Re: Digex transparent proxying
Cool, Karl. Then you would be denying your customer access to a market -- a potentially large market -- without telling them. Even only indirectly countable "views" are good for brand managers and marketers, hence the popularity of such things as outdoor advertising. Ironic. Where can they sue? Sean.
On Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 07:30:08AM -0700, Sean M. Doran wrote:
Cool, Karl. Then you would be denying your customer access to a market -- a potentially large market -- without telling them.
Excuse me? My customer is the one who would be putting such a thing on the web server that we host for them. So now people don't get to choose who can and cannot see their content? Excuse me once again? The person denying their customer access is the one putting these caches in place and giving their customer no choice to go around them by STEALING their packet flows. The proper response to that is for the people who have the right to determine how, and by who, their content is viewed, to deny those people access to that content unless they can determine who is viewing the content, how often it is being viewed, and that the content being viewed by those people is actually correct and up-to-date because it is coming directly from their servers. Let the market sort it out.
Even only indirectly countable "views" are good for brand managers and marketers, hence the popularity of such things as outdoor advertising.
Not if you can't count them at all! A transparent proxy cache reports nothing back to the originating site, ergo, those "views" are lost and never reported, even by inference. Outdoor signage is in fact reportable, because you can survey the traffic going past a given point and get the count that way.
Ironic. Where can they sue?
Sean.
You, for being stupid beyond words. Oh, I forgot - being stupid and twisting people's words is now considered a protected class in the United States. Go take your Lithium Sean, you forgot your pill this morning. -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly / All Lines K56Flex/DOV | NEW! Corporate ISDN Prices dropped by up to 50%! Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no cost
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
The proper response to that is for the people who have the right to determine how, and by who, their content is viewed, to deny those people access to that content unless they can determine who is viewing the content, how often it is being viewed, and that the content being viewed by those people is actually correct and up-to-date because it is coming directly from their servers.
If the web-designer "understands" how caching actually works then this in the other issues you raise are not really issues Karl. HTTP Cache-Control Headers work wonders when actually used. Caching and Proxying are out there and being actively used whether transparent or not - it's simply how it is - a web designer should guarantee their stats and validity and freshness of their data by using HTTP headers correctly.
Not if you can't count them at all! A transparent proxy cache reports nothing back to the originating site, ergo, those "views" are lost and never reported, even by inference.
Why would you want to rely on the proxy for accuracy - would you bill advertisers by someone else's accounting methods? No - you would take steps and measures to ensure that your's were not circumvented by a cache or proxy. Usually that means you talk to your content provider and make sure they are parsing your meta tags on the server correctly so that some of your content will be dynamic to any cache or proxy that they will encounter on the way to any end user on the planet.
You, for being stupid beyond words.
Oh, I forgot - being stupid and twisting people's words is now considered a protected class in the United States.
Go take your Lithium Sean, you forgot your pill this morning.
Cmon Karl can't we all just get along? -- I am nothing if not net-Q! - ras@poppa.clubrich.tiac.net
On Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 06:07:57AM -0400, Rich Sena wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
The proper response to that is for the people who have the right to determine how, and by who, their content is viewed, to deny those people access to that content unless they can determine who is viewing the content, how often it is being viewed, and that the content being viewed by those people is actually correct and up-to-date because it is coming directly from their servers.
If the web-designer "understands" how caching actually works then this in the other issues you raise are not really issues Karl. HTTP Cache-Control Headers work wonders when actually used. Caching and Proxying are out there and being actively used whether transparent or not - it's simply how it is - a web designer should guarantee their stats and validity and freshness of their data by using HTTP headers correctly.
And as soon as people doing advertising actually do this, then the proxy becomes less useful, leading proxy owners to ignore the headers so that their multi-thousand-dollar investments in these things are not wasted and actually HURT performance (performance for the FIRST fetch through a proxy is SLOWER - it HAS TO BE, since the proxy must first get the data before it can pass it on).
Not if you can't count them at all! A transparent proxy cache reports nothing back to the originating site, ergo, those "views" are lost and never reported, even by inference.
Why would you want to rely on the proxy for accuracy - would you bill advertisers by someone else's accounting methods? No - you would take steps and measures to ensure that your's were not circumvented by a cache or proxy. Usually that means you talk to your content provider and make sure they are parsing your meta tags on the server correctly so that some of your content will be dynamic to any cache or proxy that they will encounter on the way to any end user on the planet.
