Re: "TCP Port Lock-down" & Free-speech @ UCB

Hi,

I've read Reed's screed (with his follow-up corrections.) I think he's
totally off-base in his "arguments" and I think that's too bad, because
I actually agree with his perspective that what's happening is
extraordinarily unfortunate.

What I *think* really offends Reed isn't so much the free speech issue
but the breaking of the end-to-end connectivity model the Internet was
based upon. (He's a co-author of a circa 1980 paper on this, along
with Dave Clark--who is a true hero of the internet.)

I'm also extremely unhappy with the breaking down of the end-to-end nature
of the internet (generally caused by firewalls.) But I don't think it
makes sense to argue, as Reed does, that this equates to a trashing of
"free speech" in the university. To do that, you have to go after content.
Firewalls do not make it any easier to go after content (which would be
trivial to go after through other means anyway.)

When Reed says:

    In fact, the problem is that the kind of "security" being offered
    provides no security at all to the end user, but does reduce the
    workload of the IT department.
    
he loses all credibility from my point of view. He apparently has no
idea of what goes on in a large network these days.

        Cheers,
                Cliff

>On Wed, May 04, 2005 at 10:37:28AM -0700, ken lindahl wrote:
>> Mike Howard wrote:
>> >Some departments are already slipping down the corporate firewall slope.
>> >
>> >The policy makers here in the Computer Science department now require us
>> >to register web, email, and ftp servers; otherwise that inbound traffic
>> >is blocked by their firewall.
>>
>> perhaps it is this CS policy, and not the campus minimum security standards,
>> that got David Reed so fired up.
>
>Perhaps.
>He's still wrong.
>
>It is notable that the Free Speech Movement wasn't asking for the
>ability to say anything to anyone at any time; it was asking for very
>specific, defined areas for students to express their opinions.
>
>--
>Tom Holub (tom_holub@LS.Berkeley.EDU, 510-642-9069)
>Director of Computing, College of Letters & Science
>249 Campbell Hall
><http://LS.berkeley.edu/computing/>

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Received on Wed May 4 12:51:56 2005