Interesting People mailing list archives
Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud"
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:18:48 -0400
Begin forwarded message:
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: July 21, 2010 4:37:10 AM EDT To: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net> Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud"
To be clear: the "real time blackhole lists" were not simple statements of fact. They were designed to be input to tools that rejected *all* traffic from those sources, with granularity of MTA, not granularity of usernames. The people who supported this did not merely assert facts. They built (and still build) software tools that work by such shutdowns. The idea was supposedly that if an MTA didn't take responsibility for spam passing through it, it would be *punished* by shutting it down. That's not a hidden agenda. You can find that agenda described widely by the apologists for that group, including on the websites that groups publishing such lists maintain. So there is clear evidence of their *intent* that the facts be used to *shut down* MTAs. The idea that mere "publication of facts" is not aggressive action is often a pattern of argument used by people who want to collectively punish people. We see that in almost all vigilantism. For example, people merely publish directories of "local homosexuals" or create "Jewish registries" in order to encourage attacks against them. On 07/20/2010 08:23 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:On Jul 20, 2010, at 2:01 PM, Dave Farber wrote:From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: July 20, 2010 12:05:33 PM EDTDave - this is what many of us want remedied by laws requiring *network neutrality* (aka the legal principle of "common carriage", not to be confused with "common carrier status"). In other words, "collective punishment" of all users of an ISP based on claims about a subset of users' behavior would be barred by requiring all users' content be treated fairly. A hotel (the classic legal example) of "common carriage" cannot be shut down because of the behavior of some guests. THe denial of core principles like "common carriage" is the first step on a slippery slope here. This is where you get when you argue that "network neutrality" as a legal principle is somehow a BAD IDEA.I'm a little unclear on how NN is somehow akin to common carriage. Could you expand?I've had email MTAs that I depended on taken down by "spam vigilante" groups like Paul Vixie's. This is not just a problem of government shutdowns, but seriously intentional commercial denials of service, justified by claims of "collective responsibility" and "the end (eliminating spam) justifies any means whatever". This seems no different from taking down a blog site because some of its users blog unwanted stuff.I admit I have no information about the exact instance of MTA being "taken down" by Paul Vixie that you mention. However, I know of many, many things Mr. Vixie has done to fight spam. In no instance of which I am aware did he ever do anything _to_ an MTA. His group has included countless IP addresses in lists posted on the Internet, claiming those IP addresses emit spam. If others chose to read those lists and stop accepting e-mail from those IP addresses, I really do not see how you can claim Mr. Vixie did something to your MTA - especially since he was literally doing no more than stating a fact. Also, creation of such lists "seems no different from" you saying he is a "spam vigilante" on a public mailing list. Both are simply claims about the character of another, although one is about a person and one is about an IP address. Of course, his claim has far more proof than yours (actual spam in hand from that IP address every time I checked). Finally, if you cannot see the difference between someone actively engaging & utilizing my hardware, software, and bandwidth knowing I did not want them to do so, vs. someone posting a blog, you need to ruminate on the situation a bit longer. To be absolutely clear, I am vehemently against the idea of disallowing people to post lists of IP addresses and saying "I have seen this IP address so X to my Y," or anything of the sort, at least when it is factual info. (I am not sure we should block fictional info, just limiting the scope of the discussion.) Honestly, I'm shocked that you would argue for such an idea. On the flip side, I believe (although I haven't spent enough time thinking about it to be 1000000% certain) that allowing the gov't to shut down a shared hosting site because one customer is doing bad thing is also a bad idea. So I guess we have some common ground. :)
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Current thread:
- Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud" Dave Farber (Jul 20)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud" Dave Farber (Jul 20)
- Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud" Dave Farber (Jul 21)
- Re: Why I don't want my data in "The Cloud" David Farber (Jul 22)