[NCLUG] Egress Filtering

[John L. Bass]

	On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, mike cullerton wrote:

	> on 8/14/01 7:21 PM, John L. Bass at jbass at dmsd.com wrote:
	>
	> > WRONG.
	>
	> cool, guess i'm done.

	So, I've done a *really* good job of keeping my mouth shut on this one
	(mainly because I can't really add anything that hasn't either already been
	said or that would be worth much...); but does anyone else find it... oh,
	ironic it was John that said:

	"There is certainly no need to twist any element of this discussion into
	directed personal attacks, or attempt to force any participant to defend an
	artifically constructed unpopular position."

I suppose you raise this to make an important point? Just what was objectionable?
Since the indirect claim as been made I slured Mike without offering any sustantive
reference to support it.

What is personal are slurs like Sean's which twist my stated position and
use highly directed language like:
	
Sean Reifschneider <jafo-nclug at tummy.com> wrote on Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:02:44 -0600:
| If you're not part of the solution, you're probably part of the problem.

That, and other, comments which don't provide any logical constructive point,
other than an openly personal attack ment to discredit. This discussion has
been reasonably civial - but I've been really put off by other open slander,
especially against 3rd parties not participating in this list's discusions.

In most technical discussions there is seldom a right and wrong point of view.
While I'll debate just about any technical point (from either side to bring
out any and all merits, often as devils advocate) - I always try do so without
sluring the other person ( making it personal). Using neutral third person
language is important to attack the issues, not the bearer.

Responsibility (and Liability) are not technical issues, they are legal and
political with a definiative basis. When Mike says:

	"i believe an isp is responsible for the ip space originating
        within it."

He is claiming that he believes the ISP has a legal duty to be responible
and liable for their customers actions. This claim is either right or
wrong in case law, unlike many technical discussions/solutions, where there
are as many different solution sets as there are participants in the debate.

Mike probably should have said "i believe an isp SHOULD BE responsible...".
That is stating a preference or goal, rather than politely presenting
what he percives to be the facts in law to correct what he believes to be
a false position.

However, I'm not in the least bashful to say that it's wrong to assert legal
responsibilty of an ISP for packet origination, when nearly every ISP's legal
disclaimer and their contract denies any and all liability for customer wrong
doings and so far (to the best of my knowledge) there isn't any basis in law
to hold an ISP liable to perform any form of censorship for legal content.
Recomended RFC practices do not form a basis in law for responsibility, nor do
they negate liability limitations in the contract between the ISP and their
customers.

Saying this legal position is wrong, is simply blunt, especially when there
is a total lack of basis to support Mike's position. In a legal sense, it's
pretty easy to determine if a basis in law is pretty much right or wrong
(admittedly there are grey areas that make interesting appeals, but in the
end even those are definatively resolved at some point). If somebody has
legal references to refute this position I'm all ears to see how an ISP is
responsible and liable for a customers legal actions - the CWX Board of
Directors are always concerned about potential liabilities.

Have we beat this horse to death? Anybody care to post a summary and
highlight remaining open points of discussion?

John

FYI - regarding 80 col's - not that many years back when I still exclusively
used my DataMedia DT80 as the ascii console of my home DEC LSI 11/73 UNIX
system I used to gripe to others about 80 col violations. I basically was told
to get real, get out of the dark ages, and get a modern user interface. Shortly
after I replaced the 11/73 with an SGI 3D25 Personal IRIS system with a 20"
monitor. Now about half the mail I get originates on a system that only uses
LF as a paragraph break. Clearly the 1960's concept of 80 col unit record I/O
is pretty much dead.

I personally find the replys that indent quoted material and proceed to line
wrap them to 75 cols much more objectionable and hard to read. I work
on a disply the comfortably displays better than 200 chars/line. Might I
suggest using a reader which doesn't autowrap incomming mail to 80 chars?
Or does this list strongly support 75/80 col text mail, and it's fair to
flame anybody that violates it? Is there a strong preference to linewrap
quoted text into multiple lines to enforce the 75/80 col limit?

I have an Indy w/20" that makes a great X-Term if somebody needs to get off
their 15" or 17" monitor.