We all know, with a certainty once reserved for Christians reciting the Nicene Creed, that the Internet must consist of dumb networks, with all the intelligence at the edges. There is no other road to salvation. (Though a Cisco employee might occasionally grouse: "What d'ya mean dumb? Every one of our routers has about 30 million lines of computer operating code!")

Now, some DVR users are raising the possibility that perhaps the edges should be dumber and the network smarter. Where will this end?

Of course, there are a few legal issues to be worked out.