Fun new policy at AOL

Thu Aug 28 16:04:09 UTC 2003

On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 11:31 AM, Petri Helenius wrote:

> Matthew Crocker wrote:
>
>>
>> SMTP & DNS should be run through the servers provided by the ISP for 
>> the exact purpose.  There is no valid reason for a dialup customer to 
>> go direct to root-servers.net and there is no reason why a dialup 
>> user should be sending mail directly to AOL, or any mail server for 
>> that matter (besides their host ISP)
>>
>
> ...and there is no reason for dialup customer to have direct access to 
> any other port either,
> they´ll just use the www-proxy and other ALG services from the ISP ?
>
> This is a self-solving problem.
>

Technically no,  There is no reason for a customer to have direct 
access to the net so long as the ISP can provide appropriate proxies 
for the services required.
It gets complex, it gets hard to manage but it can be done.  There is a 
stigma against proxing because of the early days when stale content was 
all over the place.  Does a dynamically assigned dialup/DSL user even 
need a valid routable IP?   For games?  Maybe games should be more NAT 
friendly.

We do remove the filters for customers that have a valid need and show 
that they have a clue out it all works.

-Matt