From: Ben Browning [mailto:benb@oz.net] Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 9:17 AM
The point is this: 137-139 are used for NetBIOS and Samba, neither of which are secure (or even supported by their vendors, AFAIK) for use out on the Internet. I think we can all agree that anyone using them in that situation, shouldn't be.
No, we cannot all agree to that. I cannot condone anyone else applying their ideology, by force or default, on someone else, unless specifically requested. As a downstream customer, the backbone is nearly unreachable from a services perspective. If CERFNET started to do port-filtering then the only means I (I assume that everyone here has sufficient clue to find my upstream) have to change that is to either sue CERFNET or start looking for an ISP that has a different backbone provider. CERFNET tech support will not even talk to second or third level customers. In essence, it eliminates the secondary re-seller market from contention. You risk getting sued, not only from the downstream customer, but your own downstream as well. The ONLY one that should be even dreaming about doing something like this is the direct upstream to the leaf nodes, and then ONLY with permission. Otherwise, no ports should ever be filtered by any transit provider. By God, we PAY for open pipes and there are standard remedies when we don't get what we pay for.