Subject: RE: ASCII text message option (option 56)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 07:44:03 -0700

>That was probably a poor choice of words.   I'm talking about network
>registration.   You walk into a new site, plug in your laptop, and
>bang, up comes a registration page where you can identify yourself to
>the network and potentially register so that you can get access to
>it.   I'm not talking about network signon in the sense of a known
>user authenticating him- or herself.

I don't think we should be going down the road toward thinking of
DHCP as a network access control mechanism. It cannot be effective
for that, since a client can choose a static address. 

Typically, the functionality that has been described exists within
the chosen access method. For example, PPP and IEEE 8021.X have 
provisions for this. So the "registration for access to the network"
scenario does not seem compelling.   

I also really do not like the idea of being able to cause all clients
on the network to go to a web page. Just think about all the opportunities
to make a "statement" via this facility. So it seems like there are some
security issues here -- possibly requiring this option to only be  
used with authenticated DHCP or https URLs.