Sean Donelan wrote:
Is this the only thing which will get major carrier's attention. It would be great if carriers could be trusted to correctly verify IP addresses before announcing them. But as we've seen in the long-distance world, too many carriers act as if they can get an extra buck, they'll do what every they need to do.
The drive to "slam" is pushed by dollars. I can't think of any situation in which someone might profit from announcing address space without authorization. The problems facing the Internet are mostly due to laziness and lack of clue, enabled by an experimental infrastructure designed to support neither of these things. IP assumes non-hostile, non-lazy, and non-clueless nodes. Is there a consortium of big-time Internet operators? There should be - something where technical people with the ability to make changes within their organization get together a few times each year to discuss problems facing their individual networks and the Internet as a whole. This would enable the NSPs to shape the direction that Internet development and expansion takes. If such a consortium exists, it should be put to good use. If it doesn't, one should be created. Failing that - a push from within the community to clean things up - I fear that governmental intervention is the only solution. I only hope that when it comes down to regulating the Internet, it will be handled by a new authority responsible only for inter-network communications. I think that it would be a mistake to try to tack this responsibility onto the FCC or FBI. They're not international enough to handle issues fairly, for starters. I also haven't been impressed with any government agency's technological prowess. Mark