I could not agree with this more. It would seem that we are at a point in time where we should roll up our sleves and work together to save ourselves. Maybe we should put together a petition of sorts and present it to UUNet and the likes which will show them that they won't be able to get away with this. On the other hand, they could just ignore it and we'd be in the same position which we are in today. I wonder if the 40 or 50 mid-sized providers which stand to suffer from their actions would really be able to get their attention? Brian Horvitz WebSecure, Inc. On Sat, 3 May 1997, Paul A Vixie wrote:
Here's something with cobwebs on it that bears on the current UUNET discussion.
To: xxx Subject: text i removed from my recent message to nanog -- xxx Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 21:17:03 -0700 From: Paul A Vixie <vixie@wisdom.home.vix.com>
But what's interesting to me about this being your reason for not coming to CIX is that your policy is being shaped by other policies that you don't like. You have the option of configuring a CIX-connected router to avoid CIX for paths which have AS xxxx in them.
Ultimately the battle lines will be drawn, and there will be three distinct camps of folks (see below). In the mean while, the fact that the lines aren't clear is letting a lot of folks play "chicken" with each other's customers, and that's too bad.
When the battle lines form up, you'll see the peers, the peer-nots, and the lawyers/judges/politicians. My personal and oft-stated goal is to make the set of "peers" so large and so well interconnected that the "peer-nots" will get complaints from their own customers if they can't reach all the "peers".
Choosing not to join CIX, or any interconnect you can afford to join, for the reason you gave, works against the full connectivity of the "peers" in the above black-and-white picture, and this in turn will make it easier for the "peer-nots" to divide you all and conquer you, one at a time, since at no time will they feel enough pressure from their own customer bases.