Subject: RE: [Asrg] Its all over for Challenge Response

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:43:44 -0800

> Suppose that is the price we pay with education - we expect 
> others to have 
> the same level of knowledge and that they understand us and 
> our reasoning.

No, the users know far more about the Internet. They use it
more aggressively than the establishment for a start.

The divide is much closer to the old divide between the 
mainframe MIS types and the people like me who grew up with 
micros. The MIS types thought they knew everything because 
they used the most powerful machines of the day. But they
simply could not see why technologies like MVS and COBOL
were doomed for the dustbin. They had grown up with the faults 
and could no longer see them.

> >What I want to avoid here is a situation where a Rupert Murdoch could
> >decide to only allow political groups that agree with Fox News to
> >send mail to customers.
> 
> The same happens everyday, everywhere. Take for example SMS messages 
> between different operators. Its often not even possible to 
> send a SMS from 
> operator A to someone using operator B. Why? Surely not because of 
> technical reasons. The whole GSM mobile market is a good 
> example of how a 
> few rule millions. What is there that these millions can do 
> for/against it?

That is something that will be solved sooner rather than later.

The millions usually win.

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From: Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 01:58:31 -0200

>more aggressively than the establishment for a start.

Sorry, I was more referring to the situation between "The IETF" and the 
rest of the world. Its like geologist and adventurer - both know the world 
but they have two different views of it.

>and could no longer see them.

Sounds familiar ;)

>The millions usually win.

Depends on the pace of advance. What we see here is such a quick advance 
that the changes faster than anybody can keep track of what is really going 
on. Only insiders and technically interested have any clue.
If the internet would be operated like telephone networks in general, we'd 
have a new mail protocol every 2-3 years and it would be completely 
incompatible to the others and nobody would ask any questions.
Why is it that software always has to be compatible? Nobody would ever 
expect hardware (not computers) be compatible to its previous models.

Andreas

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From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 23:17:33 -0500 (EST)

> expect hardware (not computers) be compatible to its previous models.

Really?  The POTS phone I used back in 1978 still works just fine.

Seth

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From: Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 02:24:08 -0200

>Really?  The POTS phone I used back in 1978 still works just fine.

Well, a POTS phone is not something what I would call a mobile phone, right?
So lets then keep a keen eye on GSM, CDMA, TDMA and what else on 
abbreviations are vogue this year.
Besides, America is definitely not known for advances in telephone 
technology. ;)

Andreas

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From: "Chris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:26:21 +1030

> Besides, America is definitely not known for advances in telephone

My Ericson (70's) works just fine, and I am in Aus.

Are you saying we should rework the entire Internet every few years because
someone has come up with a brilliant new idea?

I am afraid all itinerent oops I mean internet users would go and find
something else to do, most can't handle keeping their current software up to
date, hence the huge number of spammed mail coming from less than secure
machines.

although some would like the Internet to go back to pre 1990's. for the rest
of us we'd be out of a job.

Now Replace the Internet and you are talking a different turkey.

But the old one will continue on just like POTS and there is no end in sight
for that. especially after all you mobile users succumb to brain tumours
(from the HF)

Regards
Chris

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From: Andreas Saurwein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 12:42:48 -0200

>someone has come up with a brilliant new idea?

No, I am saying that the very same is happening in other technology areas 
and people live with it.
While here (ASRG, IETF, and some other groups) we have it happening that a 
few people fight over minor technical opinions/likes/dislikes which 
prevents any advance.

>... most can't handle keeping their current software up to

Thats again more a point of badly designed software than anything else. 
Until there is a quality requirement for software, this wont change.

>Now Replace the Internet and you are talking a different turkey.

Thats whats happening with IPv6 and IPv4 - a different internet. 
Practically all relevant software has to be replaced. Often with quick 
hacks, likely to contain many bugs, just to support IPv6 "somehow". Until 
Joe Average can use IPv6 and IPv4 transparently side-by-side, we have two 
different networks, two sets of software.

But, as already mentioned somewhere else, this does not really belong to 
this group and is only an expression of my personal frustration.

Andreas

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:24:57 -0500

[Subject changed as per posting guidelines, was "[Re: [Asrg] Its all
over for Challenge Response". Mod.]

> more aggressively than the establishment for a start.

Comments on why people want or do not want to do certain things will not
help, and can be expressed elsewhere.

However, many of you are correct in stating that the needs of Internet
users is what determines change. The question is who are the users? Is
it the ISPs, or perhaps the backbone operators? Or is it the end-users?

Why should we care about the end users and ISPs, if they do not care 
about the rest of the Internet?  A lot of spam is being sent by
hijacked machines. MyDoom spread like wildfire around the Internet, not
because of some security hole in MS Windows, but because ignorant users
clicked on the attachements. ISPs refuse to cooperate on abuse reporting 
and other anti-spam measures. Governments refuse to allocate money to 
law enforcement to go after spammers using existing laws. Countries do 
not want to help by tracking down spammers and those who help them.

The answer is because we must - if we are going to recommend and 
implement changes for the entire Internet, we have an inherent 
responsibility to answer to the user base of the Internet.

However, you must determine who you care about. Any change will be 
painful, especially here. Anything that is proposed,or implemended will 
affect some proportion of users somewhere. Do we care about the majority 
of the users who will gain benefit, or the minority who will lose out? 
When does the minority become strong enough so we care about them? Do we 
care about ISPs, more than end users? Or perhaps about end users rather 
than ISPs? Do we care about software companies and large corporations 
more, or perhaps about governments? Do we want to help political 
dissidents while that will also help terrorists?

All of these have no easy answers. The major problem with all of these 
debates is that every person participating in it has a different answer 
to the questions above. There is also an inherent presence of certain 
preconceived notions such as "Company XXXX or organization YYYY is evil".

My question to all of you is: how can we get something useful going out 
of all of these, instead of engaging in debates? Is there anything 
useful that we can do as a group to solve the problem?

Yakov

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Yakov Shafranovich / asrg <at> shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / research <at> solidmatrix.com
"Some lies are easier to believe than the truth" (Dune)
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