Digex transparent proxying

Sun Jun 28 08:30:15 UTC 1998

At 10:28 AM 6/27/98 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:

>Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
>
>STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine.

I think this is the heart of Karl's argument.  (Karl, feel free to correct
me if I'm wrong.)  The rest of the rant about how transparent caches, proxy
server, etc. work and other opinions about how the Internet and web content
will look in the future is ... not my concern at present.

But the original topic is of great concern to me.  Is there one person on
this list - even someone from DIGEX - who can give me one reason why
altering the destination of a packet a customer paid you to deliver,
without that customer's consent or foreknowledge, is in any way morally or
ethically permissible?  Hell, for that matter, is it even legal?

I know that when my downstreams pay me for transit and give me a packet, I
do my damnedest to get that packet TO THE DESTINATION.  If I can give my
customers better service though proxy or caching or any other method, I
will definitely OFFER it to them.  (We are currently looking into
transparent and other caching techniques, but have not begun such an
offering as of yet.)  However, I will not shirk my responsibility to
deliver packets where the customer (rightfully) expects them to go without
the customer's permission.  I find it repugnant that one of my peers has
done so.  I would be interested in how other's feel about it - without all
the discussion about whether caching is any use or not.

>Karl Denninger (karl at MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin

TTFN,
patrick

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Patrick W. Gilmore                      voice: +1-650-482-2840
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