On Sun, 29 Sep 1996, Nathan Stratton wrote:
It would be helpful if these things were more clearly defined in writing so that newcomers can zip up the learning curve faster.
Yes, but can we agree that dumping data to someons router at a NAP without asking is steeling?
No. It's not that simple. In most any data transfer over the net there are two parties involved, one of which initiates the transaction and the other which responds. Sometimes the initiator transmits more data (SMTP) and sometimes the responder does (HTTP). Most of the time both the initiator and the responder are paying different providers for their network connection. I can see no natural law here that makes it obvious which of the two providers should be responsible for carrying which portion of the traffic other than the 50/50 rule and I see no obvious and simple way to decide where that 50/50 split point is other than to count and record every byte transferred. Thus I see no obvious way to determine what is stealing. Of course, the providers and carriers and exchange point operators are at liberty to make contractual agreements which define what stealing is but in the absence of such a contractual agreement, the concept of "stealing" cannot exist. In other words, unless you have a contract with either Sprint or the XP operator which forbids you from dumping packets into Sprint's router which are destined to a Sprint customer, then you are not stealing anything. Now I don't know if any XP operators have contracts that are this detailled, but IMHO if this kind of behavior proves to be a problem, the XP operator is the one who could solve it both contractually and technically within their switching fabric. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com