On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:08:20 -0400 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
a) There exist providers that are willing to take money from scum. b) We won't get rid of the scum until we admit (a) is true.
I mostly agree with you -- but I get very worried about who defines "scum". Consider the following cases, which I will assert are not very far-fetched: (a) China labels Falun Gong as "scum" and demands that international ISPs not carry it if they want to do business in China (b) Russia labels critics of Putin and Medvedev as "scum" and demands that international ISPs bar their traffic if they want to do business in Russia (c) Saudi Arabia denounces Internet pornographers as "scum" and demands that ISPs bar their traffic if they want their countries to be able to purchase oil (c) France and Germany label EBay as "scum" for not barring sales of Nazi memorabilia and demands that international ISPs not carry it if they want to do business in the EU (d) The RIAA and MPAA label file-sharers as "scum" and deny combined TV/ISP companies (cable ISPs, Verizon FIOS, etc.) access to any *broadcast* content if the ISP side doesn't crack down on file-sharing. These are slightly far-fetched, but only slightly. I have a nice real-world example that I need to verify is public first, but it's directly on this point. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb