Sean Donelan wrote:
Except this is not "self-policing." ISPs are not being asked to police what ISPs do. For the most part ISPs don't attack their customer's (or anyone else's) computers. Remember, the traffic generally flows THROUGH the ISP's network, it doesn't come FROM the ISP.
OK - my mis-wording. You have expressed what I meant.
Yet another analogy, its a bit like asking grocery stores to "self-police" their customer's eating habits. Should grocery stores be responsible that the public only buys healthy food or holding the grocery store liable for the hospital bills when customers buy junk food. ISPs generally exert even less control over their customers than a grocery store, and don't have double coupons.
My turn - grocery stores can police much better than ISPs - they just do not stock products that are classified as 'bad' by some established standard. This sort of happens in the Internet, with prefix filters, routeing registries etc. but I see your point.
Most ISPs don't police (or self-police) their customers' use of the Internet. Like a grocery store, if a customer is harassing other customers, the grocery store may ask them not to come back. But generally the customer just moves on to another grocery store. Its up to the police to arrest people engaged in criminal activity.
The grocery store analogy breaks down and we are back to the tired old 'highway' nonsense. This is more like the 'public spirited' induhviduals (sic) that block lanes to prevent others 'speeding' - or rather requiring property owners to perform this task on the parts of the road that run past their turf. Which is scarier. Peter