Earthlink Releases SIP Based P2P File-Sharing App

Kaseijin writes "'We believe that if peer-to-peer flourishes, the Internet flourishes.' Earthlink's Research and Development division has released SIPshare, a prototype file-sharing application based on SIP. The code is available under a BSD-style license."

Comments

Like a flower flourishes

[Quikyn]

Music and movie collections definitly flourish.

I do agree with them however, network technology such as p2p is important.

Good Bye EarthLink

[linsys]

The subject says it all......

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[Beatbyte]

I agree.

This reminds me of WASTE and Nullsoft/AOL.

It sounds like someone forgot to tell the legal department they were doing something special ;-)

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[JediDan]

The customer service is what will doom Earthlink, not the R&D to fix network routing problems.

To quote what is on DSL Reports "To dodge potential legal bullets, the company notes SIPShare is NOT a supported EarthLink product. 'It is more than anything else a manifestation of an idea,' says the company. 'So if you call our Tech Support with SIPshare questions, they will have no idea what you are talking about. So please, if you use SIPshare, you're on your own.'"

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[Tackhead]

> 'So if you call our Tech Support with SIPshare questions, they will have no idea what you are talking about.

And this differentiates SIPshare from anything else offered by Earthlink... precisely how?

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[WebCrapper]

Thats if you can get through to their outsourced agents that can't understand or speak Engrish very well.

They're actually proud of how much of their system is outsourced because they save $XMillion.

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[valmont]

Okay what part of "earthlink is not putting this out as a product" do people not get??? There are no legal issues to dodge here. This is not a product. This is not meant for average consumers. This is a research project. A science project. They're trying to show that "SIP is cool" and "can achieve cool things".

people are interpreting this as earthlink supporting p2p file sharing development when in fact, file sharing is a completely irrelevant use case for this technology. Even if you can share files with someone, that's not the cool thing of this particular application of P2P/SIP. it's the fact that you can communicate with a remote machine that sits behind some opaque NATed network.

On the other hand, the appeal of "controversial P2P applications" was the fact that each participant listed their presence and files available to share on a centralized network. The combination of 1) a P2P client application *AND* 2) a centralized network putting people in relation is what created a medium highly conducive to file swapping.

In this case, earthlink is merely pointing out the fact that SIP enables two computers to talk to one-another behind across opaque networks. The relevant applications of this revolve around VoIP, Video Conferencing, and yes, 1-to-1 data exchange based on a priorly established relationship.

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[DA-MAN]

In this case, earthlink is merely pointing out the fact that SIP enables two computers to talk to one-another behind across opaque networks. The relevant applications of this revolve around VoIP, Video Conferencing, and yes, 1-to-1 data exchange based on a priorly established relationship.

Maybe finally someone will make an IM client that can actually transfer files behind a nat box without this bullshit port forwarding. . .

Here's hoping.

Re:Good Bye EarthLink

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Maybe finally someone will make an IM client that can actually transfer files behind a nat box without this bullshit port forwarding. . .

Yea! And then we will only need to make sure that it can connect over HTTP proxy servers and pretend to be a web-browser. That way the IT people cant filter for it. Yea! We will p0wn all those corporate PCs! Yea! Nothing like a music sharing app to get all those dumbasses in marketing to install it. Cool idea!

Earthlink supports P2P!

[sketerpot]

The most important part is this bit here:

EarthLink believes an open Internet is a good Internet. An open Internet means users have full end-to-end connectivity to say to each other whatever it is they say, be that voice, video, or other data exchanges, without the help of mediating servers in the middle whenever possible. We believe that if peer-to-peer flourishes, the Internet flourishes. SIPshare helps spread the word that SIP is more than a powerful voice over IP enabler --- much more. SIP is a protocol that enables peer-to-peer in a standards-based way.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are giving away gmail invites to participate in a pyramid scheme? Fuck that. I'll give away my gmail invites just to mod you down.

Just post under here with your email address, they will magically appear in your inbox.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[squiggleslash]

To clarify your point: I get incoming port 25 without any problems. Outgoing port 25 is blocked.

So people can run their own email servers and thus manage their own email, but they need to route outgoing email via Earthlink's.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you send on here ? f5426@almonde.com

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[silas_moeckel]

The problem with this is? All ISP's realy need to start filtering customers email it's nicer if you have the routers redirect the traffic so it automaitcaly goes though the filters but this is a big issue to stop spam.

Besides unreliability of those servers are there any other reasons not to forward your mail this way?

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be wonko_the_sane_0@yahoo.com

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[DrEldarion]

EarthLink believes an open Internet is a good Internet. An open Internet means users have full end-to-end connectivity to say to each other whatever it is they say, be that voice, video, or other data exchanges, without the help of mediating servers in the middle whenever possible.

Translation: Earthlink likes an open internet - an open internet allows for P2P file sharing and other things that require lots of bandwidth. Oh hey, did we mention that we sell broadband service? It's fast. You'll want that speed for downloading all this data. C'mon, just try it. The first one is free. Yeah, yeah, that's good. You like that, huh? Now, about this contract...

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[castanaveras]

> Besides unreliability of those servers are there any other reasons not to forward your mail this way?

Does there really need to be a reason other than the unreliability of ISP servers?

Also, what if you own your own domain and want to send email out using it instead of your ISP's domain? Some ISPs are refusing to relay anything that doesn't have their domain as the sender, which doesn't stop spam and only inconveniences their customers.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[squiggleslash]

Disclaimer: I'm not the original poster, I was the one clarifying his point.

There are issues with blocking outgoing port 25.

Issue one is one of configurability and roaming. Right now there's no standardized way of passing on SMTP server information to clients, which means a user roaming on two or more ISPs cannot easily switch without going into the preferences of every blasted mail app they use and change the settings. This might be described as an annoyance, and is probably achievable via some funky scripting and configuration of a local, forwarding, SMTP server, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

Issue two is one of privacy and network transparency. You may want to route email via a particular relay (for example, one that supports Alternic hosts, or a work relay that supports internal-only FQDNs.) Yes, you can ask for that relay run on a port that isn't 25, but that's still relatively unusual, so unusual in fact that many mail clients still do not support anything but port 25.

Issue three again goes back to network transparency: what if the service you're trying to contact is not an SMTP server?

"Now wait!", I pretend to hear you reply, "I don't give a crap because none of these apply to me, and they can all be fixed with complicated Perl scripts, or convoluted network configurations, and by upgrading to the latest versions of the latest email programs regardless of whether the one you use, that you like, that you've been using for years, supports what you want." Well, I know many who'd argue this.

Likewise, I suspect the same people would argue that it's ok to draw on someone's livingroom wall, because the wall's owner can always paint over the marks, or put down wallpaper if the pen has created grooves. And it'll not cost anything because everyone has spare paint just lying around.

In other words, someone somewhere is taking something that's previously been ok, causing a problem, and expecting everyone else to make the effort to get things to work the way they were.

"But, hold on" says the straw man I'm arguing with. "Nobody has to draw on a livingroom wall, whereas we have to deal with spam." I'd say dealing with spam is a "want to" rather than a "have to", but more importantly I question whether taking email out of the hands of the users has been particularly successful at eliminating spam. I would argue it hasn't. I'd argue that nothing has been more destructive to the integrity of the Internet and nothing has helped spammers more than this type of anti-spam system. And when I say "nothing", I pretty much include spam itself, unless you see anti-spam as caused by spam of course.

The bottom line really is that blocking ports breaks things. You can come up with an argument for saying that that breaking is simply necessary, that the circumstances simply require it, just as we're all (well most of us) against killing people but (most of us) see the need for the occasional war, or at any rate self defense killing. But people do end up dying in wars, and legitimate activities do get hampered when you arbitrarily block ports.

Why am I still with Earthlink? Because of all of the issues that can affect my broadband, this - the blocking of outgoing 25 - is minor. Most importantly to me is that they do not blocking any incoming ports, they do not ban me from running my own network (though they refuse to support it, but that's fine) or servers, and they let me use any OS I want.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[squiggleslash]

In Earthlink's case, Earthlink allows you to use your own domain for outgoing email via its servers.

I think there are well meaning ISPs who block outgoing 25, and not so decent ISPs. Earthlink, on this issue at least, is trying to be one of the good guys.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Anonymous Coward]

Call earthlink support, for modem users you need them to add 'X-Acenddatafilter = 0.0.0.0/32' with the ip address of your mail server. Now if the routers block 25 you also need to heve them add a rule for yor mail server. Or move to a diffrent ISP. We do this for our customers. (they are not spammers)

ya ya spelling is the worst...

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[aycaramba]

redhillclan@NOSPAMgmx.net

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[sketerpot]

In other words, Earthlink has a good motive to continue supporting P2P filesharing? Great!

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Reziac]

They do? I had tried that and couldn't get it to work, using Moz v1.5; the domain is hosted with 1and1. What am I missing?

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[squiggleslash]

I don't know. I send email out all the time with mysubdomain.dynip.com via Earthlink's SMTP servers, and there's never been a problem.

I assume you have the domain set up properly and it's resolvable etc. If not, it may be that email servers - possibly including Earthlink - are rejecting it as one of the faux anti-spam systems many people have implemented.

Other than that, I don't know why you'd be having a problem. I'd need more information to find out.

Re:Earthlink supports P2P!

[Reziac]

Yeah, one BBS that I use used to go thru dynip to ELN and that worked fine. My mail domain is hosted on 1and1.com and it does work fine in itself (I can use it for mail thru 1and1 servers, tho once in a while that gets balky about outgoing mail so an alternative would be nice). I vaguely recall that ELN's server whined back at me and threw back the mail... been quite a while so I don't recall exactly, but at the time I think it was rejecting any mail or post not from an ELN domain.

Stupid Mozilla mail, I swear I am going to HURT the designer if I ever catch him.. damned thing doesn't want to send all unsent messages and there doesn't seem to be any way to force it. Anyway, sending from my domain is working thru mail.earthlink.net today, so I guess whatever was the issue before went away. (This is good, cuz today for some reason I can't send thru smtp.1and1.com ... grrr. Yes, I know to use port 587. ELN seems to be blocking port 25.)

Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Vaystrem]

If I recall correctly, ISPs would not be held liable for content traded over P2P networks, recent legal case. But how does this change when the ISP develops a P2P client?

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Old Uncle Bill]

I'm sure their devils, I mean lawyers, have looked into this quite a bit. Besides, courts have already upheld in some cases that it is not the P2P software's liability if someone shares something illegal.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[GodHead]

I would think it doesn't. Not anymore than crowbar makers can be liable for breaking and entering.

Then again we've all seen the US court system make mind-bending leaps of illogic so I guess anything's possible.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, with the recently proposed INDUCE Act it would be come illegal.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[maxbang]

Hmmmm, not sure, but wouldn't that be similar to someone using AOL's mail client to send an MP3?

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

how the fuck is the above offtopic when its parent is not?

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Anonymous Coward]

must have been modded by a devil^H^H^H^H^Hlawyer.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[turnstyle]

"Not anymore than crowbar makers can be liable for breaking and entering."

The crowbar analogy isn't so great because, on the other hand, lockpick tools are (generally) illegal.

The difference between the crowbar and the lockpick tool isn't that they have the potential for bad uses (obviously both do) -- it's about what they're generally used for.

The question about this Earthlink P2P will boil down to: is it mostly just another market for illegal filesharing, or will it mostly be used for legit sharing...

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Frit Mock]

Harhar, nice idea ... why bother with p2p apps.

We take some of these spam viruses and modify them, to spam mp3 in attachments, whatever mp3 they find on an infected computer they spam.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Planesdragon]

But how does this change when the ISP develops a P2P client?

Assuming that INDUCE gets passed, Earthlink will be responsible for fixing their P2P app to recognize "digial rights." This may be as simple as adapting Creative Common's sharing scheme, or it could be as convoluted as flagging and enforcing DRM.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[override11]

I would hope not. Is the FTP protocol maker liable for any data transfered over that? That dude is in a WORLD of shit if he is.....

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Deliveranc3]

It's not really their fault they are tied to regulating something that is blatantly immoral.

They know people should be able to look around heck people even have the constitutional right to spread information but then they are trying to draw lines to prevent it.

That's because all the policy people haven't gotten their thumbs out about developing a system to keep intellectual development moving and if they don't they worry that some of the emerging economies with diffrent political systems will triumph.

What do you do when injustice has been working well for a long time, other countries don't have a problem not being fair if it helps everyone the most, we're just totally blind on this issue thinking that the government is in some way responsible to be fair.

We're even more stupid if we expect them to be fair when the alternative is better for everyone. Perhaps we are engaged in a self defeating political movement here (similar to the russian communist revlolution perhaps?). Maybe we should have a pretty strong Idea of what we are going to do to create idea's after the fall of publishing.

My bet is something like this

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[flonker]

Jon Postel passed away October 16, 1998, so I doubt there's much that the ??AA can do now. Incidentally, here is the initial RFC for FTP, which gives credit to J. Postel.

