At 11:48 4/11/96, Timothy C. May wrote:

As required by the CDA (Competency Disclosure Act) my Ignorance bit is set to "1" for this speculation.

At 11:03 PM 4/10/96, Lucky Green wrote:

...

If my computer creates the IP packet, what is there to prevent me from modifying the value of the "Minor/Adult" flag at my leisure?

Are the "minor/adult" settings (and Christian/Atheist, Southern Baptist/Reformed Baptist, Creationist/Evolutionist, etc. bits) even be proposed to be set at the IP packet level?

Yup. Sen. Exon and this staff demand that IP be redesigned to include such a flag. No doubt, we'll soon hear about demands to include a male/female flag, a cast flag (there go another two bits), a flag for meat eater/vegetarian, a flag indicating your HIV status, one they get going, the sky is the limit.

I'd've thought it would be at the message level, such as this message or a posting to Usenet. (Granted, many messages are presumably the same as IP messages. But I'd assume that the setting would be within the message, so that any forwarder of the packet would not be likely to tamper with internal message settings....)

Sure. Access control belongs into the application layer, or somewhere nearby. The problem is that those in power wouldn't know a modem if it bit them in the ass. Expect legislation that mandates routers to support the various flags in the near future. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.