There is a difference between unsolicited email and a denial-of-service attack, both in the effects, and the necessary response. The main issue I see here is whether or not transit providers are going to become "common carriers", such as telephone and shipping companies. This means (as it applies here) that you are not liable for any content that you carry. The only way you can deny access is with appropriate local legal action (whatever that may be). The downside is that you cannot filter spam, porn, or any other distasteful traffic. I believe emergency measures, such as cutting off a site SYN flooding, or cutting the pair to a customer's house, etc., is allowed, but a permanent solution needs legal action. I believe that the net is headed in the common carrier direction, which means we must find a better way to stop spam than denying routes. This is the flip side to Universal Access; you cannot have good without having bad. Stephen Sprunk PS- I'm not a lawyer blah blah blah. At 10:02 20 01 97 -0800, you wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Eric D. Madison wrote:

...

As a carrier, I know that we should not and can not filter/censor/monitor any content on our "pipes".

So you would ignore one of your customers SYN attacking random victims on the net? Or one of your T3 customers ping bombing somebody with a T1?

There already is precedent for deal with abuse.