Prof. Jean Camp points out that:
This is ironically exactly the mechanism used by the Great Firewall of China. When China does it, we call it “censorship”.She points to a paper that details that the Great Firewall of China uses exactly the same forged TCP Reset method that Comcast uses, and how to work around such damage: Continue reading— Re: [IP] Comcast FCC filing shows gap between hype, bandwidth, Jean Camp, Interesting People, 14 Feb 2008
Aswin Navin by David Shankbone |
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, plans to introduce a bill today calling for an Internet policy that would prohibit network operators from unreasonably interfering with consumers’ right to access and use content over broadband networks. The bill also calls for the FCC to hold eight meetings around the nation to assess whether there is enough competition among network providers and whether consumers’ rights are being upheld.Markey gets it. Too bad the FCC doesn’t.“Our goal is to ensure that the next generation of Internet innovators will have the same opportunity, the same unfettered access to Internet content, services and applications that fostered the developers of Yahoo, Netscape and Google,” Markey said in a written statement yesterday.
— Comcast Defends Role As Internet Traffic Cop By Cecilia Kang, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page D01
Meanwhile, part of Comcast’s defense is: Continue reading
Verizon talks sense:
We see substantial increases in the volume of traffic. Generally we see that as a good thing. We have more customers paying for more services we provide.He’s specifically responding to requests from Hollywood to police copyright. Tauke lists at least three good reasons not to:—Tom Tauke, executive vice president for public affairs, Verizon, quoted in Verizon Rejects Hollywood’s Call to Aid Piracy Fight, By Saul Hansell, Bits, New York Times, February 5, 2008, 3:56 pm
Anything we do has to balance the need of copyright protection with the desire of customers for privacy.
There is, nonetheless, a downside. Continue reading
In Canada, an ISP has even gotten up to blocking striking employees’ website:
During the Telus strike in 2005, the corporation blocked access to a website run by striking Telus employees called “Voices for Change” (and at least 766 other websites). Those familiar with network-control issues in Canada also accuse Rogers and Bell of limiting peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, which people use to share audio, video and other digital data with one another. So, here we have ISPs blocking or at least limiting the use of what is likely the most innovative, creative and participatory use of the Internet. In response to customer concerns, Bell recently admitted that they “are now using Internet Traffic Management to restrict accounts that are using a large portion of bandwidth during peak hours. Some of the applications that are included are the following: BitTorrent, Gnutella, LimeWire, Kazaa….”The rest sounds very familiar: Continue reading— The Fight for the Open Internet, Steve Anderson, Canadian Dimension magazine, January/February 2008 issue
Duopoly apologist Scott Cleland spells out what everybody should
have already known:
The petitions assume that the FCC’s policy of network neutrality principles have the legal and binding effect of formal FCC rules or law and that they trump all existing law and rules. This is preposterous.Indeed, it is preposterous to think that the FCC ever meant to enforce its net neutrality “Policy Statement” of August 2005. Even if it did, the very way the four “principles” in that statement are worded, every one in terms of consumers, excludes the very existence of participatory services such as BitTorrent.— The Common Sense Case Why Network Management Trumps Net Neutrality, Scott Cleland, Precursor Blog, 15 Jan 2008
Cleland’s blog goes to great lengths to spell out what he considers common sense (which means he knows he doesn’t actually have a legal argument). Don’t be surprised if his items get parrotted by other anti-Internet-freedom blogs. And don’t be surprised if the FCC rules in favor of Comcast, even though any competent network engineer can tell you that there are ways to do network management that don’t involve faking reset packets, a technique that would be considered malicious denial of service if it came from any entity other than an ISP, not to mention Comcast’s BitTorrent stifling seems closer to the fraudulent promise of unlimited service that got Verizon fined by New York State.
[Clarified:] It’s not about network management. It’s about a few corporations and their political allies trying to stifle net neutrality and Internet freedom against the best interests of everyone else, including their own customers.
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The dateline is ironic:
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission will investigate complaints that Comcast Corp. actively interferes with Internet traffic as its subscribers try to share files online, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday.In other news, Las Vegas Board of Realtors announces investigation of gambling! Sorry; I made that up.A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars asked the agency in November to stop Comcast from discriminating against certain types of data. Two groups also asked the FCC to fine the nation’s No. 2 Internet provider $195,000 for every affected subscriber.
“Sure, we’re going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked,” Martin told an audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
—FCC to Probe Comcast Data Discrimination, By PETER SVENSSON, AP, 8 Jan 2008
Note that Martin is not only chair of the FCC that continues to enable telecom and media consolidation, he also continues to refer to ISP customers and participants as “consumers”, as in the old broadcast model where the broadcasters produce and you the customer are expected to consume whatever they give you.
The organization doing the most investigating of stifling, blocking, etc. by Comcast, Cox, et al., has been the Associated Press, which also originated this story. Interestingly, the AP is not owned by any of the usual five companies that own most of the media in the U.S. The AP is a non-profit cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers. So one of the few national news organizations in the U.S. that has not been consolidated is the one that has been investigating stifling by ISPs.