And how do you guarantee that the proxy server is parsing the tags and not ignoring them? See, that's the problem. Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE. STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine. -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly / All Lines K56Flex/DOV | NEW! Corporate ISDN Prices dropped by up to 50%! Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no cost
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
And as soon as people doing advertising actually do this, then the proxy becomes less useful, leading proxy owners to ignore the headers so that their multi-thousand-dollar investments in these things are not wasted and actually HURT performance (performance for the FIRST fetch through a proxy is SLOWER - it HAS TO BE, since the proxy must first get the data before it can pass it on).
If a proxy owner ignores expires heades than as I said he/she/it better understand what is going on and what he/she/it is doing - they are potentially causing harm to their end users. Data on most caches is fed as it comes in - in other words as soon as it has the item it writes to disk and serves it to the end user. There will more than likely be *some* added latency to the transaction (but we're talking in the milliseconds for normal transactions). However, subsequent fetches from the cache for that data will be considerably quicker in quite a few more instances.
And how do you guarantee that the proxy server is parsing the tags and not ignoring them?
Hold on hit the brakes there Karl ma boy - I DID NOT SAY - that the proxy server will parse the tags - most can and do NOT parse the tags - that would slow them down to a crawl while they waste valuable resources parsing html - What I said is to make sure that your content provider (who is serving your (the site designer's) site parse html on teh SERVER - so that the cache/proxy will see it as an appropriate HTTP header - then you have no problem
See, that's the problem.
Nope see above...
Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
Yup you have to agree to use a proxie (it requires you to set it in your browser) a transparant cache is another story - and IMHO TRANSPARENT caches have their place closer to the enduser - they can be a problem if placed to far up the ladder.
STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine.
huh? NEUMAN! you got me there!!! -- I am nothing if not net-Q! - ras@poppa.clubrich.tiac.net
On Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 08:07:46AM -0400, Rich Sena wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
And as soon as people doing advertising actually do this, then the proxy becomes less useful, leading proxy owners to ignore the headers so that their multi-thousand-dollar investments in these things are not wasted and actually HURT performance (performance for the FIRST fetch through a proxy is SLOWER - it HAS TO BE, since the proxy must first get the data before it can pass it on).
If a proxy owner ignores expires heades than as I said he/she/it better understand what is going on and what he/she/it is doing - they are potentially causing harm to their end users.
A proxy owner who doesn't ignore them is going to see less and less impact as time goes on, because less and less web content is both static and not frequently updated.
And how do you guarantee that the proxy server is parsing the tags and not ignoring them?
Hold on hit the brakes there Karl ma boy - I DID NOT SAY - that the proxy server will parse the tags - most can and do NOT parse the tags - that would slow them down to a crawl while they waste valuable resources parsing html - What I said is to make sure that your content provider (who is serving your (the site designer's) site parse html on teh SERVER - so that the cache/proxy will see it as an appropriate HTTP header - then you have no problem
My language was imprecise. What I was referring to was the headers indicating whether or not content can be cached, and also what the expiration time is. Proxy caches are only useful to the extent that a reasonably-significant amount of traffic IS referred to more than one, is not LOCALLY cached in the browser (ie: the model is two or more people accessing the same thing BEFORE the timeout happens) AND the content has correctly set the proper expiration policy. That is becoming less and less true over time.
Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
Yup you have to agree to use a proxie (it requires you to set it in your browser) a transparant cache is another story - and IMHO TRANSPARENT caches have their place closer to the enduser - they can be a problem if placed to far up the ladder.
I have no problem with a proxy where the user has agreed to its use. I have a major problem with a provider hijacking a stream of data and reprocessing it, then delivering what the client *thinks* is a direct communication session. In fact, I'm not even sure that such an act, absent consent, is legal. -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly / All Lines K56Flex/DOV | NEW! Corporate ISDN Prices dropped by up to 50%! Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no cost
Karl Denninger writes:
(performance for the FIRST fetch through a proxy is SLOWER - it HAS TO BE, since the proxy must first get the data before it can pass it on).
It doesn't have to -- think cut-thru switching. I've no idea if any/enough of the proxies do this.
At 10:28 AM 6/27/98 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:
Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine.
