[olug] Cox and Web Servers

[William E. Kempf]

From: "Daniel G. Linder" <dlinder at iprev.com>
Someone wrote:
[Regarding Cox blocking port-80 traffic and other "handy" ports. -Dan]
> It's not terrible business practice.

Mr. Bill Kempf replied:
> Yes, it is.  They don't universally block port 80 (or the other ports),
they
> only do so for non-business accounts.  That's unreasonably restrictive,
and
> nothing but a ploy to milk their customers of more money.

Mr. Linder replied:
>Actually, it is probably *good* business practice.  Since there is only a
finite ammount of money available in >the market to support these customers
they have to determine ways to keep the most number of customers >happy
while making a decent profit.

My argument would be that they are failing to do this with the practice of
blocking ports... but that is debatable, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
But the fact of the matter is, I have legitimate reasons to run a web server
that are not business related in any way, so to require a business-account
to do so is wrong.

Someone wrote:
> It's smart security, in the face of Nimda and Code Red.

Mr. Bill Kempf replied:
> That's a security issue for the user, and their responsibility if they
> choose to run such servers.  That's not relevant to Cox.

Mr. Linder replied:
>I would disagree here.  It is EXTREMELY relevant to Cox.  Sure, there are
security concerns for the
>customer ("Did someone just download my Quicken data files and get my
account numbers?"), but Cox is
>the ultimate entity who gets the complaints when all of my neighbors are
trying to cross-infect with every
>known virus/trojan.  *I* complain to Cox when my connection slows to a
crawl.  A good company will go
>to great lengths to keep tech-support calls to a minimum.

Then they should revoke all of our e-mail accounts, since there's a larger
danger for trojans there.  I'm sorry, but I don't buy this argument.

Mr. Linder replied:
>Since those of us who would *want* to setup web server at home are in the
minority, they can have the
>best of both worlds:  I can either be happy with my relatively inexpensive
high-speed HOME-USER
>ORIENTED Internet connection.
> -or-
>I can purchase a BUSINESS ORIENTED connection and help Cox pay for the
bandwidth my server will
>be using above and beyond their normal surfing traffic.

The "BUSINESS ORIENTED" (shouting was yours) offerings are overpriced for
the use I have here.  And the purposes for which I'd use a web site are
unlikely to effect the amount of bandwidth I use in any significant way, and
are valid "HOME-USER ORIENTED" tasks, not "BUSINESS ORIENTED" tasks for
which I should be charged a higher premium.  Cox is certainly welcome to
throttle my bandwidth consumptions in any way to ensure this, but simply
blocking ports doesn't solve the issue of bandwidth (since users can use
other ports, or run other servers that will be MUCH more bandwidth hungry
than HTTP).  These arguments are cop outs, and not valid reasons for
blocking ports.

In any event, the link to the dyndns FAQ looks like it will solve my
problem.  So despite the blocking I'll be able to accomplish what I want.
(Which, BTW, means that port blocking has addressed neither security nor
bandwidth concerns, basically proving my stance here.)

Bill Kempf