Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs?

Thu Aug 22 18:01:54 UTC 2002

Jeff,

In a nutshell you're saying do nothing.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu]On Behalf Of
Jeff Ogden
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 7:42 AM
To: nanog at merit.edu
Subject: RE: Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs?

At 10:32 PM -0700 8/21/02, Nigel Clarke wrote:
>However, this type of action might not be necessary at all.
>
>Some of the users on this list think RIAA's recent actions are nothing more
>than empty threats.
>Why doesn't NANOG make a few of its own?
>
>A "polite" letter from a NANOG representative should do the trick.

Just to state the obvious, no one is authorized to represent NANOG in
this fashion, not even folks here at Merit. NANOG isn't a decision
making organization. NANOG isn't something that can take actions
(other than holding a few meetings each year and managing this e-mail
list).

Individuals and organizations that participate in NANOG can take
actions, but not in NANOG's name.  I'm no lawyer, but I suspect that
lawyers should be consulted before taking individual or coordinated
action of the sort being suggested against another organization.

Of course IPSs do take action against individuals or organizations
all of the time, but they need to do that based on policies and
procedures that take into account their obligations to their
customers as well as their obligations under the law.

As an end user I really don't want my ISP to make decisions about who
is allowed to communicate with me or who I am allowed to communicate
with except when those decisions are based on policies designed to
protect me or others from serious problems (DDOS attacks and the
like), even then I want those policies to be written and available so
I can review them, and I want them to be applied fairly.

As an ISP I really don't want my upstream ISPs to make decisions
about who is allowed to communicate with my network or who my network
is allowed to communicate with except under the conditions outlined
in my agreements with those ISPs. This is important to me if I am in
turn going to be able to meet my obligations to my own end users.

So, I really don't want the RIAA to tell me or my upstreams who I
can't communicate with, but neither do I want my upstreams to tell me
that I can't communicate with the RIAA or the labels if I (or really
my customers) want to do so.

    -Jeff Ogden
     Merit Network

At 10:32 PM -0700 8/21/02, Nigel Clarke wrote:
>However, this type of action might not be necessary at all.
>
>Some of the users on this list think RIAA's recent actions are nothing more
>than empty threats.
>Why doesn't NANOG make a few of its own?
>
>A "polite" letter from a NANOG representative should do the trick.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu]On Behalf Of
>J.A. Terranson
>Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 7:01 PM
>To: Nigel Clarke
>Cc: Richard A Steenbergen; Jerry Eyers; nanog at merit.edu
>Subject: RE: Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs?
>
>>  On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 09:08:03PM -0700, Nigel Clarke wrote:
>>  >
>>  > Why don't larger ISPs follow through on this? Simply deny RIAA any
>>  > access...
>>
>>  And what IPs precisely are you planning to deny? So far its all idle
>>  threats, we have no idea where they plan to launch their scans or
hacking
>>  attempts from, or even if they have any clue how to hack anything. I
>  > highly doubt they'll be attaching riaa.com to it either.
>
>The blocking of any an all directly RIAA sites, feeds, etc, would
>produce an economic reaction.  Cut off their sales websites, their
>basic connectivity (how much money do you think it would cost them
>to go back to snail mail today?), their [few] subscription sites.
>
>Let the money do the work.
>
>Yours,
>
>J.A. Terranson
>sysadmin at mfn.org
>
>* SPEAKING STRICTLY IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY *  at this time anyway.
>We'll see if we can't change that.  Tomorrow.  Goddamn right!