Re:Earthlink Opening Pandora's Box?

[Old Uncle Bill]

AFAIK, lock picking tools are generally LEGAL, but using them in the commission of a crime gets you a serious penalty.

and to think...

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

I was actually thinking of changing ISPs anyway. A P2P-friendly ISP? Who woulda thunk it.

Re:and to think...

[alatesystems]

Don't be fooled. They'll turn over your name and address as soon as the RIAA comes with their subpoena.

At least RoadRunner is nice enough to tell you where they're scanning from so that you can block them. Thanks iptables :)

Chris

Re:and to think...

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

Shouldn't that read, they'll turn my name and address over as soon as the appropriate government agency comes with its subpoena?

Re:and to think...

[evilviper]

They'll turn over your name and address as soon as the RIAA comes with their subpoena.

Actually, I believe they were widely touting the fact that they were the last large ISP that hadn't (yet?) turned information over to the RIAA.

It should read

[Ignignot]

"We believe that if people keep needing more bandwidth, Earthlink will flourish." Earthlink is an ISP, and this is entirely for their own benefit. If more people are using file sharing, then they need more bandwidth to do it. If everyone buys more bandwidth, then the value of the internet is much greater (because it is proportional to connectedness). Then Earthlink gets more money. so you might even say:

1 - Release new P2P program
2 - Everyone needs more bandwidth
3 - People buy more bandwidth
4 - Profit!!!
5 - Internet flourishes kind of or something.

Re:It should read

[garcia]

Earthlink is probably telling the truth when they say they believe in an "open Internet" as they are one of the ones that are pushing for the end to Cable companies monopolizing the lines *and* the ISP connections for cable HSD.

Re:It should read

[GodHead]

1 - Release new P2P program

That should read "release proof of concept that wont work for 90% of users". It's a tech demo. It's not like there's some shortage of p2p apps anyway.

I think the bit that's missing is why SIP-based p2p would be better than other p2p apps. Someone care to explain that?

Re:It should read

[stratjakt]

So what?

You think that's an intelligent observation or something?

They know who butters their bread, and it's not any *AA group, or the lobbyists behind the INDUCE act.

Companies exist to make money.

Re:It should read

[Sheepdot]

I like how everyone screws up the South Park quote. For those of you that don't know, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underpants_Gnomes

The Underpants Gnomes had 3 steps. If you make it into more, or don't end in "PROFIT!!!" then you aren't doing it for the right reasons. The goal is profit. The goal is ALWAYS profit.

Re:It should read

[KDan]

Not only that, but what makes SIP better than, say, JXTA?

Daniel

Re:It should read

[drinkypoo]

They have a vested interest in doing so. That's not open internet, that's using a resource to which you did not contribute and thus should not be entitled to. The POTS network was built at least partly with government money - our money. The cable networks were built by the cable companies. It might be good for the consumer to open those networks, but that's not why they're doing it - they're doing it because a free ride is good for Earthlink.

Re:It should read

[DanoTime]

Wow - I learned quite a bit about Slashdot from that link you provided. Thanks! ...you insensitive clod!

Re:It should read

[Ignignot]

I'm sorry I didn't realize that my license to change jokes around a little had been revoked! I'll immediately report to the nearest Fanatically Unchanging Quotes Station (FUQS), you can bet. Don't worry, from now on I will only parrot formulaic jokes that we can laugh at for all time without ever doing something new!

Re:It should read

[CmdrChillupa]

Really, it's a brilliant idea. ISP's costs are hardware and bandwidth to the internet. If all of their customers are running P2P then the software will, if properly programmed, use other Earthlink customers sharing the file before resorting the the internet. Thus lessening Earthlink's bandwidth costs. It's better for the customers too as pulling from someone inside your network will probably give you better speeds than pulling from someone in Russia.

It's a brilliant idea, until RIAA lawyers figure out how to get conspiracy charges to work in P2P lawsuits.

Re:It should read

[halfelven]

Since it's good for VoIP, it's good to carry persistent streams of data, which is typical for P2P.

Also, it's more likely that SIP would be allowed by default through various corporate firewalls, while typical P2P protocols will be blocked. Think of it as a firewall circumventing feature.
I was actually impressed, the idea is clever.

Re:It should read

[Anonymous Coward]

"Since it's good for VoIP, it's good to carry persistent streams of data"

Just like, say, TCP? ;) And hell no, live audio doesn't have a lot in common with file transfers.

Re:It should read

[halfelven]

TCP is layer 4, therefore it is a container for VoIP (H.323, SIP, IAX, Skinny, etc.) and P2P (Napster, etc.).
VoIP and P2P are in the layers above 4.
Please go back and re-read the manuals.

Live audio has quite a bit in common with transferring large files (movies, ISO images) at the transport level, it is more or less a continuous stream of data. But there are dissimilarities as well, i agree with that.

I believe the main reason for choosing SIP has to do with firewall circumventing, not with similarities with audio. If VoIP explodes, SIP will be as ubiquitous as HTTP.

Only a proof of concept...

[garcia]

Will EarthLink SIPshare work behind NAT?

No. All messaging, including the file transfer protocol, are based on UDP. If you want to extend EarthLink SIPshare by incorporating something like STUN for NAT traversal, by all means do so.

Obviously this wasn't originally intended for anything other than the proof of concept as a large group of users interested in P2P would be using some form of NAT. If anything it may be dangerous (if it became popular) because users would DMZ or disconnect from their router to put their machines straight to the net to use this application.

Re:Only a proof of concept...

[LanMan04]

Err, don't you just forward the appropriate port and ...poof!...it works behind NAT? Or do they mean on multiple machines behind a NAT, each with its own client/connection?

Re:Only a proof of concept...

[ray-auch]

Nope (be lovely if it was that simple), because SIP uses incoming (on different, sometimes random, ports) as well as outgoing connections. At least for VOIP, SIP behind NAT usually requires using proxies and/or STUN servers. See eg. here.

Re:Only a proof of concept...

[halfelven]

True.

Now, if you're using some kind of external SIP proxy, then "automagically" all your clients behind NAT will work. That's all that's required for SIP to work through NAT.

Re:Only a proof of concept...

[Deliveranc3]

Hey that's just what I did with Bittorrent!

Yea not having single firewall support (one user outside one inside) is really really weak when so many programs implement it easily.

