In message <b5c5ab11-5ad4-3489-dd76-ec10d5a16f88@foobar.org>, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:
BGP hijacking is just the start, but there is an endless list of things which are considered offensive or illegal in some or all jurisdictions in the RIPE NCC service area, e.g. spam, porn, offending political leaders, gambling, drugs, other religions, political dissent, blasphemy and so on.
As I have already pointed out, this "slippery slope" argument is a smokescreen, and only being used to justify the inexcusible status quo. The proposal on the table doesn't deal with any matters which are in any way even remotely tied to mere offenses against any local or localize sensibilities. It doesn't even remotely have anything at all to do with either (a) any actions or offenses in "meatspace" nor (b) any actions or offenses having anything at all to do with -content- in any sense. The present proposal only has to do with the outright THEFT of IP addresses, i.e. the very commodity which RIPE is supposed to the responsible shepard of. Given all of the supposed experience and intelligence of the people on this list, I seriously have no idea why it should be necessary for me to explain the abundantly clear distinction between content and the wires and IP infrastructure that carries that content. Is this a really difficult concept to understand? It would seem so, at least when the "slippery slope" arguments is clearly being made in order to falsely try to scare people with the bogeyman of "censorship". That is clearly not what the proposal is about, and anyone who claims otherwise needs to go back to school until he, she or it fully grasps the difference between content and the IP addresses that provide the technical means to distribute it. As those of us who have actually spent years opposing Internet abuse like to say, our concern is not about abuse "on the Internet" but rather it has to do with abuse "of the Internet". Since this distinction has obviously traveled slowly to the far side of the pond, I am forced to provide some (hopefully educational) illustrations. If someone sends you a highly offensive email, or makes a highly offensive Farcebook post, saying that your paternal grandmother is a actually a closet Visigoth, then that constitutes abuse -on- the Internet. If, on the other hand, some hacker infects your machines, and thousands like it, and then uses his entire collection of infescted machines to DDoS you, presumably because you just beat him in a game of League of Legends, then that is abuse -of- the Internet, because in this case, it is the infrastructure itself that is being misused and abused... and -that- kind of abuse affects all of us. I seriously would have hoped that it would not have been necessary for me to provide people on this mailing list, in particular, with examples to illustrate the clear conceptual differences betwen abuse "on" the Internet and abuse "of' the Internet, but apparently I hoped in vain, and this rather critical and key distinction is still being either throughly misunderstood or else throughly ignored when it comes to these bogus "slippery slope" arguments. Let me say it more clearly. Nobody wants to take away your porn. That's not what this is about, as any fair-minded reader of the propsal can easily see. The idea is simple: Those who steal IP addresses shall not be allowed to keep those and shall not in fact be alowed to keep any IP addresses. Nobody is proposing reclaiming IP space from anyone who has the audacity to say. on the Internet, that Stalin may have been, um, suboptimal. Nobody is even proposing that the worst Internet child porn purveyor ever detected by law enforcement should have his IPs taken away. Because this is not about content and never will be. Whst this *is* actually all about is just this: You steal IPs and then you lose your IPs. I honestly don't understand why otherwise intelligent people should have such a hard time grasping this rather simple concept. This is really not rocket science. Regards, rfg P.S. My sincere apologies, in advance, to any and all parties who may be offended by my reference to Visigoths. I meant no offense, either to them or to any of their descendants who may be present here. I'm quite sure that some among the Visigoth were very fine people, even though I never had the privilege of meeting any of them personally.