How does one make not playing nice with each other scale? (Wa s: net.terrorism)

Sat Jan 13 22:27:28 UTC 2001

I'll point out that someone banning a site for AUP violations should only be
able to affect their own network, since policies are supposed to be
organization-level.  (Thus, inflicting your policy decision on someone else
is a very gray area, legally and ethically.)

The reason why MAPS-RBL works (and is legally protected) is because everyone
who uses it must -consent- to using it, and take positive action on their
end to configure it.  This means that each organization generates and
enforces their own policy, though with assistance from an outside
consultancy.    However, in this case, AboveNet is inflicting policy
decisions on transit routes =without consent=.  (It's obvious this is
without consent, otherwise this thread would never have come up.)

It brings up an interesting point, but the law has held in the past that
boycotts are only effective and legal if they're voluntary, and if coercion
is involved then it become "intimidation tactics" of "organized crime".  I
can't for the life of me imagine how the Internet is any different -- maybe
if you tried to apply turnpike or private highway rules to it, but those
rules are generally based on consent, as well.

Just some thoughts...

-Mat Butler

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Mentovai [mailto:mark-list at mentovai.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 10:26 AM
To: Paul Vixie
Cc: nanog at merit.edu
Subject: Re: How does one make not playing nice with each other scale?
(Was: net.terrorism)

There are a few things that would stand in the way of adoption of something
like this: first, each anti-route would require manual configuration, and
that comes with its own set of problems.  Another potential issue (this is
purely theoretical, I'm not referring to any past, present, or future
situation in particular) is that providers trying to blackhole a certain
site for AUP violations may want to negatively impact reachability as much
as possible, rather than purely keeping the offending traffic off their
network.  These folks wouldn't want to advertise anti-routes because the
resulting blackhole avoidance would encourage others to take working
alternate paths, which does less harm to the site in question.

Still, this may be a beneficial, even if little-used, addition.  Thoughts?

Mark

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