QOS SIP Traffic

[vchoy]

I would be interesting how (enabled) ISPs prioritize SIP traffic. Does this mean we can expect better data transfer rates? :P

Re:QOS SIP Traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

SIP is a signaling protocol. Data transfer rates concern data transfer protocols --like RTP for real-time voice, video, or perhaps FTP for file transfer.

Re:QOS SIP Traffic

[ray-auch]

Or perhaps blocking it entirely at the request of the RIAA/MPAA/whatever because it happens to be used by a p2p protocol, thus forcing VOIP users onto more expensive "VOIP enabled" internet connection plans, or back onto PSTN.

Nah, can't see any reason that might happen, wouldn't be in any big company's interest to kill SIP now would it...

Re:QOS SIP Traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not very familiar with SIP, but it looks to me like it would be a very low priority protocol. It's not meant to transfer large amounts of data, but small messages. It might get low latency, but it looks like it would also get low bandwidth. Data over SIP would probably suck.

Re:QOS SIP Traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs are not likely to prioritise SIP traffic, if you're thinking of VoIP and SIP.

SIP is used only for signalling, and not for media paths. There's no huge advantage to prioritising it within an ISP's network.

Re:QOS SIP Traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

SIP stands for Session INITIATION Protocol. SIP does not transfer any data, it only specifies how you transfer you data, in case of a voicecall, what RTP ports to use...

Adoption

[webword]

The key for adoption of P2P is getting it into companies. Like IM, if P2P is compelling to average users, it will weasel its way into corporations. Don't miss the disclaimer: "Finally, EarthLink SIPshare is NOT a supported EarthLink product. It is more than anything else a manifestation of an idea. So if you call our Tech Support with SIPshare questions, they will have no idea what you are talking about. So please, if you use SIPshare, you're on your own." The problem is that this is for geeks, mostly. Until it is easy enough for "average" folks and grandmothers, it probably won't be adopted. So, might be good technology, but not so sure about adoption. We'll see. TWT.

Quoting the Wikipedia link sited for "SIP":

[idontgno]

A goal for SIP was to provide a superset of the call processing functions and features present in the public switched telephone network (PSTN). As such, features that permit familiar telephone-like operations are present: dialing a number, causing a phone to ring, hearing ringback tones or a busy signal. Implementation and terminology are different.

Does SIP reproduce the "Doot-doot-doot-We're sorry, the file you are downloading has been disconncted."?

Looks like...

[bizpile]

...that screenshot was taken in Linux. Interesting....

Re:Looks like...

[cs02rm0]

It's written in Java. Write once, run anywhere!

Well. Didn't work when I just tried it in 2k. I only wanted to try it at work because I think they used a look and feel I've been trying out with some of my apps.

So what?

[revscat]

I hate libertarians as much as the next guy, but let me put on that hat for a minute and ask: so what? If Earthlink honestly provides a good or service that people want, and people use it, why should they not be financially rewarded for their efforts? Profit motive is not inherently bad, however much it may cause unscrupulous players to behave unfairly or unjustly. I don't think Earthlink has done anything to warrant criticism, here, nor are their motives worthy of scorn.

Re:So what?

[untaken_name]

I hate libertarians as much as the next guy

We hate you too. :)
That's a big flaw with the 'as much as the next guy' argument, one of two. The first is that 'the next guy' may very well not agree with you. If I am 'the next guy', I don't hate libertarians at all. Therefore the meaning of your statement changes based on a variable beyond your control. Can you discover the second glaring flaw with your argument? I'll leave it as a reader exercise.

Re:So what?

[Fnkmaster]

Let's see, you're liberal, but believe fundamentally in individual freedoms (including the second amendment), but scorn libertarians? So you're like a libertarian, only not a heartless Randian bastard?

Re:So what?

[Ignignot]

Where, exactly did I say that Earthlink was doing something wrong? Maybe you read it into what I wrote, but you are the one that has a problem with corporate profit then. What you just wrote is the equivilant of me saying "rabbits live in holes in the ground" and you turning around and saying "but there's nothing wrong with living in a hole in the ground if you are a rabbit!"

Re:So what?

[revscat]

Something like that. Also, I support strong labor unions and environmental regulations.

Re:So what?

[revscat]

Where, exactly did I say that Earthlink was doing something wrong? Maybe you read it into what I wrote, but you are the one that has a problem with corporate profit then.

Settle down, partner. I wasn't attacking you. If that's not what you meant, ok, but the tone was certainly in that direction, and it certainly wasn't clear why you brought up the point. It's been my experience that people don't usually bring up profit as a motive unless they are denegrating it. Without further context your message could have be read either way.

Re:So what?

[Fnkmaster]

Hmm, well, I can agree with you on environmental regulations since they are absolutely necessary to make up for negative externalities that corporations otherwise tend to inflict on the commons.

The labor union bit I'm a bit more iffy on. I'm theoretically supportive of the right of a group to collectively bargain, but in many cases (not all) strong labor unions tend to decrease personal iniative and motivators for efficiency and producitivity. And in others they just seem to drive sectors of the economy into the ground (airline industry anyone?). Obviously labor unions did a lot of good in the early part of this century to prevent flagrant abuses of workers, but I feel like a lot of that function is supplanted and much of the remainder could be by better legislation and enforcement of employment laws.

Re:So what?

[Ignignot]

Settle down, partner. I wasn't attacking you.

Where, exactly did I say that you were attacking me? Maybe you read it into what I wrote, but you are the one that has a problem with you attacking me. What you just wrote is the equivilant of me saying "muskrats live in extensive burrow systems," and you turning around and saying "but there's nothing wrong with living in extensive burrow systems if you are a muskrat!"

Re:So what?

[Money for Nothin']

Also, I support strong labor unions and environmental regulations.

Do you support coercive labor unions?

I'm generally-libertarian, and I very much support the idea of labor unions. Just not *coercive* (read: if you work for X company, you are required to join, or, "if you don't vote for so-and-so, we'll bust your kneecaps") labor unions.

Labor unions are just organizations of people on the labor side of the economic equation; corporations are organizations of people on the capital side.

Enviro regs -- I waffle on those. It depends on the reg...

Re:So what?

[revscat]

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply.

Do you support coercive labor unions?

I do not know. I tend towards "no", but I think the circumstances would very much dictate my answer. I can imagine a situation wherein the balance of power was so in favor of the management that it was necessary for every employee to be a member, and that if that mechanism failed certain horrible consequences were fairly certain to happen.

So do I support coercive labor unions? Only in certain limited circumstances.

I try not to be zealous about any prinicple, and liberty, while being one of my four core values of good government, is one of those principles.

WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG!

That would be TERRA NETWORKS.

They have JUST called me (last half hour) and woke me up to tell me that I was pirating a copy of Windows 2000 professional using "some kind of file sharing application", and that "in case of reincidency I would have my account cancelled" and legal measures etc etc

Needless to say, they got their butt cancelled in the same hour.

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[strictfoo]

were they right? are you pirating a copy of Windows 2000 using "some kind of file sharing application"?

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but thats not the point. They shouldn't care what I am doing with the bandwith that I pay them for. Besides, sharing with a few of my friends is considered fair use. By me at least.

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[vchoy]

No no no no!!!

He should of said it like this:

He WAS using Windows 2000 to priate some other kind of free operating system using "some kind of file sharing application"

The intent is there & that sounds much better (esp. on /.)!

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reincidency?

Why don't we just rename English business-speke and be done with it. Or perhaps it would be more in line with our vision statement if we relabelised it as the Communications-Enableation-Actionising-Compliancy- Enterprise-System.

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[3terrabyte]

Sounds like an ISP worth hanging on to, since they are willing to warn you!

It's better than having the BSA knock down your door.

Re:WRONG! It's my (ex-)ISP!

[3terrabyte]

Including child pornography, hacking a government web site, launching DDOS, or running a fraudlent mail order company over the internet?

I'm sure -all- ISP's care about what people are doing with THEIR bandwidth they're leasing to you.

P2P with Jabber/XMPP?

[hey]

Well, if SIP can do P2P. What about Jabber/XMPP?

The studios/labels should leave the MPAA/RIAA

[ShatteredDream]

What good are laws that are simultaneously unenforceable and make the people more contemptuous of the thought of paying for your products? If the labels had said publically, "we believe the No Electronic Theft Act more than adequately addresses online piracy, and the DMCA is bad for consumers" then they would have been the good guys. The people who pay attention to what they were doing at the time would have bought more CDs, and the RIAA would have been right, the NET Act was more than enough.

As I have pointed out on my blog before the solution to illegal file sharing is not in lawsuits, but in repealing the DMCA and replacing it with a "right of private action for prosecutions in IP." That's right, let copyright holders hire a lawyer and prosecute you. Think about it for a second. It makes them pay to prosecute you, which means your tax dollars don't get drained by endless hours of DOJ/US Attorney expansion and action. It also gives the copyright holders a real means to go after people that'd work in the USA. Lawsuits aren't too scary, private initivative on prosecution is to college students and other young file sharers. When 5,000 sit in prison, not getting hit up for a few grand, people will stand up and take notice.

Yes, it would cost the RIAA considerably more in the short term, but it'd put a deep chill on illegal file sharing use. I have lost my patience with people who steal from the labels and musicians and hide behind things like "oh I am just sampling." If I sample something off a newsgroup or something, I either delete it right away and buy the album or I delete it because it's pure shit not worth keeping on my hard drive or buying. A few of my friends work the same way, but most of my peers do not.

The only reason I still have some support for the "other side" is that if the RIAA and MPAA were left unchecked they'd make my computer into a VCR that can run Microsoft Office and licensed video games. But seriously, the copyright holders are not entirely wrong. There is a moral problem with those who say that no one gets hurt. We have already been forced to deal with the fact, thanks to people like Courtney Love, that the artists don't get a fair deal in most contracts. Are you going to compound that by making it even harder to get out of debt? I seriously doubt most of the whiners even buy merch or go see them live.

"Normal people" aren't nuanced, at least in America. They will end up just seeing a bunch of free loaders and will be too lazy to challenge the MPAA/RIAA's latest IT industry killing plan du jour. If you make moral arguments for your freedom to be left alone from the copyright holders, you have to be virtuous so that the people can see that you are a libertarian, not a libertine.

Re:The studios/labels should leave the MPAA/RIAA

[Wylfing]

How this got modded as Insightful I will never understand. This is about as shit an idea as you can get. Even looking past your a priori assumption that there is a "problem of illegal file trading," which by itself is extremely shaky, you go on to advance the preposterous notion that giving a private cartel criminal prosecution powers would be a benefit to society. If it wasn't for plugging your blog, I'd think this was a clever troll.

Supposing, sadly, that you believe this notion, I should like to point out that in a criminal trial the verdict is decided by a jury of one's peers. Precisely how many juries do you think are going to send a 19-year-old college kid to prison because he downloaded some Usher tunes? Going somewhat further, and supposing as you suggest that 5,000 such college kids end up with a size 7 poopshoot in prison as punishment for their wicked file trading ways, you had better well believe that people would "stand up and take notice" but not, assuredly, in the way you seem to think.

Re:The studios/labels should leave the MPAA/RIAA

[squiggleslash]

Precisely how many juries do you think are going to send a 19-year-old college kid to prison because he downloaded some Usher tunes?

Probably the same number that'd send some 19-year-old college kid to prison just because he possessed some dope.

We Are Visionaries!

[underpar]

"Finally, EarthLink SIPshare is NOT a supported EarthLink product. It is more than anything else a manifestation of an idea."

Trouble us not with your lame questions! We are busy making the internet flourish!

Re:We Are Visionaries!

[TheSpoom]

I bet they outsource it anyway. When I conferenced a customer to Earthlink, I got someone with a heavy Indian accent.

Good!

[Detritus]

Anything that hastens the demise of NAT is a good thing. I use it, but I recognize that it is an ugly kludge that should be eliminated as soon as possible. It breaks the end-to-end transparency of the Internet. If you want a firewall, install or buy a firewall.

Re: FP

[strictfoo]

unfortunately it's not. If you look at your posting history you will see that this link, apparently discussing the game Homeworld, was your first post.

Re: Caveat!

[Scoria]

I'll "induce" a moral conflict: Earthlink is often accused of directly supporting the Church of Scientology. In fact, Sky Dayton, the man responsible for Earthlink, is a devout Scientologist.

Level of integrity

[moankey]

Lets hope Earthlink keeps it just a little program to help promote their ISP.
I would hate to think they are starting down the road of many other P2P companies which eventually start throwing spyware on your machine and making money the sleazy internet way.

Why they did this.

[Sheepdot]

For those of you scratching your heads for a reason to implement this over SIP when established protocols exist out there, here's what you were looking for:

Companies and universities use packet-shaping to stop and block P2P from taking up too much bandwidth. They wouldn't dare touch the data over SIP though, their bosses would kill them if the conference calls ever died.

Re:Why they did this.

[amorsen]

SIP tends to be shaped into the special queue that says "forward with no delay until you hit bandwidth limit". This pretty much kills that idea. And therefore, it may well kill SIP entirely for voice applications. Meanwhile, that queue is not very useful for P2P because of the bandwidth limit.

Re:Why they did this.

[shreak]

SIP is only used for call setup in VOIP applications (and I'm assumeing for this file shareing app as well, I didn't RTFA).

Once set up, the media is a seperate connection. So your bosses conference call won't die more often if this application hogs the BW, but it might become impossible to actualy make or recieve the call in the first place...

=Shreak

Re:earthlink... EARTHLINK???

[Anonymous Coward]

We have Earthlink over Time Warner Cable, and it's been great. Same great connection as Road Runner, but with a lower price. I called tech support once, and although they weren't brain surgeons, I didn't think it was any worse than any other tech support I called. Although I don't use them, they have some interesting extras for novice users too. And they actually have spam blocking too, which is more than I can say for Road Runner.

hehh, being outpaced :)

[l3v1]

For my electrical engineering degree my thesis was about VoIP/SIP. After finishing the stuff I had a plan for a SIP-based gpl app incorporating audio/text/video communication for 2 and more (conference) users which would've included music streaming and file sharing between the peers.

While I still have the plans, I never started on it, and I most certainly will never have the time for it now, so I'm very happy and pleased to see such apps popping up.

SIP was and still is a personal favourite of mine for many possible applications, being a very versatile and easy to handle protocol.

Free Speech Doesnt Apply Here

[nurb432]

Only problem is that companies aren't bound to the rights re-affirmed and guaranteed in the constriction.. they can ( and do ) restrict speech in their private facilities/networks/etc.

its only the government that is bound by those rules.

Too bad our founders could never have foresaw the commercialization of the world and accounted for it in their documents..

CALEA

[faqmaster]

Hmm. I wonder what will happen if the "VoIP" protocols (SIP and H.323) are suddenly used for much more than only VoIP? If apps like this generate a lot of traffic how will it affect the CALEA and other IP wiretapping efforts? Suddenly the SIP data is just a bunch of garbled white noise. Is it encrypted or is it P2P traffic?

Re:CALEA

[base3]

Is it encrypted or is it P2P traffic?

Yes.

Great Quote...

[evilviper]

So if you call our Tech Support with SIPshare questions, they will have no idea what you are talking about.

Sadly, I've found that even if you have even a basic problem, Earthlink Tech Support still has no idea what you are talking about. Three-cheers for outsourcing call-centers! Hip, hip...

Earthlink is a pretty good service, with very little down-time (so I don't call support often) but their support is terrible. So please, if you use Earthlink, you're on your own.

A new way to share those mp3s...

[Tethys_was_taken]

...Play them over your speakers, stick your mike in front of the speakers, and initiate a VoIP SIP session! Fun for the whole family!

Re: Caveat!

[Anonymous Coward]

and that means exactly what?

well i have a problem with the catholic church. guess i shouldnt do business with anyone business that gives money to a catholic organization, or is headed by a catholic.

suddenly it is a little different once it isnt the big bad scary church of scientology.

Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

If I sample something off a newsgroup or something, I

"... am already breaking the law." is how that sentence should have ended. Whether you delete it afterwards is irrelevant.

Oh, and copying != stealing no matter how much you, the MPAA, the RIAA or anyone else keeps saying it.

Scientology out, Christian Right In

[ToasterTester]

Sky Dayton is long gone from EarthLink and the Scientology crowd that was there. After MindSpring took over control of Earthlink the Atlanta Christian Right took over. If you weren'
t part of their in-crowd your days as at Earthlink were limited. That is unless you're in India and work for two dollars a day. Then you're okay.

Re:Scientology out, Christian Right In

[fireduck]

That is unless you're in India and work for two dollars a day. Then you're okay.

actually, the Indian's got the axe some time ago. Earthlink now outsources customer suport to the Phillipines. they're leading the pack on this trend...

Re:Scientology out, Christian Right In

[killjoe]

Mmmm I wonder if that's because most people in the phillipines are christians while most people in india are not?

Re:Scientology out, Christian Right In

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian tech support is *exactly* why I just dropped Earthlink.

Scientologists or not, when Earthlink under Sky was still in Pasadena, you could call 'em up and actually get a knowledgeable tech person... Someone who actually worked on tech shit for Earthlink and occasionally had to work tech support duty.

The 4 1/2 hours on the phone with outsourced, scripted, bullshit tech support forced me to drop Earthlink as my ISP after being with them for 8 years or so.

The gory details are below if anyone's interested.

--J

I spent 3 1/2 hours yesterday talking to one Indian with an "American" name after another. I was having trouble with my DSL due to SBC inadvertently disconnecting my phone line. The SBC problem was cleared up with a 5 minute phone call and a couple hours later my voice line was back up and running. My DSL, however, was not. Since my DSL is provided by Earthlink/Covad, I had to deal with them.

Tech support #1 wanted me to turn the DSL modem on & off, check computer settings & so forth... the usual level 1 tech kind of stuff. I tried to explain that it wasn't my end that was the problem, the problem lie at SBC due to the disconnection. #1 gets confused, then transfers me.

5 minutes waiting on hold gets me transferred to another level 1 tech who transfers me to another tech who tranfers me to pre-installation, who transfers me to a "master technician," who turns out to be a level 1 tech who transfers me to another low level tech who transfers me back to pre-installation, who transfers me to a "master technician." I'm on hold for 45 minutes when the "master technician" picks up... only it's not a "master technician," it's yet another level 1 tech.

I ask to be immediately transferred to the "master technician." The level 1 says he can't do that... he has to run through some trouble shooting with me first. I say "fine." He starts going through the basic "turn the modem off and then back on" and "restart your computer." At this point I go ballistic. I barely contain a stream of profanity that would make a sailor blush. Tech level 1, finally relents on his insisting that he first do basic trouble shooting before getting me to a "master tech." He puts me on hold for about 5 minutes and says the "master tech" will need to call back, probably within 2 hours.

I get the call this morning. I explain what the problem is and he says that I need to talk to pre-installation...

Re:Scientology out, Christian Right In

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously worked for ELNK and thought you where taken over by MSPG. Wrong - other way around.

MSPG had a great environment, better than what ELNK had (I worked on one side and had a few close friends work on the other). When Gary was bumped up (mind you, he came from ELNK) he killed the company values. Heck - when they cleared out of the ELNK call center in Harrisburg, they took everything but the CV&B's - left those hanging on the walls. Reason I know this? I've been in the building since and have seen them.

When you say something stupid like "If you weren'
t part of their in-crowd your days as at Earthlink were limited." - you're just showing what a dipshit you are. Everyone got fired, some of the first where in Atlanta in the smaller departments and the other call centers followed. Unless you moved to ATL and 1. Kissed ass like no tomorrow and 2. Where of some importance and 3. Where completely ruthless and didn't care about anyone but yourself - you had no chance anyway. It was all about Gary trying to keep his job because the board told him his days where numbered if the company didn't turn profit soon.

As for india support - those outsources where outsourced to the Phillipines just like someone else said.

Keep up with the company or shut up. If you're gonna complain about someone you use to work for - get the facts right.

Posted as an AC because I just don't feel like receiving messages from you try to skirm out of this.

Are they still Pod-People?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I heard, at least the executive staff was still made up of Scientologists. Are they still? Having once worked for an organization that got taken over by them, I can say it didn't do much for the quality of the company...

On the other hand, perhaps you're wrong about why you called Earthlink support. Maybe the only reason you think you're having a problem is because of flashbacks caused by the spirits of dead space-aliens stuck to your body...

SO I guess they will be running candidate

[crapnutassneck]

Less than zero?

i still think IRC will be hard to beat

[beefcake101]

might just be me but i love irc. i think it will be hard to beat it just needs to be reorginized a little.

How *not* to sample?

[tepples]

I have lost my patience with people who steal from the labels and musicians and hide behind things like "oh I am just sampling."

But what can a songwriter do to prevent himself from subconsciously copying or "sampling" another songwriter's copyrighted musical work into his own? George Harrison got bit by this; please read this page about the issue.

Or did you mean something else by "sampling"?

But does antitrust?

[tepples]

companies aren't bound to the rights re-affirmed and guaranteed in the constriction.. they can ( and do ) restrict speech in their private facilities/networks/etc.

Until such a company has a monopoly, which in communications gives the power to censor speech. Then, as I understand it, various public utility regulations come into effect.

Re: Caveat!

[Abcd1234]

Hey, try heading over to Operation Clambake before making any posts about the "big bad scary church of scientology". Trust me, it's worse than you could possibly imagine...

Re: Caveat!

[PCM2]

well i have a problem with the catholic church. guess i shouldnt do business with anyone business that gives money to a catholic organization, or is headed by a catholic.

Sure. Where I come from, we call that "integrity in one's beliefs." Personally, I don't see a whole lot that says the modern Catholic Church is a Bad Thing(tm) as an institution, so I won't be joining your boycott. The practices of the Church of Scientology are well-documented elsewhere, however -- see other poster in this thread -- and they strike me as reason enough not to want to send money to that organization.

Unfortunately, I am a longtime Earthlink DSL subscriber. I guess it doesn't bother me that much.

INDUCE Act

[Ahnteis]

Doesn't this linked site violate the proposed INDUCE act? They're clearly showing copyrighted materials as an example of files that can be shared (see screenshot). Isn't this an example of what they're trying to stop?

I'm OK with limited this type of advertising, but believe the INDUCE act is too broadly written currently.

Dayton still around

[Kaseijin]

Sky Dayton is long gone from EarthLink

He's chairman of the board.

Re: Caveat!

[HiThere]

Not as bad as the "Christian Right". Sillier, I'll admit, but there's a big difference between being sillier and being worse.

And I'm still an Earthlink customer. I've considered going wireless, or signing up with the phone company, but those and cable (expensive, since we don't bother having cable TV) are my alternatives.

Re: Caveat!

[Abcd1234]

How on earth do you define "Not as bad"? Last I heard, the "Christian Right" didn't try to muzzle people who spoke out against it. Or use what amounts to brainwashing and cult-like behaviour in order to control it's members (see the definition of a "cult" before responding). Or flat out endanger people's lives!

Sorry, but, again, comparing Christianity to Scientology is highly disengenuous. Whether or not you agree with the beliefs of Christianity or Catholicism (and I happen to disagree with both... I'm an atheist), comparing them to the CoS is a disservice, both to honest religious people, and to those fighting against the CoS.

Incidentally, I'm not trying to convince you to change ISPs or anything... I'm just trying to make sure people understand what, exactly, the CoS is, and how very different it is from any other "religion" out there.

UnPnP on router

[vvdd2]

I believe the right way to work with NAT is to use UnPnP router (most modern routers support UnPnP). This way the device (VoIP or other) tells the router what ports to open during getting DHCP settings of IP and etc. In few years I expect this would probably be the most common way to work pass NAT.

blocks socks smarts

[evilmousse]

from the blocklist:
Port 1080: SOCKS versions 4 & 5 - Same as Port 80 above.

that's a really smart inclusion, to proactively scan for vulnerable SOCKS hosts.
i remember way back when on irc, just scan chatters' hosts for open socks ports and try plugging their hosts into mirc if it bounced back, voila, 3/5 times i had a new hostname as visible on irc. unbannable, especially if using an ops hostname ^^
in wonder if that's still the case...

ya gotta plug the kiddie holes first, imho
(GOD could that be taken poorly out of context...)

-evilme

Re: Caveat!

[renoX]

> Personally, I don't see a whole lot that says the modern Catholic Church is a Bad Thing(tm) as an institution

Let me try:
- discreminating against women (no woman as priest), gay (which is ironic considering the number of priest who are gay).
- way too many pedophile problems, probably helped by preventing priest from marrying and being not very helpful for the victims.
- being generally against sex education, condoms or pills and abortion on a *very* crowded planet.

Re: Caveat!

[Anonymous Coward]

So why should a man's belief be an issue with you. Would you also point out the president of Bank One is a Catholic. The president of GE is a protestant. If you are an earthlink subscriber, has the CoS interfered in *any* way with you or your account? If the Catholic church was an investor in your ISP would you be worried? To hear Scientologist tell the story, it Sky who done ripped them off. imho this is a non-issue that smacks of religious persecution. Americans use to be free to chose their own beliefs. Sadly that day seems to have passed.

Re: Caveat!

[valmont]

Yeah there had to be the obligatory earthlink and scientology post. Okay could we like, move on? This is old and utterly irrelevant gossip that takes away from talking about what's more important, such as the future of the internet, the future killer applications of the internet and how earthlink just might be the last big player to keep the other big players and regulators in check.

on one hand you have the major telcos who are lobbying like mad motherfsckers to keep their stronghold on the pipes, while stifling competition and preventing prices from going down and bandwidth to go up. European countries and even Korea are zooming way ahead of us. Why? because regulations have allowed companies such as free.fr to share the lines at competitive costs. Imagine that. People in Korea are watching their fave soap operas, on-demand, over their TCP/IP broadband connectivity.

on the other hand you have all the cable operators, AOL, and timewarner, who are also lobbying like mad motherfsckers to limit the amount of competitive pipe sharing. Oh and they control content too.

Then you have companies such as earthlink, covad, speakeasy who would love nothing more than to offer faster connections and more competitive prices but are prevented from doing so by the FCC's shitty policies.

Finally someone like earthlink is speaking out FOR THE CONSUMER, and offering a really cool proof-of-concept, source code and all to the masses, as a basis for the internet killer-apps of the future.

And you wanna talk about scientology?

oh and for all the trolls whining about outsourcing of customer service, if you wanna blame someone, blame dumb users who can't use a computer, download every piece of crapware they can get their hands on to their computer, then call-up their ISPs tech support FOR FREE FOR HOURS to fscking bail them out of their own stupidity. Every single one of earthlink's competitor had already been outsourcing FOR YEARS. earthlink held up as long as a publicly-traded company could, but when your stock tops at $5, you've gotta make tough choices. I've heard stories of tech support reps spending an hour on the phone helping some clueless sap rebuild their entire OS. This type of task belongs to a computer consultant who will charge no less than $100/hour. That's the cold hard fact. And then you have 99.9% of all problems that can be resolved from reading a simple script. That's what outsourced service is best for. The remaining 0.1% of legitimate technical issues can get escalated back in the U.S., that's typically what ISPs and OEM vendors do. I guess they did something right because earthlink still managed to rank #1 in satisfaction from JD Powers i both narrow and broadband.

Re: Caveat!

[sketerpot]

How on earth do you define "Not as bad"? Last I heard, the "Christian Right" didn't try to muzzle people who spoke out against it. Or use what amounts to brainwashing and cult-like behaviour in order to control it's members (see the definition of a "cult" before responding). Or flat out endanger people's lives!

First, I consider "Christian Right" to be synonymous with "Christian Fundamentalists", so when I speak of the former, remember that I am not talking about moderate or liberal Christians. Christian Fundamentalism may not be as bad, per member, as Scientology, but due to its greater membership it has a higher total amount of badness. The CoS is small and relatively puny (although disproportionately powerful). The Christian Right has both presidential candidates trying to please them (although Bush more than Kerry).

Going by total badness, Scientology is not as bad the the Christian Right. Going by badness density, it's the other way around.

BTW, did you know that Usenet has a foaming-at-the-mouth scientologist who is determined to post a copied and pasted rant against Dave Touretzky whenever his name is mentioned? That's creepy.

Niggling thought

[Deliveranc3]

That should read "release proof of concept that wont work for 90% of users". It's a tech demo. It's not like there's some shortage of p2p apps anyway.

After reading the article I got the impression there was some kind of voice over ip connection protocol being established in a p2p format (connect to p2p network share id and allow p2p network to share your ip for incomming callers to connect to) but the guy above seems to think it's straight p2p as do most of the commentors.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL US WHAT THE FOOKING ARTICLE IS ABOUT! THE LINK DOES NOT HELP! Thank you.

Trust

[bill_mcgonigle]

The problem with this is? All ISP's realy need to start filtering customers email it's nicer if you have the routers redirect the traffic so it automaitcaly goes though the filters but this is a big issue to stop spam.

I don't trust Earthlink and all of its employees implicitly - do you?

I send my mail to my mail server via SMTP+AUTH+STARTTLS which then does SMTP over TLS to my clients who then read the mail via IMAP over TLS. You would have me give this up because I happen to use Earthlink?

I wasted about 4 hours troubleshooting this when Earthlink first turned it on. I had to switch to the submission port, but they're going to block this soon.

They could have implemented a send-rate heuristic that would have been just as effective as a full block but that would cost more, so the customer gets the shaft.

Does anybody here use SpeakEasy dial-up? I'm probably going to switch to them but would like to hear any negatives.

Re:Trust

[silas_moeckel]

Nope I'm one of those guys who can look at all the email on the packsniffer so I dont trust my ISP. SSL to the submission port should never be blocked there is not a justifiable reason. Port 25 is the port at issue and I can see the encrypted port also being an issue in the future but never the submission port.

The problem with send rates are your using router CPU time vs putting it on a cluster of boxes that can be scaled a lot cleaper and faster. It's trivial to add another scanning box but not to add another router. I'm not for blocking port 25 period but redirecting it to a mail scanning box that can error out on detecting spam.

Re: Caveat!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I would normally agree with you - since everything sounds great - its not as pretty as you think...

Listen to their conference calls. They talk about how much money they make on dialup, DSL and Satellite customers. Then you wouldn't be making comments of how they're speaking out for us. Of course they are - they want idiots like you flocking to them in droves.

Re: Caveat!

[valmont]

okay first, yes they make money on dial-up, that's *the* profitable aspect of their business. Look at their 10K reports and you'll see that their DSL margins are very very low. Haven't looked-up satellite in a while, but it's a small fraction of their user base.

second, i'm sick and tired of those wet-behind-the-ears idealists-wannabe who've likely never worked a single day in their lives, getting all up in arms at anything that tries to make money. I've got news for you fscktard, if there weren't some companies out there to make a buck, and, god forbid, a fscking profit, your parents wouldn't have a house or a basement out of which you could troll slashdot.

if you wanna live in a society where money and wealth are issues to no-one, then move to the African continent and find yourself a peaceful tribe. Or apply for a role in one of the many Gene Roddenberry spin-offs.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will wallow in and try to make the best out of this silly thing we call REALITY, at home. In our world, we look at what various companies do, where their interests lie, and attempt to do business with companies whose interests intersect with our own.

And here's what I'm finding so-far: earthlink is not tied to big telcos. In fact, given proper regulations, earthlink could be yet another alternative to big telcos. Covad has started laying the roadmap in the DSL world. So has Speakeasy. Both offer very compelling pure-play VoIP packages. Hopefully earthlink will follow in their footsteps. What does that mean? more alternatives for me to choose from. A roadmap for other smaller companies to follow. But earthlink can easily go beyond DSL because they're not tied to any single connectivity technology. They've got significant forays into wireless in various forms (wifi, wimax, satellite), broadband over powerline, cable. This should ideally put more competitive pressure on all current media and telco monopolies.

in the end, i, the consumer, win.

Re: Caveat!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, earthlink and mindspring etc. can keep their thetan powers to themselves. i'll stick with sbc, thanks.