US CODE: Title 15, Chapter 1, Section 2.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Congratulations, Tim!  I will try to deal with some sense here, but you are
rapidly working up to membership in an elite...the few, the very few, and
proud, who have earned themselves one of my mail filters.  Your very last
comment is what triggered this reaction, after I have tried to look
rationally at everything you have said.  I hope you reconsider that last
comment.

At 1:08 PM -0500 2/1/97, Tim Bass wrote:
>A few comments:
>
>> Aggregation is a fact of life.
>
>Of course aggregation for large networks is necessary.  Klinerock and Kamoun
>showed this in 1977... not much new information is this opinion, considering
>this has been well documented in packet switched networks for over
>20 years.  This is not about aggregation, my friend.  Phone calls
>are aggregated, but no one charges for area codes and prefixes;
>and it is illegal under current US Laws  to create a process where
>users cannot switch providers without technical difficulties.

Equal Access, etc., do not require that users face no difficulties in
switching providers in a given geographical area.  The telephone network is
generally geographically aggregated.  Rightly or wrongly, the Internet is
not geographically aggregated.  Yes, it may affect a user if they change
providers.  However, remember that it is a computer, or a set of computers,
that connect to ISPs, not a set of "dumb" telephones.

Let's take another analogy from the telephone model.  For many years, the
demarcation point, if it existed at all, was a screw terminal block.  As a
result of Carterphone and other court-tested decisions, the FCC issued
rules that future network interfaces use the Registered Jack (RJ) series of
physical interfaces.

So we saw RJ11, RJ12, etc., connectors placed into all new installations.
Now, Joe User, who has an existing service, wants to connect customer
provided equipment.  Fine.  He is free to do so.  But were the telcos
required to install an RJ connector at no cost?  I think not.

I can set up an enterprise today that is "renumbering friendly," and can
change providers fairly easily using DNS/DHCP, scripted router config
files, etc.  Many enterprises firewall their internal address space in any
case, and renumbering only affects a small number of externally visible
addresses.

Are you saying it is an obligation of providers to continue to support
users who insist on using aging practices (e.g., static dialup IP address
assignments), when alternatives exist?  How far back does one reach?  I
have a 300 BPS modem somewhere, should I demand that content providers
compress their web pages such that 300 BPS is enough?
>
>>
>> Blocks do need to be allocated by geography, either physical or at least
>> topologically.  A central registry makes sense for that.  Now if you want
>
>Yes, geographic addressing can be made into a much more pro-competitive
>paradigm than provider based address aggregation.  However, the IAB
>and the IETF have been vituperously behind provider based addressing
>(understandable considering most members are either vendors or
> providers).

Just how is the IETF excluding non vendor- or provider input?  The IETF
process, with its extensive use of mailing lists, is FAR more accessible
than CCITT/ITU, ANSI, or the other organizations that have produced the
telephone environment you cite as a model.
>
>In my opinion, global internetworking cannot be managed in a pro-competitive
>process by the NSF transition style of encouraging private industry
>to take over every single aspect of the registration process.  We
>in the US are taxpayers and have some rights, do we not?

Could you explain that last?  What are the rights of Michael Dillon, to
pick an active non-US participant?  My employer, whom I am not representing
here, is a Canadian firm.  Does it have no rights then because a
significant amount of its income is not earned in the US and is not taxable
there?

Look at your two previous sentences.  The first speaks of global
internetworking, while the second speaks of US taxpayer rights.  What do
the two have in common?

>Running a registry for something as important as allocating
>IP address space should be, in my opinion, paid for by US taxpayer funds,
>Congress.   Small businesses are the backbone of the US economy and
>I do not believe for one minute the FTC nor Justice will support
>a process in the Internet paradigm that favors large businesses
>over smaller ones or one that puts smaller providers at a disadvantage
>vs. larger ones.

Right.  Looked at the health care industry recently?  The FTC and Justice
seem to be quire tolerant of an environment that is forcing small
businesses -- i.e., privately practicing physicians, small hospitals, etc.
-- out of business, or into managed care organizations as employees.  Of
course, that industry just deals with human lives, and is not something as
critical as IP connectivity that the government MUST control.
>
>
>There can be little doubt, however, the current method of routing
>IP has be causal to creating a non-competitive process, de-facto.
>The InterNIC with support from IETF are proposing to make this
>anti-competitive paradigm de-jure.
>
>I can prove to the Antitrust Division of DoJ and the FTC that a
>pro-competitive IP routing paradigm can be created.  However,
>please do not expect me to publish this paradigm in IETF. I will,
>however, share the technical details with DOJ or the FTC
>if requested.

You can prove, I am sure, that a pro-competitive IP routing paradigm _can_
be created.  I can prove I can create a paradigm by which I play starting
offensive left tackle in the NFL.

Creating a paradigm, however, is meaningless unless it is tested.  I
suggest you look again at health care, and see how the courts increasingly
are throwing out "junk science" expert witnesses.  Courts are requiring
that expert testimony, to be fully credible, must be consistent with
consensus in the learned profession involved, that peer review is relevant,
etc.

So if you don't want to publish the paradigm for peer review, fine.  Have
fun.  Share it as much as you want with DOJ and the FTC.  Why, while you
are at it, share it with the Trilateral Commission, Rush Limbaugh, the
Illuminati, Howard Stern, the National Inquirer, and David Letterman.

But until you are willing to discuss things in an open matter, I suspect a
fair number of people who actually feel good about making global
internetworking happen, in a real world, would appreciate it if you would
take your paradigms and peddle them elsewhere.  We have work to do.  If the
IETF, IAB, and the rest of the Zionist Occupation Government are so evil,
they won't listen to you, why waste your valuable time with them?

Excuse me now. I must get into my black helicopter and go off to a golf
date with Jimmy Hoffa.

Howard Berkowitz,
who feels better now.
>