On Sun, 14 Mar 2004, Sean Donelan wrote:
I think the actual requirement is for a long-term end-to-end identifier for systems, and maybe even network users, before they can do certain activities on the network so you can trace or block the system. Systems
Now my question becomes....Is this an identifier that other providers can use to trace the machine, or only for the local isp. I look at it this way. If I'm the provider I don't really care what username they are, I can determine their location by the logs. Sure they may be a DSL, but they will at some point request an address. When they request an address I have their circuit ID and I can at least narrow it down to a house or apartment.
A student in a college dorm room with an uncontrolled DHCP address may not be able to run a server, even though they have more than enough symetric Gig-ethernet bandwidth and you know what dorm it is physically located because all student servers look alike. On the other hand, a mobile
This is a topic I get very soap-boxish about. I have too many problems with providers who don't understand the college student market. I can think of one university who requires students to login through a web portal before giving them a routable address. This is such a waste of time for both parties. Sure it makes tracking down the abusers much easier, but is it worth the time and effort to manage? This is a very legitimate idea for public portals in common areas, but not in dorm rooms. In a dorm room situation or an apartment situation, you again know the physical port the DHCP request came in on. You then know which room that port is connected to and you therefore have a general idea of who the abuser is. So whats the big deal if you turn off the ports to the room until the users complain and the problem is resolved? I guess this requires very detailed cable map databases and is something some providers are relunctant to develop. Scary thought..... Andrew --- <zerocool@netpath.net> http://www.andrewsworld.net/ ICQ: 2895251 Cisco Certified Network Associate "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself."