> >Many ISPs routinely use DHCP as an means to degrade their customers' > >address stability, forcing them change addresses as often as once a day, > >in order to prevent their customers from running certain kinds of > >applications. > > Yeah, and others do the same thing by, say, having their firewalls block > incoming connections to port 80. That doesn't mean that firewalls > shouldn't exist. no, it means firewalls can be misused. just like DHCP. on the other hand IETF doesn't have a standard that says it's okay for firewalls to block port 80. it does have a DHCP standard that says it's okay for DHCP servers to not renew leases. Keith