[RTC List] Net-neutrality sold out by 74 Democrats in Congress

[Seer Snively]

Seer Reply below:

On 6/6/2010 2:51 PM, Travis Finch wrote:
> If you buy 1Mbps from me, I have any right I grant myself within the 
> bounds of my Terms of Service (ToS) to alter, throttle, or block 
> traffic.  If my terms of service say you can't harm my network, and 
> you agree to that when you purchase my service, what is the issue?  If 
> my ToS said you can't look at pictures of teddy bears, and I block all 
> pictures of teddy bears, and you agreed to be bound by that when you 
> subscribe, you don't really have any wiggle room.  Should I allow you 
> to launch Denial of Service attacks against my other customers or 
> other networks just because you paid for the service?  Many internet 
> providers have sections in their ToS prohibiting resale of the 
> service, such as in coffee shops and motels, or to your neighbor, yet 
> people tempt fate and do it anyway.  I take the stance that I don't 
> care what you do with your service as long as it doesn't harm my 
> network or impact other people.  What it really comes down to is 
> people not reading the fine print, and then whining to the government 
> because they weren't responsible consumers.  The new cell phone "bill 
> shock" legislation being thrown around is a perfect example.
>
The problem with the above is that the Internet is becoming a required 
service, like phone lines are.  If there is only 1 choice, and it 
"blocks teddy bears", then you have no choice but to try to subvert 
their rules.

Notice the two examples I used in my first post:  Using BitTorrent to 
download Linux (or any other software) and blocking Planned Parenthood.  
These are not a DoS, which anyone would agree is something that should 
be shut down in the least restrictive way by the ISP as soon as they 
detect it (like blocking the port the DoS is using, etc)  BitTorrent is 
a wonderful innovation, and blocking it or throttling it because you 
don't like it is akin to blocking content.

What would you think of this:  St Joe's hospital makes a deal with AT&T 
and Verizon so that calls can't be made to any other hospital in 
Humboldt County.  I mean, that's just business making money, right?  
*NO*.  We wouldn't stand for a common carrier like that to make side 
deals and limit what phone numbers we can connect to.  If we did allow 
that, what use would telephones ever be?

Do you see where your logic, taken to where it would inevitability lead, 
goes horribly wrong?  Sean McLaughlin has already shown some example of 
just such filtering based on content ("AT&T filtering video streams to 
block political statements, Verizon blocking text messages from some 
advocacy groups and not others").  How would innovation exist if you 
could never get your content seen to start with?
> The Internet works because of oversubscription; that is the beauty of 
> a switched network.  If every person had a dedicated 1Gbps fiber line 
> to their home, and they were only sending emails to the grandkids, we 
> would have terabit fiber pipes to neighborhoods that sat mostly 
> unused, not to mention the sizes required for backhaul links.  
> BitTorrent is not a capacity issue, it's a network processing issue.  
> It takes less processing horsepower to move one 1500 byte FTP packet 
> down a wire than it does to move ten 150 byte BitTorrent packets down 
> that same wire over the same equipment.  Why?  Because each packet has 
> a header that needs to be processed and routed or switched.  I have 
> seen access points brought to their knees by BitTorrent that were 
> nowhere near capacity.
I understand that over-subscription is standard, and that can continue.  
But if more people start using more network services, you'll have to 
drop the ratio.   Also, Cisco does make routers and switches that can 
processes every packet that goes through their backplane.
>
> Google has gotten a largely free ride since its inception.  Why do you 
> think they have $20 billion sitting in the bank to buy up every little 
> startup that catches their eye?  The people whose networks Google's 
> traffic traverses are finally coming to this realization and this has 
> Google scared.  Why do you think Google is lobbying so hard for net 
> neutrality?
Do you have any idea how much Google pays in bandwidth and connectivity 
each month?  I didn't think so.

