[Gllug] Proxy awareness campaign

[Jake Jellinek]

Hi,

Well that is why I would call it an awareness campaign more than an 
"anti-proxy" campaign. I know there is a lot of strong anti-proxy feeling 
and I am more than aware that the theory of proxies is extremely good.

People just need to know a) that they have a connection which uses a proxy 
and b) about some of the problems this can cause in the real world (at the 
moment at least).

That said, ever increasing bandwidth demands should (and do) surely 
decrease the costs of bandwidth, and help speed up the installation of 
better and faster connections around the world. If proxy servers are 
stopping this progress, there is an another argument against them! (oops, 
sorry, I'm not against them honest guv...)

Jake.


--On 17 October 2001 10:56 +0100
--Alex Hudson apparently said about the subject "Re: [Gllug] Proxy 
awareness campaign":

>
> Can I just make the case for the defence?
>
> I know proxies don't get a good rap, and I know geeks would prefer to not
> have them. But, in my view, it is essential to have them, is becoming
> more  essential as the internet grows, and I think to demand they be
> removed  completely is somewhat neo-luddite.
>
> Firstly, the problem: connections / bandwidth is expensive. Security is
> expensive. Load balancing/clustering is expensive. Proxying gives easy
> answers to these in many situations. Advanced proxying / edge content
> production / level 7 firewalls are all examples of cool uses of proxy
> technology: nobody's going to tell me the Akamai network is rubbish. I
> think  the case for good proxies is watertight.
>
> I do agree, though, that there are too many poorly setup proxies in
> existence. The inability to use HTTP/1.1, or fall back to 1.0 correctly,
> is  inexcusable, proxies which drop connections, or break otherwise, are
> also  annoying. I think any campaign should be aimed at these: proxies
> which don't  work.
>
> To argue that all transparent proxies are bad, for example, is not going
> to  cut it with network engineers. To argue that there is not enough
> awareness of  good proxying practice is a different matter, and one I
> would support.
>
> Cheers,
> 				Alex.
>
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>



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