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Should ISPs Be The Little Man's Firewall?

Posted by timothy on from the then-the-spammers-have-won dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "In a paper published today, the point is made that ISPs should filter some ports (e.g. 135) for good. I guess given what everyone sees hitting their various firewalls these days, this may make sense. But wasn't the Internet supposed to be 'open' at one point? Or are we to the point where Internet=Web (and maybe AIM). The author of the paper is operating DShield and I guess has some insight into this issue. He made the same points before on various mailing lists."

6 of 790 comments (clear)

  1. Re:At MOST it should be optional... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I agree. My university ISP blocks all the ports (a complete stealth firewall) and it pisses me off to no end, because I can't use eDonkey or Direct Connect. Do you know how expensive porn has gotten??

  2. Re:At MOST it should be optional... by gclef · · Score: 3, Funny

    Okay, so you're telling me that 99% of the users in the world have no need for p2p, some online chat features, online games, and a few other things I'm too lazy to look up? (all of these require incoming ports to be opened on the client, in case it wasn't obvious.)

    As they say on the mailing lists: I encourage my competitors to run their networks this way.

  3. screw the web. by the_greywolf · · Score: 2, Funny

    i want more gopher sites.

    --
    grey wolf
    LET FORTRAN DIE!
  4. Re:At MOST it should be optional... by swillden · · Score: 2, Funny

    99% of the users in this world have no need for open ports.

    Damned straight! 99% or the users in this world should have ALL ports closed, inbound *and* outbound. Get them lusers offa my Internet. I'm willing to let them have a NATed IP address, but them open ports gotta go. Especially port 25. And 80. I might let 'em keep 21, but NO 20, and no PASV crap, either [cackles maniacally].

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  5. Re:Potential liability for offering filtering by ColaMan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Have you seen the TOS on your typical ISP lately?
    Fat fucking chance of suing them for *anything*.

    Support Guy : "Oh, I'm sorry, our routers forwarded the ping-of-death to your PC and erased it's drive with all your data? That's a shame, because you *know* that our TOS states that we are *not* responsible for anything that we do. In fact, paragraph 134 explicitly states that we're *allowed* to screw over your computer as many times as we feel necessary, without notice. Thanks, and have a nice day! *click*"

    --

    You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
    There is a lot of hype here.
  6. Re:At MOST it should be optional... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You're hinting that Linux would be of interest to anyone not wearing 4-inch thick glasses?