Patrick Gilmore wrote: | Sean and Sprint still act publicly as if they are guardians of the route | table and without their wisdom and restraint, the rest of us would all die On the contrary, Sean has always maintained that the filtering was put in place to protect Sprint's customers from growth -- long-term or instant -- in the global routing system. The filters are an intelligent self-defence against misconfiguration, whether diffuse (across many ISPs) or localized (e.g. UUNET's de-aggregation). Limiting the number of prefixes one listens to must be done arbitrarily; one could draw the line in many different ways, and the way I chose was to draw it at the 18-bit level in what was then as-yet-unallocated address space. Moreover, when experience showed that when the filters were imposed people were actually using some of that address space, the filters were relaxed across that space. Even further, when, after vigorous discussion with several registries, it turned out that filtering anything longer than 18 bits was perhaps too harsh, the filters were further relaxed to something very much like what is in place now. That people other than Sprint and its immediate customers might benefit from a decision to limit the number of prefixes Sprint could hear from its non-customers was always a secondary motivation. Is there any particular reason why you keep banging on this drum this way? I don't understand why you are so frequently so thoroughly UNPLEASANT in your tone whenever you return to the issue, and I don't understand why you return to the issue with such frequency. Perhaps you might pause to reflect on that before people write you off entirely as a wingnut, and miss the occasional useful point you make (e.g., why isn't everyone filtering?) and the occasional useful response made in reply (e.g., Sprint is not the only network filtering at the /19 level across newer address space). Sean.
At 12:52 PM 10/8/98 -0700, Sean M. Doran wrote:
Patrick Gilmore wrote:
| Sean and Sprint still act publicly as if they are guardians of the route | table and without their wisdom and restraint, the rest of us would all die
On the contrary, Sean has always maintained that the filtering was put in place to protect Sprint's customers from growth -- long-term or instant -- in the global routing system.
Hrmmm.... I am absolutely positive that you have mentioned to me in the past that Sprint's filters are one of the few things keeping the routing table to a manageable level. I guess you meant that as an incidental side effect and I misconstrued it as one of your primary intentions. My apologies.
The filters are an intelligent self-defence against misconfiguration, whether diffuse (across many ISPs) or localized (e.g. UUNET's de-aggregation).
Perhaps you could clear something else up for me. I was under the impression that Sprint (and/or you) instituted the filters specifically because your routers at the time could not handle the load. Because that is no longer the case - or at least it does not have to be the case, there are routers out there that can handle the load quite well - perhaps the filters should be relaxed a bit? You can still maintain a "defense mechanism" and allow deaggregation longer than /19. This is not meant as an attack, I'm just wondering if such should be considered.
Is there any particular reason why you keep banging on this drum this way? I don't understand why you are so frequently so thoroughly UNPLEASANT in your tone whenever you return to the issue, and I don't understand why you return to the issue with such frequency. Perhaps you might pause to reflect on that before people write you off entirely as a wingnut, and miss the occasional useful point you make (e.g., why isn't everyone filtering?) and the occasional useful response made in reply (e.g., Sprint is not the only network filtering at the /19 level across newer address space).
Sean, from you, calling my e-mails "unpleasant" is almost a compliment. :) But you are correct, I am probably a bit too religious on the issue and I am sorry if I've hurt anyone's feelings. I will publicly state again that Sprint, EBone and every other network in the world may do exactly as they please with their own network. It is not now nor was it before my intention to make Sprint stop filtering by claiming the moral high ground. However, I also state again that I believe turnabout is fair play. (At least I can't see a reason not to do it in this case.) So, why don't Sprint's peers filter Sprint exactly as Sprint filters them? Even Sprint claims this is a good idea, and you yourself have told me it would probably be good for the Internet. (Of course, you thought every provider should filter *all* of their peers in this manner.) No flames, no unpleasantness, no attempt to start an argument, just a simple question. Would even one Sprint peer care to explain why they do not filter Sprint? I hope that was not unpleasant for anyone. :P
Sean.
TTFN, patrick I Am Not An Isp www.ianai.net "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
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Sean M. Doran