At 4:17 PM +0000 6/22/08, Paul Vixie wrote:
with EC2, it's game-over for the IP reputation industry, other than possibly lists of dynamic IP blocks (modems, DSL, etc) from which SMTP ought not come. but for the wider IP address space, we now return to content based filtering, and i predict a mighty increase in the number of pink contracts in colo rooms. (the silver lining is, this could reduce pressure on BGP piracy/injection.)
as randy bush often says, "it's just business." amazon has solid business reasons for creating EC2 and there's no way it could be profitable if they can't scale the user base, and there's no way to scale the user base if they have to police it at the application or "intent" level. so, i'm not whining, just pointing out that this is a sea change, the end of an era.
I agree that it's going to be difficult to deal with this on an IP reputation basis (at least using IPv4 :-), but not certain that means that a total lack of policing will stand long-term. The litmus test will likely be subsequent to the first large scale P2P service appearing in the EC2 cloud and distributing quantities of copyright material... /John