[e2e] using p2p overlays to overcome recursive NATs/realms

[Christian Huitema]

>     > What they want to do is, "charge premium customers more." There
are
>     > various bad ways to do this .. "Better tools" would be good ways
to
>     > do this, e.g. different subscription parameters that translate
into
>     > variations of diffserv, different polling rates for a cable
modem,
>     > etc.
> 
> But the point remains that if there is a way to either allow or
prohibit
> customers from doing X (where X is anything other than the most
minimal
> service level), then unless there is some reason not to do so (i.e.
legal,
> or market pressure, or something), a carrier is going to turn X off
and
> ask for $$$ before they will turn it on.

So the business model would be to conduct a selective denial of service
attack in order to shake up the user. There are precedents such as
knights controlling bridges in the middle ages, or warlords controlling
roads in the modern days, but the optimist in me tend to believe that
most providers are smarter than that. After all, there are some very
legitimate reasons to provide different service classes.

If you are right, the most predictable result according to game theory
is some kind of arms race: users treat the selective enforcement as an
attack and react by buying more discrete software; providers try to
apply ever smarter filters; etc. At the end of the game, all traffic is
encrypted, making the selective DoS attack inoperative. During the game,
everybody suffer various degrees of pain. 

-- Christian Huitema