Fun new policy at AOL

Thu Aug 28 16:48:47 UTC 2003

On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 12:04:09PM -0400, Matthew Crocker wrote:
> 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.

There is a perfectly good reason for direct access: We buy IP
connectivity. We don't buy {list of specific applications} connectivity.
If I create a new network application, how many ISPs are going to sit
there and create a new proxy so it will work? Even on the outside chance
that I could talk my own ISP into it since I pay them, it's not going to
be a very useful app if one of the prerequisites is "must be a customer
of ISP X".

-c