Technical News ____ April 19, 2005 - 18:00 UTC

April 19, 2005 - 18:00 UTC



Recently, many participants in Europe stopped being able to contact the SETI@home servers. This was the result of ISP OpenTransit (France Telecom) de-peering the ISP Cogent. De-peering means the refusal to exchange Internet traffic. Our data server is on the Cogent network, so participants connected to the Internet via OpenTransit were cut off.

The network experts on the Berkeley campus contacted Cogent about this. Cogent resports that France Telecon made a unilateral decision to de-peer. They are trying to reach an understanding with France Telecom with the goal of reinstating the connection.

There is a very helpful message board thread with suggestions on how to use proxies to work around this problem in the short run.

You can view this thread here







Copied from here:

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/tech_news.php







My very best wishes ........ and kindness to all ..........

friendly and respectful
byron ... [/url]_ International _ Earth _ Flag

[url=http://www.planetary.org/html/society/tributes/index.html ] Carl Sagan is my hero , may his _ Humanity _ his Passion _ and his Eloquence _ Live forever[/url]

So its a question of:

ET téléphone à la maison

:D

---

But we knew this already....oh well. I'll phone Giscard D'Estang in the morning LOL!

---

> But we knew this already....oh well. I'll phone Giscard D'Estang in the
> morning LOL!
===============

sorry Ian (Tigher) ___ :(

friendly and respectful
byron

I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago I wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my ISP. And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark indeed...

---

> I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago I
> wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my ISP.
> And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> indeed...

This is what I do for a living, and there are certainly days that I agree with you.

It'll be interesting to see how Cogent and OpenTransit work this out (or not see, because they probably won't tell, they'll just re-peer).

Mail is an entirely different subject, and it's difficult. We want to allow all legitimate servers to connect, but we don't want unwanted commercial E-Mail. We don't want viruses so we don't want to take mail directly from cable or DSL connections, but some companies use those for legitimate mail.

I run a small ISP, and we block half of all incoming mail at the beginning of the session. It is __obviously__ bogus.

Occasionally, we block mail from legitimate sources. It's collateral-damage in the war against spam.

---

> I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago I
> wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my ISP.
> And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> indeed...
>
>
>
Lets just take it like this, when a teen grows, theyr bones hurt. When the internet grows ____________. Can you complete the analogy ?

---

> Lets just take it like this, when a teen grows, theyr bones hurt. When the
> internet grows ____________. Can you complete the analogy ?
>

Do you hold a book up in front of it?

---

> > I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago
> I
> > wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my
> ISP.
> > And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> > indeed...
>
> This is what I do for a living, and there are certainly days that I agree with
> you.

I can indeed imagine that

> It'll be interesting to see how Cogent and OpenTransit work this out (or not
> see, because they probably won't tell, they'll just re-peer).

The thing is: what if they don't? Would that then become a sign for the future, a slowly degrading Internet?

> Mail is an entirely different subject, and it's difficult. We want to allow
> all legitimate servers to connect, but we don't want unwanted commercial
> E-Mail. We don't want viruses so we don't want to take mail directly from
> cable or DSL connections, but some companies use those for legitimate mail.
>
> I run a small ISP, and we block half of all incoming mail at the beginning of
> the session. It is __obviously__ bogus.
>
> Occasionally, we block mail from legitimate sources. It's collateral-damage
> in the war against spam.

It surely is. I actually asked for information on why that IP was blocked, and sure enough, spam was the reason. I'm actually thinking about using my own mailserver for outgoing mail, but I have no idea which IP's in the chain are blocked, so I don't know if it'll help...

But in my view it's taking it a step too far when unsuspecting and innocent users are punished

---

> Lets just take it like this, when a teen grows, theyr bones hurt. When the
> internet grows ____________. Can you complete the analogy ?

yes I can. But the thing is, this isn't growing pains. It more like medication with unknown sideeffects - and unknown sideefects could end up being death, especially with these experimental drugs - if you can see my analogy

---

> It surely is. I actually asked for information on why that IP was blocked, and
> sure enough, spam was the reason. I'm actually thinking about using my own
> mailserver for outgoing mail, but I have no idea which IP's in the chain are
> blocked, so I don't know if it'll help...

The problem is, if you run your own mail server on a DSL or Cable Modem you look exactly like a computer that has been infected with NetSky, or Bagel, or some other trojan that carries a spam-engine for a payload.

You'd likely be blocked more than someone with a more expensive, commercial-type connection.

The problem is an identity problem: we need to be able to tell "real" mail servers from viruses and trojans, and there is no good way.

---

> > But we knew this already....oh well. I'll phone Giscard D'Estang in the
> > morning LOL!
> ===============
>
> sorry Ian (Tigher) ___ :(
>
> friendly and respectful
> byron
>

np. ;-)

---

> I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago I
> wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my ISP.
> And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> indeed...
>
>
>
Sadly I agree. My view on it is that ISPs are taking a do-or-die attitude to building their customer base. This by offering ever cheaper rates to attract users, to the point of almost(?) zero profit, which in turn leads to serious under-investment in the network. Of course it's human nature to pay the least possible, but at the same time people dont consider the cost of the price. That cost is an ever weaker and fault-prone network.

---

> > I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago
> I
> > wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my
> ISP.
> > And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> > indeed...
> >
> >
> >
> Sadly I agree. My view on it is that ISPs are taking a do-or-die attitude to
> building their customer base.

Some certainly do, and we're picking up a new customer today who is moving from a low-cost, commodity host to us -- even though we're about 5 times more expensive (affordable, but still more).

At the start of this thread, the complaint was one ISP blocking mail from another, and sadly, our customers all want mail, but they don't want unsolicited mail -- and a few ISPs are glad to take on spammers and make the money. There is even a term for it: "Pink Contracts"

---

>
> Some certainly do, and we're picking up a new customer today who is moving
> from a low-cost, commodity host to us -- even though we're about 5 times more
> expensive (affordable, but still more).
>

There's hope then, some people do learn - like "you can have it on-time OR on-budget, no way both".

Personally, as a broadband user of over 4 years (and internet user for _many_ years before [ ARPANET ring any bells? ;) ]), I have stuck with the same ISP for those 4 years. I know I am paying "over the odds" - I could sign-up for a 1Mb or 2Mb link for 30% less than I get 512Kb for. But, I prefer 512K 100% of the time to 1Mb intermittent. To be fair I have had 2 outages in 4 years - both under 4 hours. One of those was the local tel. exchange not the ISP.

> At the start of this thread, the complaint was one ISP blocking mail from
> another, and sadly, our customers all want mail, but they don't want
> unsolicited mail -- and a few ISPs are glad to take on spammers and make the
> money. There is even a term for it: "Pink Contracts"
>

"One mans' muck is another mans' money"

---

Mike, Are you NTL there? I am here and I have to say despite all the anger toward NTL I have had one outage in 3 years, NO moans from me. But I think the wqy they squeeze more out is not always through investment which NTL have done. Often they just worsen contention ratios. Also NTL are upgrading their customers at no charge; I will go from 750 K/bps to 2 Meg soon. with no extra charges it is attractive. But the whole thing has to give somewhere and I guess some will drop out of business and prices will eventually go up again so that the bankers see some return for the multiple bail-outs there have been.

---

> > It surely is. I actually asked for information on why that IP was
> blocked, and
> > sure enough, spam was the reason. I'm actually thinking about using my
> own
> > mailserver for outgoing mail, but I have no idea which IP's in the chain
> are
> > blocked, so I don't know if it'll help...
>
> The problem is, if you run your own mail server on a DSL or Cable Modem you
> look exactly like a computer that has been infected with NetSky, or Bagel, or
> some other trojan that carries a spam-engine for a payload.
>
> You'd likely be blocked more than someone with a more expensive,
> commercial-type connection.
>
> The problem is an identity problem: we need to be able to tell "real" mail
> servers from viruses and trojans, and there is no good way.


Now this is really sadening me as this is currently the only real way for me to make sure the serve I use for outgoing mail isn't used by unauthorized people. As it is right now my ISP doesn't require authorization for outgoing mail which is propably why they ended up getting their IP blocked...

The whole spam issue is in my view one of the biggest threds to the Internet - not only are servers that actually shouldn't be blocked blocked - but as spammers use other peoples mail adresses as senders, these other people could get their e-mail adresses blocked even when don't do anything that remotely resembles spamming themselves.

Even services that rely on e-mail verification/authentication get blocked - from the boinc world an example is Predictor@home that even need to ask people to shut down spamkillers for people to sign up. I believe that communicating via e-mail is getting closer and closer to being a thing of the past - we simply block eachother

---

> > I'm beginning to think the Internet is about to implode.. Not so long ago
> I
> > wan't able to send an e-mail as the recievers ISP had cut off an IP of my
> ISP.
> > And now this. The future of the Internet is beginning to look very dark
> > indeed...
> >
> >
> >
> Sadly I agree. My view on it is that ISPs are taking a do-or-die attitude to
> building their customer base. This by offering ever cheaper rates to attract
> users, to the point of almost(?) zero profit, which in turn leads to serious
> under-investment in the network. Of course it's human nature to pay the least
> possible, but at the same time people dont consider the cost of the price.
> That cost is an ever weaker and fault-prone network.

And with the competition at hand they may even go to the extremes - already )in my country at least) we're seeing a certain tendency in the mobile phone market: call at no charge to other of our customers, but at high cost to costumers of other providers. Next step would be not to allow calls to other providers all together. This tendency could very easily spread to the Internet, as short term profits of such strategy would seem very promissing (but always forgetting the long term eddects that would be shooting your self in the foot).

I know it's pretty blackminded talk, but still, it wouldn't be the first time a whole bunch of companies shoot them selves in the feet leaving customers with nowhere to go.

---

> The whole spam issue is in my view one of the biggest threds to the Internet -
> not only are servers that actually shouldn't be blocked blocked - but as
> spammers use other peoples mail adresses as senders, these other people could
> get their e-mail adresses blocked even when don't do anything that remotely
> resembles spamming themselves.

This problem is being solved, but like all such problems it takes a while.

---

Copied from the front page;


April 20, 2005

There is an excellent document about the European connectivity issue along with work around proxy information

here

Appreciation goes to setiathomer tigher

for putting together this page and to many others on the messages boards for contributing information.

http://www.iantighe.com/boincers.htm