Ferg, you asked for it.
I've been there -- I know how I feel about it -- but I'd love to know how ISP operations folk feel about this.
Links here: http://www.vnunet.com/news/1162720
Schneier has a profound interest in the ISPs being forced to buy his (or his competitors) security gear to fulfill the customers' dreams of a "clean Internet connection". Pretty biased, if you don't mind. What he lacks to understand is the reasons why ISPs don't do it. It's not just lazyness (only part) or lack of responsibility; it's more like that it's expensive and nobody would pay for it - no, not the customers; they like to get everything for free, remember? The most prominent reason keeping ISPs from filtering their clients' data streams is - tada - jurisdiction. It's simply not allowed in countries that don't officially harvest everything they can get their hands on. There is something called "privacy rights". Nobody may legally interfere with the data stream that reaches my boxes, and nobody - not even my boss! - must fiddle with my email if not expressly allowed by myself. So it is a damn good sign of the ISP's responsibility if it does _not_ place filters in the data stream. But then, my sympathies for Bruce have long evaporated, so I am of course biased as well. Elmar. -- "Begehe nur nicht den Fehler, Meinung durch Sachverstand zu substituieren." (PLemken, <bu6o7e$e6v0p$2@ID-31.news.uni-berlin.de>) --------------------------------------------------------------[ ELMI-RIPE ]---