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Dispute Over IP Sharing Escalates
This story was sent in anonymously, but has several interesting points. The major part of the story is a dispute over
sharing IPs on DSL lines (this is in Korea, keep that in mind). The scariest part is that they cut off service to a customer using their line to run a petition site to get them to change the policy. Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service! Anyone else see anything scary about that? Obviously I think we should be able to use our DSL lines to host as many PCs as we want up to the bandwidth cap, that's simply our choice. But that's secondary to what happens when you mess w/ the telco!
"The scariest part is that they cut off service to a customer using their line to run a petition site to get them to change the policy. Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service!"
I guess that trolls on Slashdot that disagree with the way the service is run are treated first-class, eh?
Ah, reminds me of the good old days of cable modem service in Palo Alto and Menlo Park...go obtain a cable modem somewhere, plug it in, claim an IP address you know to be in the Cable Co-Op number range, and voila! you're on. Heaven forbid someone already may have legitimately been issued your IP address. The Cable Co-Op response? "We control the distribution of cable modems, so this can't happen". Ever been to Fry's? I know of at least a dozen people who "borrowed" IPs on the Cable Co-Op network to get months of free service, often at the expense of legit users.
Even in the States we have companies with terms of service such as these. And it is easy to detect NAT running, because so many "odd" port numbers keep passing through. However, as long as the user keeps under the bandwidth cap (which is a legitimate business decision to have one) I don't see why the service would be concerned with why the packets are the way they are. Nor have I heard of someone being shut down for NAT'ting out 2-5 machines. I *have* heard of quake servers being shut down, but there is at least one real concern above bandwidth when a user creates a server - they create an obvious attack point for denial of service and other attacks.
Sig under construction since 1998.
Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service!
What! That's outrageous! Why should the slashdot admins cut off my service just because I disagree with the telecom. I mean, I can understand the telecom cutting me of themselves, but this goes WAY too far!
:)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
and re-selling their high speed access. I mean one customer, may have a couple of boxes at home tied to a network, so the family can surf. but i'd bet a lot of folks in korea are so poor, they wire up buildings, blocks, etc, from one dsl line and are paying the personal use fees. I do think its unfair to not allow 2-3 personal pc's to share a link, and how would they determine if you were NAT'ing? but if you have like 3 or 4 neighbors or more leeching off the same line, come on. DSL doesn't make any money if you're flogging the bandwidth 24/7. Its hardly profitable at all as it is.
===sam=== free nessus vulnerability scan = www.vulnerabilities.org
reads earlier story...
oh... :(
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
The reason the telcos and cable companies can give people broadband cheaply is that they base the price on "average" use. If people start putting 8 systems on there (and..uh..who would do that?) the average goes out the window. Many companies, I know my RoadRunner service does, will give you another IP (you can get another dynamic) for like $10/month to help cover costs.
But, they also don't seem to mind NAT here. I think they should hand out NAT routers with every cable modem, or integrate it in, just for the sake of security. I know I tell everyone at the office to buy one RIGHT AWAY when they get cable or DSL.
Is very simple.
IP space wasn't supposed to be a commodity, but it is now, due to ineffective planning (or whatever you want to call it).
An ISP should *only* ever enforce two rules.
1) How much bandwidth you can use.
2) Reserve the right to terminate your account if you cause them grief (spamming, etc..).
They shouldn't say 'don't run servers' 'only one computer' 'only for casual at-home use' etc.... they should simply make the bandwidth rules and prices reflect this.
When I am personally using dsl or better bandwidth, I am certainly not taking full advantadge of the pipe. So If I use 10% of the pipe or 20% of the pipe, or whatever, the service provider can charge me one third of what he charges a business customer, and still make a profit. Even If I use 30 or 40%, unlikely unless I streaming video 24/7, and doing other things, The average usage for most people probably is around 5 or 10% (all numbers are speculative) and so based on this the service can be priced accordingly.
Now if I suddenly have dozens or hundreds of computers using this line, the bandwidth can max out. If I am the provider, I am possibly charged by the number of bits that go overthe wire. This is where it gets alarming, since I had made my profit calculations based an average usage of 10% and charged appropriately. No suddenly I have bunches of people who want to use the personal private lines for their business without paying the businnes rates. Instead of 10% the usage soars to 50% or higher. This is not a good thing.
The options are either to just charge everyone business rate (no private rates) or to crack down on abusers. The personal rates are offered with this balance between business use and personal use understood, at least internally.
Now some people do not understand this. I suppose when it was only one or two ubergeeks doing this, they could let it slide. But when you start promoting this for everyone, then it messes up the business model.
I supposed you could have some sort of metered service, but I do not know how easy it would be to set that up. Even so metering is an added cost, and might not be practical for someone cutting costs a little thin in the above scenario. (price competition and all)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service! Anyone else see anything scary about that?
It seems to me that things need to flow both ways. Why should a company be forced to provide a service to someone who obviously isn't happy with it? Is that not forcing someone (some company I guess) to do something against their will? I see something far more scary about that. I'm also wondering who should do something about it, consumers? Despite all of the talk people really don't vote with their wallets. On the whole we'll buy the product that gives us the best balance between price and features (or price and whatever it is we want) In the case of DSL we probably only have one choice in the first place so buying from a competitior is not really an option. Government is the only other entity that can force the company to change and they seem to be forcing enough people to do enough things against their will as it is.
A cry goes up when we talk about restrictive software licenses and the thinking it usually along the lines of 'you own it, you should be able to do with it what you want'. I think because a company is essentially faceless we think it is ok that even though they own something, they shouldn't be allowed to choose how or by whom it is used. The bottom line is that they own the servers that run the ISP, they lease the lines, they probably own the modem in the guy's house, but we don't want them to be able to shut off his service. Something about that just doesn't jive.
This occured in Korea, but in the US the part of any business that deals with the public (e.g., everything up to the McDonalds counter) is a "public accomodation" and they can impose very few restrictions on the public in that space. It's not as "free" as a public park, but it's not as restrictive as office or industrial spaces.
The space behind a counter is not a public accomodation and McDonald's could have anyone there arrested for trespassing, no matter what they're wearing, but they can't say anything about a peaceful group wearing PETA shirts in the order line. They can ask protesters waving signs to move on, but only because they're disrupting others and only to the extent that they ask other protesters to do the same.
Finally, telcos in the US are "common carriers" and <b>required</b> to carry all content, in exchange for immunity to conspiracy charges for the same. If a DSL drops a customer's service because he criticized their policy, then that same DSL may find itself named codefendant to a murder conspiracy charge because they permitted other customers to discuss a planned murder.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I realize that every other english speaking person uses these confusing words without completely disambiguating them. But because you're the leader of this great site, I strongly believe that you should griped at until you change your ways, and possibly the ways of all the good english speaking people.
In short, I'd rather spend my time complaining at you instead of taking an extra second to determine a word's meaning by context.
--
Quite so. For a couple days I had a squatter on my home IP address, who parked an HP JetDirect box on it, of all things. Now that just ain't smart. I don't like wasting paper, so I made sure my PostScript art was concise, persuasive, to-the-point, while containing graphic visual aids to overcome any potential literacy gap. The printer disappeared quickly after that.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS