[Gllug] Proxy awareness campaign

[Andy Smith]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 12:19:51AM +0000, Mike Brodbelt wrote:
> Alex Hudson wrote:
> > 
> 
> > I think
> > the case for good proxies is watertight.
> 
> The case for mandatory ones, however, leaks like a sieve.
> 
> All ISP's should be free to provide proxies. They should also be free to
> distribut net software that is set up to use them by default. They
> should *not* be free to transparently proxy all their users, and take
> advantage of the average user's technical ignorance.

Why not?  Isn't it their right to employ such methods to reduce
costs?

> If an ISP offered two dial up accounts at different price points for
> proxied and non-proxies, fine. ADSL works like that - you can pay more
> for real IP addresses. Quietly proxing everyone without telling them is
> disingenous and underhand, however.

Not really, because the way I see it, it is just a "detail" of how
the service is provided.  You cannot reasonably expect an ISP to
describe the design of its entire network and all services provided
by it, in every advert.  You are perfectly within your rights to
cancel service if you are not satisfied, you could also research it
a bit and work out how it was done beforehand.  So I do not see the
underhand nature.

If there were two price points for proxied and non-proxied, then the
non-proxied would probably be significantly more and thus not sold
in any great quantity which relates to time spent training staff on
things that bring little revenue.

You can't really compare it with "cheap" vs. "business" ADSL because
there's certain things you just *cannot* do without having the IP
addresses, because of the make-or-break nature there is a market for
the more expensive product - and it is usually *much* more expensive.

> I wait for the day when someone sues an ISP under trades descriptions,
> on the grounds that a filtered connection is not an "internet"
> connection, as all you can connect to is J random ISP's proxy servers.

But they do provide access to web pages from the internet, how it is
achieved is just details which you may or may not agree with.

> > To argue that all transparent proxies are bad, for example, is not going to
> > cut it with network engineers. 
> 
> It doesn't need to.

Of course it does, who else is designing the network?  There is no
conspiracy!  Transparent proxies are used because they reduce costs,
most people don't care, and if made optional they would not be used
thereby removing almost all the advantages of having them in the
first place.

> I don't give a s**t what my ISP's network engineer
> thinks, I want a non-proxied connection. If my ISP proxies me, I'll go
> elsewhere. If awareness was high enough, and most people thought that
> way, proxies would die, whatever network engineers wanted. If most
> people aren't bothered, they won't.

If as you say everyone started demanding non-proxied internet access
everywhere then yes they wouldn't be used, but I don't really see
the point in that argument since it can be used to justify any point
of view you choose - "If everyone did X then practice Y which I do
not happen to agree with would stop", kind of presupposes that
everyone does actually agree with your point of view.

Until they do, I don't see the http proxy witch-hunt going
anywhere.

BTW, has anyone considered the statistical uses of the proxy logs
for large ISPs that use transparent http proxies?

-- 
"You ought to see a doctor, for it appears your anus has learned to
 type." -- Jon Parry-McCulloch, CoFD Mailing List
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