From: mdevney@teamsphere.com [mailto:mdevney@teamsphere.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 11:57 PM
Actually, I'm enamoured of someone's idea to just blackhole new.net and let them figure out how to sort that. Saves me a whole lot of trouble, I just get to ask the customer where they got the idea that .xxx was a valid tld.
If we all do that (And yes I can see a significant [10%+] fraction of this group's readership doing it), then the problem goes away soon. An elegant fix, except that new.net would probably sue anyone who blackholed them...
Indeed they would. It is even likely that they'd win. Such action wouldn't win ICANN any favours in Congress either.
[... Blackholing new.net...] If we all do that (And yes I can see a significant [10%+] fraction of this group's readership doing it), then the problem goes away soon. An elegant fix, except that new.net would probably sue anyone who blackholed them...
Indeed they would. It is even likely that they'd win. Such action wouldn't win ICANN any favours in Congress either.
I am not an American and not really familiar with US laws and political thinking, but why is it that it is considered OKfor someone to break away from, ignore the DNS root system, but not for others to blackhole a player whose traffic they don't want to see. What laws would prohibit the latter while not affeting the former? Mathias
Mathias Koerber wrote:
I am not an American and not really familiar with US laws and political thinking, but why is it that it is considered OKfor someone to break away from, ignore the DNS root system, but not for others to blackhole a player whose traffic they don't want to see. What laws would prohibit the latter while not affeting the former?
IANAL, so take this as one man's understanding and not necessarily the absolute truth.... Take an analogy from the oil industry. If Exxon lowers its prices, there's no problem. If Chevron, Hess, Citgo and Sunoco all see Exxon's action and decide to lower their prices in turn, in order to compete with Exxon, there's no problem. If Jim's gas-n-gulp can't compete with those prices and goes out of business, oh well, that's business. BUT if representatives from Exxon, Chevron, Hess, Citgo and Sunoco all got together and agreed to lower their prices in unison for the express purpose of running Jim's gas-n-gulp out of business, and then did it, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws. Putting this in the context of the new.net discussion, if an ISP chooses to blackhole new.net, they can. It doesn't matter what the reason is - nobody can force anybody else to carry someone else's traffic (barring things like common-carrier status, of course.) If a dozen or a hundred ISPs independantly choose to do blackhole new.net, they are similarly free to do so. And if new.net can't remain in business as a result of this, oh well, that's business. BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws. -- David
BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws.
-- David
But what if a quasi-government organization (ICANN) explicitly blessed the concept of banning alternate roots :-) Now there is a can of worms... Mark Radabaugh Amplex (419) 833-3635
On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 12:30:19PM -0500, David Charlap wrote:
BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws.
You mean, like the owners and operators of numerous core US networks getting together on an archived mailing list like this one, and openly discussing the idea of putting new.net out of business by various means (blackholing them, legally pressuring them, etc)? You're right, that might constitute violation of anti-trust law. :-) But what do I know? I'm no lawyer. -- Edward S. Marshall <esm@logic.net> http://www.nyx.net/~emarshal/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. ]
On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 06:55:26PM -0600, Edward S. Marshall wrote:
On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 12:30:19PM -0500, David Charlap wrote:
BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws.
You mean, like the owners and operators of numerous core US networks getting together on an archived mailing list like this one, and openly discussing the idea of putting new.net out of business by various means (blackholing them, legally pressuring them, etc)?
You're right, that might constitute violation of anti-trust law. :-) But what do I know? I'm no lawyer.
I'm no lawyer either, but it seems that intent is a pretty hard case to make. I would think that network operators could take a couple of different paths to blackholing new.net: 1) Looking at the plan and realizing that it is going to increase their support costs with no increase in profits, therefore as a defensive measure and to protect their own resources, an ISP chooses to blackhole new.net 2) Waiting until support calls start to come in wrt to problems that the new.net plugin/alternate roots/whatever creates, and then blackholing new.net. (option #1 seems more preferable, just to avoid the customer who says "well it was working last week, how come it doesn't work now?" issues.) Neither of these options says anything at all about intent to run them out of business, and says much about intent to keep the isp in business. -ron
participants (6)
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David Charlap -
Edward S. Marshall -
Mark Radabaugh - Amplex -
Mathias Koerber -
Roeland Meyer -
Ron Snyder