Re: Engineering problems, not legal problems [was: Amazon AWS cloudfront WAF block]

[patrick via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

On May 29, 2025, at 16:20, William Herrin <bill () herrin us> wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 12:37 PM patrick via NANOG
> <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > I think this has really blown off course. Someone simply wants to find a
> > knowledgable person inside a very large organization so their relatively
> > small org can follow whatever rules are necessary to get off a list. The
> > point of demand letters & lawsuits are, IMHO, either someone’s
> > frustration showing or hyperbole or perhaps engineers not
> > understanding how the law works.
>
> Hi Patrick,
>
> The point of demand letters is to cut through the bureaucracy to that
> "knowledgeable person" you mentioned. When the organization offers
> more reasonable ways to reach that "knowledgeable person," demand
> letters are rarely necessary. You can think of a demand letter as the
> last engineering solution you try before falling back on legal
> processes to compel change.

First, no company I know or have even heard of would let an engineer send a demand letter. Only lawyers do that. Also, 
most companies (all? at least all big companies - to a first approximation) have rules around “if the other side 
involves a lawyer, we have to engage one on our side”. If by some miracle an engineer did send the demand letter, it 
would almost certainly still trigger legal involvement on the receiving end, which changes the dynamic drastically.

So no, it is not an engineering solution.

Sometimes it is the right action, but we are not going to lay out all the possible situations on a mailing list. Should 
one have been sent in this case? I honestly do not know, and neither do you. I doubt the OP does. However, the OP said 
it broke the log jam, so yay, it worked. (Before anyone says that proves it was the right action, please put down your 
mouse and step away from the keyboard slowly.)

TL:DR: I counsel against thinking of it as “before falling back on legal”. You passed that rubric by sending the letter.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

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