[Asterisk-biz] bellster.net - GREAT advance

[Darren Nickerson]

"Bob_Bowles" <rbowles at gryphonnetworks.com> wrote:

>> Pls enter your routes and start sending traffic for free, it seems to 
>> work
> just fine, based on Dundi.
>>
>> www.bellster.net
>
> It is a fun idea but where will the police look when a threatening call is
> made through your home phone line that you just shared to www.bellster.net 
> ?
> Obviously the call will appear to have been made by you.

Good point Bob, and well worth underscoring. We (Arlington Hewes and I) ran 
into this problem with tpc.int, a free email->fax network that uses MX 
records mapped onto the PSTN (long before the days of ENUM). People were 
sending harrassing and/or threatening faxes with relative anonymity, and 
whenever law enforcement became involved it would be the poor operator of 
the local node who was called upon to first prove they weren't sending the 
stuff, and second to then help identify the originator.

I admire Jeff's motiviations ... I share them and devoted years of my free 
time to tpc.int, but unless he's living in a different world than I am, the 
security aspects of this service need to be thought through very, very 
carefully.

For more thoughts on why the abuse is inevitable, see:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

-Darren

--
Darren Nickerson
Senior Sales & Support Engineer
iFAX Solutions, Inc. www.ifax.com
darren.nickerson at ifax.com
+1.215.438.4638 x8106
+1.215.243.8335 (fax)