Bill Manning wrote:

Please note that firewalls, Intranets, Market-segment nets (eg ANX, Inet-II, and the raft of MRNs) all are there -because- of AUPs. And yes it is a mess and it creates business opportunities and things would be much better if we could all get along and do things -my- way. :) AUPs are a fact of life. We (as a community) have to figure out how to deal with support of thousands of AUPs in a global internet.

There seems to be a confusion between private leaf networks (which nobody generally cares about) and the major backbone (as I-2 advocates portray it). Nobody cares about AUPs in leaf networks. AUPs in transit backbones are evil. Or everybody already forgot NSFNET AUP and the tons of related hackery in routing policies all around the world? And, then, we all know who pays for all of that, and where a hearty chunk of our paychecks is going. I do not see why governments should be in business of building networks. If academic users (not people claiming to be their representatives) really have a need for faster networks they have their grant money to pay for it, ok? Like they pay for everything else. For now is looks and smells exactly like pork, with a very bad taste at that, with all those Gore-Clintonese plans to buy support from academia for the next elections, and get a strong hand in controlling the same academia at the same time (it's always a sweet position to sit on a tap -- you don something government doesn't agree with, like hosting an encryption archive, or an anarchist website -- poof, here goes your goverment-paid network connection). Needless to say, that commercial entities are unlikely to allow that kind of information to be stored on their computers, so that academical networks provide most of really interesting and diverse content. Actually, that Clinton's network "initiative" is entirely in line with their other efforts to curb the free flow of information -- particularly at the place where there is a contingent of young people who would be affected most by the information. It is no secret that political views ofmost people who have spent some time with Internet tend to shift to more libertaran, as they get taste for free communication not generally afforded by the "democratic" system. Hence the effective opposition to the encryption policy and CDA. Sure as hell, after such embarrasment the administation does not like intelligentsia to have a voice. Don't fool yourself. The I-2 is not the "faster Internet". It is a tool to force those pesky free-thinkers to shut up. --vadim