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PS:
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”—Captain Renault, Casablanca, 1942
With enemies like these…
Until recently, net neutrality was a difficult issue to explain at a dinner party. It was even more of a struggle to get anybody worked up about it. Now, thanks to the major Internet service providers (ISPs) Comcast and Bell-Sympatico, the stakes are crystal clear and the acrid scent of a smoking gun hangs in the room.…it may seem we don’t even need friends, but we do.— How the Grinches Stole ‘Net Neutrality’ Internet service providers play favourites with video, large files and political sites. By Wayne MacPhail, the Tyee, Published: December 27, 2007
A pretty good pro-net neutrality writeup follows. This is the gist:
Is it in the carriers’ best interest to allow upstart cheap phone companies like Skype or Vonage to suck up bandwidth with its inexpensive and excellent service? Nope, but in a free market and a neutral Internet, upstarts happen. The traditional players just don’t like it much and want the nonsense to stop.You want upstarts? You want net neutrality.
That plus the duopoly wants to control content: Continue reading
Control or profits?
Which does Wall Street want?
Slashdot finds a post by Ars Technica spelling out how the Nemertes report saying the Internet may get clogged by increasing usage is just part of a political campaign to use increasing Internet traffic as an excuse to nuke net neutrality. A campaign going on since at least January, when the Discovery Institute’s Brett Swanson posted “The Coming Exaflood” in the Wall Street Journal. Beware the thousand thousand petabyes!
My favorite piece of the campaign is this one:
We should not fear the exaflood, however. It is key to the innovative new services and applications that appear almost daily. Consider the growing number of universities that are making course lectures available online, often in real time. Or telemedicine programs that are transmitting medical images and linking patients with distant specialists for real-time consultations.No reason to fear the deluge! The telcos will protect you. As long as they don’t have that nasty net neutrality in the way, Continue reading— Bring On The Exaflood! Broadband Needs a Boost By Bruce Mehlman and Larry Irving Washington Post, Thursday, May 24, 2007; Page A31
Everybody’s familiar with consumer identity privacy, as in protecting passwords
and social security numbers and complying with HIPAA, GLBA, SOX, PIPEDA,
et al.
But what about packet privacy?
Never mind net neutrality, I want my privacy. As in packet privacy. The telcos say they need to sell non-neutral routing of traffic to recover the cost of building broadband networks. Moving from the Internet, where a packet-is-a-packet, to something that looks suspiciously like the 20th century telephone network requires remarrying the content and connectivity that TCP/IP divorced. It requires deep packet inspection. It requires looking at the content of communication.Despite Berninger’s phrasing, packet privacy isn’t something separate from net neutrality: it’s one of the key features of it. The point is that net neutrality isn’t just about pricing policies or technical means of content routing: it’s about privacy. And privacy is an issue that everybody understands. Stifling, throttling, or disconnecting without announced limits, censoring, wiretapping, and espionage: these are all violations of packet privacy.AT&tT does not plan to roll out two physical pipes to every end point in order to sell Google enhanced access. The new telco plan calls for content-based routing to separate traffic into media and destination specific VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). Laws exist to address the substantial privacy threats created by the fact telephone companies know Mr. Smith called Mr. Jones, but the privacy risks associated with “content routing” replacing “end point routing” enter an different realm.
— Forget Neutrality — Keep Packets Private, by Daniel Berninger, GigaOm, Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 8:30 PM PT
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Promising unlimited access, not delivering, and refusing to admit it
is managing a network for the good of the many above the activities of the few?
Pete Abel thinks so:
Earlier this month, Comcast — the nation’s largest cable broadband company — was caught doing what any good Internet Service Provider (ISP) should do, i.e., manage its network to ensure that the online activities of the few don’t interfere with the online activities of the many,The problem with Comcast stifling BitTorrent by faking reset packets from a participant is not that Comcast is trying to manage its network: it’s that Comcast used a technique that if it came from anyone other than an ISP would be considered malicious denial of service, that Comcast still hasn’t admitted doing it, and that Comcast bypassed numerous other methods of legitimate network management, such as those used by PlusNet. Comcast could even use the Australian model and sell access plans that state usage limits and throttle or charge or both for usage above those limits. What Comcast is doing it seems to me is much closer to the false advertising of unlimited access that got Verizon slapped down for wrongful account termination.Fair vs. Foul in Net Neutrality Debate, By Pete Abel, The Moderate Voice, 24 November 2007
The biggest problem with what Comcast (and Cox, and AT&T, and Verizon) are doing is that their typical customer has at most one or two choices, which in practice means that if your local cable company and your local telephone company choose to stifle, throttle, block, or terminate, you have no recourse, because there’s nowhere to go. Competition would fix that.
Abel tries to back up his peculiar interpretation of network management with revisionist history: Continue reading