enger@GBURG.SCC.COM (12/07/88)
The Internet seems highly predisposed towards the notion of peer to peer computer networking. In this spirit, the underlying networks are only relied on to provide minimal service to the end-to-end upper-layer protocols. The "end systems" (hosts) have most of the smarts, not the underlying networks. Given this, it seems incongruous to desire to impose filtering based on upper- layer protocol types within the underlying (inter)network(s). It would seem that the program is being advanced to protect hosts with feeble-minded network software implementations, or operating systems. Instead of turning the Internet into a rest-home for elderly software, perhaps the users of the Internet would be better served by expediting a program to refurbish these "network simps" to harden them against attacks from Wandering Wizards and the like? Bob Enger