Re: recommendation against publication of draft-cerpa-necp-02.txt

[Vernon Schryver <vjs at calcite.rhyolite.com>]

> From: Randy Bush <randy at psg.com>

> ...
> > That's an interesting idea.  People might eventually finally start
> > using end2end crpyto not for privacy or authnetication where they
> > really care about either, but for performance and correctness, to
> > defend against the ISP's who find it cheaper to give you the front
> > page of last week's newspaper instead of today's.
>
> and, since we're into exaggeration and hyperbole, i imagine you won't
> complain about paying seven times as much for connectivity.

Most of the exaggeration and hyperbole comes from the caching sales
people.  They'd have you believe that caches never miss, or that
cache filling is free.

The news services I watch have front pages with significant (e.g. editorial
and not just DJI numbers) changes every hour or so.


> all these oh so brilliant folk on the anti-cacheing crusade should be
> sentenced to live in a significantly less privileged country for a year,
> where dialup ppp costs per megabyte of international traffic and an
> engineer's salary is $100-200 per month.  we are spoiled brats.

Cachine won't increase those low salaries.

Many people think we should pay for the bandwidth we use, although not
all favor accounting for each bit.  That one now talks about paying per
MByte instead of Kbit of traffic is a radical change due in part to
using instead of conserving.  Undersea fiber isn't paid for by caching.

The primary waste (and perhaps use) of bandwidth is advertising that
almost no one sees, unless you think single-digit response rates amount
to more than almost no one.  Check the source of the next dozen web
pages you fetch.  Even if you use junk filters, chances are that more
of the bits are advertising than content.  Caching that drivel sounds
good, but its providers are already doing things that merely start with
caching to get it to you faster and cheaper.

Caching and proxying with the cooperation of the content provider
can help the costs of long pipes.  No one has said anything bad
about that kind of caching, when done competently.

"Transparent" caching and proxying without the permission of the content
provider will soon be used for political censorship, if not already, and
likely against your $100/month engineers.  How much "transparent proxy"
hardware and software has already been sold to authoritarian governments?

Yes, it's quixotic to worry about that last.  Everyone who feels
comfortable with the IETF's fine words about wiretapping should stop to
think about reality, and do their part in the real battle by putting
end2end encryption into everything they code, specify, or install.


Vernon Schryver    vjs at rhyolite.com