I think this is the heart of Karl's argument. (Karl, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) The rest of the rant about how transparent caches, proxy server, etc. work and other opinions about how the Internet and web content will look in the future is ... not my concern at present. But the original topic is of great concern to me. Is there one person on this list - even someone from DIGEX - who can give me one reason why altering the destination of a packet a customer paid you to deliver, without that customer's consent or foreknowledge, is in any way morally or ethically permissible? Hell, for that matter, is it even legal? I know that when my downstreams pay me for transit and give me a packet, I do my damnedest to get that packet TO THE DESTINATION. If I can give my customers better service though proxy or caching or any other method, I will definitely OFFER it to them. (We are currently looking into transparent and other caching techniques, but have not begun such an offering as of yet.) However, I will not shirk my responsibility to deliver packets where the customer (rightfully) expects them to go without the customer's permission. I find it repugnant that one of my peers has done so. I would be interested in how other's feel about it - without all the discussion about whether caching is any use or not.
Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin
TTFN, patrick ************************************************************** Patrick W. Gilmore voice: +1-650-482-2840 Director of Operations, CCIE #2983 fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "Tomorrow's Performance.... Today" **************************************************************
In message <3.0.5.32.19980628013015.01253100@priori.net>, "Patrick W. Gilmore" writes:
At 10:28 AM 6/27/98 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:
Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine.
I think this is the heart of Karl's argument. (Karl, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) The rest of the rant about how transparent caches, proxy server, etc. work and other opinions about how the Internet and web content will look in the future is ... not my concern at present.
But the original topic is of great concern to me. Is there one person on this list - even someone from DIGEX - who can give me one reason why altering the destination of a packet a customer paid you to deliver, without that customer's consent or foreknowledge, is in any way morally or ethically permissible? Hell, for that matter, is it even legal?
OK, what about class of service? This implies applying different sets of rules to different class of packet flows, and implictly giving some flows lower priority and dropping their packets. The key is the customer expectations, if they expect to lose packets and have slow performance, they you can probably get away with it. There is fundenmentally little difference between class of service and transparent caching. While I think Digex's move may be a little unusal, I would find it difficult to believe there is anything contractual or legal that prevents it. It seems like a lot of moral grandstanding to me, but I guess I should be used to that. I would have expected better from most Nanog people to use this as some sort of "My company is more ethical than your company forum". The average reader of Nanog is perfectly capable of judging this for themselvs.
I know that when my downstreams pay me for transit and give me a packet, I do my damnedest to get that packet TO THE DESTINATION. If I can give my customers better service though proxy or caching or any other method, I will definitely OFFER it to them. (We are currently looking into transparent and other caching techniques, but have not begun such an offering as of yet.) However, I will not shirk my responsibility to deliver packets where the customer (rightfully) expects them to go without the customer's permission. I find it repugnant that one of my peers has done so. I would be interested in how other's feel about it - without all the discussion about whether caching is any use or not.
Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin
TTFN, patrick
************************************************************** Patrick W. Gilmore voice: +1-650-482-2840 Director of Operations, CCIE #2983 fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "Tomorrow's Performance.... Today" **************************************************************
--- Jeremy Porter, Freeside Communications, Inc. jerry@fc.net PO BOX 80315 Austin, Tx 78708 | 512-458-9810 http://www.fc.net
At 11:40 AM 6/28/98 -0500, Jeremy Porter wrote: [SNIP]
There is fundenmentally little difference between class of service and transparent caching.
I find that statement false-to-fact. There is a very fundamental difference. One implies that at least an attempt (however low priority that attempt is) will be made to deliver all packets to their *destination*. The other implies that absolutely no attempt will be made to reach the desired destination in some instances. You honestly do not see a *fundamental* difference here? I notice you still have completely avoided answering my question. "Class of service" is usually negotiated at the time of the contract being signed. DIGEX has made a *fundamental* change to the service they are providing their customers with little or no attempt to fully disclose this change in service to their paying customers. (IMHO, that e-mail posted to NANOG was a bad attempt at CYA, not a notification to their customers. They probably plan to point at that e-mail if they ever get hauled into court. I hope it proves as useless to DIGEX in court as it did to their downstreams in troubleshooting problems.) Once again I put the question: Is there ONE PERSON on this list who can justify this type of behavior? Even someone from DIGEX? And before anyone goes off once again about how great caching is, I will once again publicly state that I am not at all opposed to caching - even forced caching of customers. It's your network, do as you please. But at the risk of sounding like I am "morally grandstanding", I simply believe you should TELL YOUR CUSTOMERS before you do something like this. Is that really too much to expect? Jeremy, you don't think it's unreasonable for people to follow Best Practices documents. Would you find it unreasonable for people to disclose these types of *fundamental* changes on their network to their customers as "best practices"?
