at <http://www.e-gerbil.net/cogent-t1r> there is a plain text document with the following HTTP headers: Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:56:34 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) PHP/5.2.3 Last-Modified: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:15:53 GMT ETag: "92c1e1-a85-43b36ea5bcc40" Content-Length: 2693 Content-Type: text/plain the plain text title is: Cogent shows hypocrisy with de-peering policy the plain text authorship is ascribed to: Dan Golding the first plain text assertion that caught my eye was: Cogent, has, in fact, de-peered other Internet networks in the last 24 hours, including content-delivery network Limelight Networks and wholesale transit provider nLayer Communications, along with several European networks. since i appear to be reaching the aforementioned web server by a path that includes cogent-to-nlayer, i think this part of the plain text is inaccurate. traceroute to www.e-gerbil.net (69.31.1.2), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 rc-main.f1.sql1.isc.org (204.152.187.254) 0.336 ms 2 149.20.48.65 (149.20.48.65) 0.509 ms 3 gig-0-1-0-606.r2.sfo2.isc.org (149.20.65.3) 1.163 ms 4 g0-8.core02.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.11.177) 2.757 ms 5 t4-2.mpd01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.89) 2.958 ms 6 g3-0-0.core02.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.117) 2.525 ms 7 p6-0.core01.sjc04.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.234) 4.183 ms 8 g3-3.ar1.pao1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.153.21) 2.637 ms 9 ge-2-1-1.cr1.sfo1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.143.161) 3.806 ms 10 so-0-2-0.cr1.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.142.77) 69.022 ms 11 60.po1.ar1.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.111.130) 69.491 ms 12 0.tge4-4.ar1.iad1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.142.113) 81.580 ms ... the second plain text assertion which caught my eye was: Why is this happening? There are a few possibilities. First, Cogent may simply want revenue from the networks it has de-peered, in the form of Internet transit. Of course, few de-peered networks are willing to fork over cash to those that have rejected them. Another possibility is that Cogent is seeing threats from other peers regarding its heavy outbound ratios, and it seeks to disconnect Limelight and other content-heavy peers to help balance those ratios out. this makes no sense, since dan golding would know that cogent's other peers would not be seeing traffic via cogent from the allegedly de-peered peers. so, i think the document is a hoax of some kind. (i saw it mentioned here.)