🚀 go-pugleaf

poole@chsun.chuug.ch (Simon Poole) writes:

>I think our dear friends went in to panic mode yesterday and changed the 
>the routing for world.std.com to go over their backup route to the states
>(which no longer ends directly on NSFnet). I'll just have to use a couple 
>of less simple examples) :-).

Well, how about  chsun.chuug.ch as an example ? I'd be willing to bet
a goodly sum that most people cannot reach chsun directly from
Switzerland via ftp or telnet. Luckily, some of us have other accounts
(outside Switzerland), from which WE CAN get to chsun if the need arises.

Witness:

	iis.ethz.ch csh[155]:telnet chsun.chuug.ch
	Trying 146.228.10.15 ...
	telnet: connect: Host is unreachable

	nih.gov csh[21]:telnet chsun.chuug.ch
	Trying 146.228.10.15...
	Connected to chsun.chuug.ch.
	Escape character is '^]'.

	SunOS UNIX (chsun)

	login:

>In any case, considering the nature of business of world.std.com, this
>is very interesting with respect to your service providers acceptable
>use policy.

Hey, its time to stop beating around the bush, and call a spade a
spade. Its patently ludicrous that I cannot reach chsun from here (where
you're basically within spitting distance), but I can reach chsun from
5000 Km away (Yes, I do know why).

What I think it boils down to is that the Network community here has
allowed the 'service provider' to dictate what individual
hosts/networks can and cannot establish connections to, instead of the
individual sites deciding for themselves. Its one thing if {ETH, EPFL
or any other subdomain of CH} decides that they wont allow packets (or
certain types of packets) to traverse their networks to certain
destinations (or allow certain packets into their networks), but its
quite different if the 'service provider' decides that for them. Thats
not providing service, thats denying it. WHY the community has allowed
the 'service provider' to dictate this is beyond me (although I'm not
completely surprised). It all strikes me as "a tendency toward or
actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control" (See the
Webster's Dictionary definition of fascism), similar to the alt.sex
fiasco of 6 months ago.

							/AWF

Disclaimer: I dont speak for IIS or ETH.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: feigin@iis.ethz.ch				 Adam W. Feigin
UUCP:{backbones}!iis!feigin			     Network Systems Manager
Mail: Integrated Systems Laboratory	      Institute for Integrated Systems
      ETH-Zentrum			  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
      CH-8092 Zurich				       Zurich, Switzerland
      Switzerland
Phone: +41 1 256 50 53
      
  "In Confession, you blame yourself, in analysis, you blame everyone else"