While I think Digex's move may be a little unusal, I would find it difficult to believe there is anything contractual or legal that prevents it.
Others have disagreed with you. I would have to see DIGEX's contract to be sure myself. [SNIP]
It seems like a lot of moral grandstanding to me, but I guess I should be used to that. I would have expected better from most Nanog people to use this as some sort of "My company is more ethical than your company forum". The average reader of Nanog is perfectly capable of judging this for themselvs.
Heh. Now who's grandstanding? As for the average NANOG reader, I would have to agree with you that they are capable of thinking for themselves. And they've probably have already made up their minds without reading this thread. Which is why I've asked them to give me some input. Lots of people here have thought about this a lot more than I have, perhaps they would care to share their thoughts about this issue?
Jeremy Porter, Freeside Communications, Inc. jerry@fc.net
TTFN, patrick ************************************************************** Patrick W. Gilmore voice: +1-650-482-2840 Director of Operations, CCIE #2983 fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "Tomorrow's Performance.... Today" **************************************************************
Thank you Patrick. At 01:30 AM 6/28/98 -0700, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
At 10:28 AM 6/27/98 -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:
Proxies are fine WHERE CUSTOMERS HAVE AGREED TO THEIR USE.
STEALING someone's packet flow to force it through a proxy is NOT fine.
I think this is the heart of Karl's argument. (Karl, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) The rest of the rant about how transparent caches, proxy server, etc. work and other opinions about how the Internet and web content will look in the future is ... not my concern at present.
Proxies not only intercept and redirect packets, they replace packets with older ones, rather and allowing a fresh packet to come through. There are many circumstances where this is unacceptable. Most contracts imply raw packet streams, unless specified otherwise. Filtering a raw packet stream is technically a breach of contract. If done to us, it will cause us to switch upstream providers, make us renumber our hosts, and cause us much grief/anxiety/emotional harm/lost business, which we will be glad to bill back to the upstream provider, in court if need be, at inflated values if we can get away with it.<grin> If our upstream provider is not the one directly doing it then *they* can forward our bill, tagging on their own expenses, to their upstream provider, and so on. By the time this little shit-ball hits the one doing the filtering, they may decide that sipping umbrella-drinks, on the beach, or collecting welfare, may be a better business model to persue.
But the original topic is of great concern to me. Is there one person on this list - even someone from DIGEX - who can give me one reason why altering the destination of a packet a customer paid you to deliver, without that customer's consent or foreknowledge, is in any way morally or ethically permissible? Hell, for that matter, is it even legal?
It can be considered simple contract breach (see above, I was not being facitious) with appropriate penalties for "willful failure to perform", aka fraud, possibly wire-fraud under the right circumstances. There's a whole range of civil and criminal law that are specifically designed to extract pounds of flesh, out of such perpetrators.
I know that when my downstreams pay me for transit and give me a packet, I do my damnedest to get that packet TO THE DESTINATION. If I can give my customers better service though proxy or caching or any other method, I will definitely OFFER it to them. (We are currently looking into transparent and other caching techniques, but have not begun such an offering as of yet.) However, I will not shirk my responsibility to deliver packets where the customer (rightfully) expects them to go without the customer's permission. I find it repugnant that one of my peers has done so. I would be interested in how other's feel about it - without all the discussion about whether caching is any use or not.
Agreed, I would offer such a value-added service, but not at the expense of a raw data-feed.
Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin
TTFN, patrick
************************************************************** Patrick W. Gilmore voice: +1-650-482-2840 Director of Operations, CCIE #2983 fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "Tomorrow's Performance.... Today" **************************************************************
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On Sat, Jun 27, 1998 at 09:37:02AM -0500, Karl Denninger wrote:
Ironic. Where can they sue? Sean.
You, for being stupid beyond words.
Oh, I forgot - being stupid and twisting people's words is now considered a protected class in the United States.
Go take your Lithium Sean, you forgot your pill this morning.
Now, now, Karl... Happens I agree with you, but that doesn't make Sean a moron. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592 Managing Editor, Top Of The Key sports e-zine ------------ http://www.totk.com
participants (8)
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Jay R. Ashworth -
Jeremy Porter -
Karl Denninger -
Mark Milhollan -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Rich Sena -
Roeland M.J. Meyer -
Sean M. Doran