ISP contracts and government intervention

Mon Jul 2 05:16:21 UTC 2001

Ethan,

"blackhat" seems a strong term for an ISP that wishes to operate without
government interference. There are many ISPs that are not US based, and many
ISPs that would provide service to anyone with cash, as long as a court
order does not exist to prevent or stop suck service. The only "credentials"
someone needs is a positive return on a Dun and Bradstreet credit report.
Paying in advance tends to get around even that.

Check out HavenCo, and it's purpose. I think it may be the sort of thing you
are looking for, although I would certainly never call it a "blackhat"
operation, as it is completely above board, just not interested in
government (over)regulation.

("hats" are for hackers. I don't think you'll find many folks who wear such
figurative headgear on NANOG)

- Daniel Golding

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu]On Behalf Of
> ethanpreston at hushmail.com
> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 2:16 AM
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: ISP contracts and government intervention
>
>
> Apologies in advance for the non-technical nature of the query. I
> am a law
> student researching a law review article on censorship on the Internet.
> My partner and I are investigating the legal consequences of
> placing a ISP
> offshore, in a jurisdiction like Anguilla, Nevis, the Caymen Islands or
> some other place like that. Part of our problem is that we're ignorant of
> the business practice in the area. I figured I'd go to the horse's mouth,
>  rather than playing footsie on the legal lists.
>
> Its probable that the ISP could be run in an offshore jursidiction with
> strong financial secrecy regulations and any U.S.-based managers/owners
> would be insulated from legal action because they could not be identified
> (at least, with American subponeas.) On the other hand, a U.S.
> judge could
> presumably order the offshore ISP's U.S.-based upstream ISP to
> cut off that
> ISP (or even the entire jurisdiction, depending on the situation)
> for DMCA
> violations, gambling, etc. Basically, its an issue of how the community
> would go about dealing with a blackhat ISP.
>
> An initial question is how closely do backbone providers/upstream
> ISPs look
> at offshore ISPs to begin with? What kind of identification/credentials
> does an ISP need to come up with to get a contract? Specifically,
> do backbone
> providers figure out who the beneficial owner of an ISP is before
> they hook
> up the ISP? If someone pays the bills regularly, do they need
> anything more
> than what's in whois.arin.net?
>
> The next set of questions deal with how long a blackhat ISP could
> stay connected.
> Under what circumstances would an upstream ISP/backbone provider cut off
> the offshore ISP before a court order? What are the choices in the market
> for backbone providers that are not U.S.-based (and therefore wouldn't be
> subject to U.S. legal process)?
>
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