On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Adam Back wrote: >and when someone wants to connect to it and can't they connect to the >super-node and the super-node tells the unreachable node over the >already open connection to connect back to the connecting machine.
Of course, that approach could be extended do the point where there is no essential difference between a proxy (here, the supernode) and a usual client. >Of course this can't work (without moving data via the super-node) >between two unreachable machines, but the balance seems to be >sufficiently in favor of reacable machines that I don't see it currently >presents a problem. Yes, we still need one of the machines to be outside a firewall. I think what anonymous is describing is the situation when each and every non-corporate customer is behind a firewall owned by an ISP, corporations shield their employees behind one of their own, where making a profit on non-firewalled connectivity and/or proxies opens one up to expensive lawsuits and where non-firewalled connectivity is too expensive to be widely bought just for non-profit use. A balkanized Internet -- it's a bleak prospect, and the signs are that's what we're slowly sliding towards, at least at the moment. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
