quietly....

Sat Feb 19 18:11:48 UTC 2011

And that has nothing to do with whether a protocol is a peer protocol or not.  IP is a peer-to-peer protocol.  As SMTP is implemented over IP, it is also a peer-to-peer protocol.  

In IP, all hosts/nodes are peers.

That you may wish that this were not the case and thereby impose completely arbitrary "paper based controls" does not in any way change the fact that IP is a peer to peer protocol and that all IP hosts/nodes are peers on the network.

Your "paper based controls" are just as effective in turning an IP host/node into a non-peer host/node as is holding up a copy of a restraining order preventing Johhny X from hitting you in the face in front of Johhny's fist just before he breaks your nose.

That you believe that your "paper controls" have any effect on reality is saddening.  Just because someone writes a bit of paper saying that the moon is made of green cheese does not make it so.  Writing on a bit of paper that IP is not a peer-peer protocol does not make it so.

If your security is based on such wishful thinking and self-delusion, you really ought to invest in some technical controls that are reality-based and stop with the paper-compliance-tiger as it provides no useful benefit whatsoever.

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>-----Original Message-----
>From: Matthew Huff [mailto:mhuff at ox.com]
>Sent: Thursday, 03 February, 2011 16:41
>To: Matthew Palmer; nanog at nanog.org
>Subject: RE: quietly....
>
>SMTP is definitely not a p2p protocol in most corporate environments. In ours,
>all email (even ones that you would think should be host2host) go to a central
>"smarthost" that processes the mail, and archive it for compliance. All
>internal to external and external to internal email is tightly controlled and
>only goes through a very specific route.
>
>Again, big difference between a univerisity or ISP environment and a corporate
>one.
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Matthew Palmer [mailto:mpalmer at hezmatt.org]
>> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 4:00 PM
>> To: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: quietly....
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 03:20:25PM -0500, Lamar Owen wrote:
>> > On Thursday, February 03, 2011 02:28:32 pm Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
>> > > The only reason FTP works through a NAT is because the NAT has already
>> > > been hacked up to further mangle the data stream to make up for the
>> > > mangling it does.
>> >
>> > FTP is a in essence a peer-to-peer protocol, as both ends initiate TCP
>> > streams.  I know that's nitpicking, but it is true.
>>
>> So is SMTP, by the same token.  Aptly demonstrating why the term "P2P" is so
>> mind-alteringly stupid.
>>
>> - Matt
>