not have solicited.

Well, a paraphrase of the above is: We must engineer the net to keep
the cost of criminal activities to a minimum so we can continue to
avoid solving the underlying issue.

That's not ridiculous, it may even be an unavoidable factor, but it's
still somewhat sad.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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