How about this setup.  Google has many ISP's, but let's say that when I 
traceroute, it goes like this (by pseudo-company)

         Google --> Company Foo -> Company X -> Company Bar -> Me

Google is paying money to Foo, I am paying Bar.  Company X has 
_no_right_ to charge Google anything.  Do you agree with that?  Foo and 
Bar both of business relationships with X, but X doesn't have any 
relationship to Google or Me at all.  They have no right to charge me, 
tax me, or anything else.  If some law got passed that makes it possible 
for X to charge either Me or Google, the internet, as it is now, is 
over.  Fun while it lasted.
>   Of course, none of this has actually happened yet, so we are 
> crafting legislation based on speculation, which is foolish.  If I 
> drive a freight truck on the government-owned road, I have to pay a 
> bigger fee than the people who drive smaller vehicles because of the 
> impact it has on the roads.
[citation needed]  Only thru gas taxes may this be true, which will 
change as more buses and freight trucks go electric, etc.
>   Further still, I have to pay different fees and taxes based on what 
> I transport in that truck.  How is this any different you might ask?  
> The difference is, those fees and taxes are MANDATED, if I don't pay 
> them, I get fined or go to jail.  If the roads were privately owned, I 
> could drive on a different road or try to negotiate a better deal.
If this was how the internet was created, we would never have YouTube.  
We'd never have "All Your Base".  We most likely wouldn't have blogs, or 
MP3 players.

If this was how roads were, I'd hate to be an ambulance driver.
>
> Businesses denied service to blacks for decades because the Jim Crow 
> laws (government-mandated discrimination) required "separate but equal 
> accommodations."  So I would be forced to build twice as many lunch 
> counters in my diner if I wanted to serve blacks, or I could just not 
> serve them at all and not have to worry about it.
Buzzt!  Sorry, that is now what happened.  "Separate but equal" 
_justified_ two railroad cars, but never mandated it.  It was racists 
business owners that mandated it.

> This is the same thing happening with the new health care laws; 
> companies will spend less on fines if they don't offer health 
> insurance than if they continue to offer what is now government-mandated.
Well, at least it's incentive.  Right now, you don't have to offer 
health insurance _and_ not get fined.  Soon, it'll be either/or.
>
> Since BitTorrent -is- the innovation, should we just stop and say 
> we're done developing new peer-to-peer and transport technologies?  
> TCP/IP is decades old and hugely flawed in many ways; when the DoD 
> designs something, it's not really designed for public use or to be 
> future-proof, it's designed to last forever under current conditions.  
> If the industry decided BitTorrent was bad (just like Betamax or 
> HD-DVD,) someone would come up with something better.
Um, okay.  I agree with all this, and I never said anything like it.  
You may have noticed, we are upgrading IP.

Also, "industry" had nothing to do with BitTorrent.
>
> I agree having some government regulation can be a good thing, but 
> look at how many "FDA Approved" drugs have killed people over the 
> years.  Just because meat is "USDA Choice" doesn't mean I should eat 
> it, or even feed it to my dog.  These government "stamps of approval" 
> are used by companies as marketing tools, since too many naive 
> consumers trust the government wholeheartedly.  If consumers were more 
> responsible, and did their own research, they would see that "Brand X" 
> drug has killed people, or "Brand Y" meats aren't fit for human 
> consumption, without any involvement from the government.
Having a USDA sticker on meat doesn't _stop_ the consumer from doing 
research.  It does give lots of valuable information to the consumer, 
though.  Let me put it this way: If there was a choice between USDA beef 
and cheaper, non-USDA inspected beef, would you buy it?
>
> It's rather timely (and unfortunate) how this discussion coincides 
> with the Gulf oil spill.  Do you think people in the Gulf are going to 
> stop buying gas from BP?
I did.

Thanks for reading this far.  All two of you.  Hi Patrick!

Share the day,
Seer
>
> On Jun 6, 2010, at 10:53 AM, Seer Snively wrote:
>
>> First of all, the airline analogy is flawed.  Here's the problem I 
>> have with it:
>>
>> Say I buy 1Mbps from you, both up and down.  My question is this: Can 
>> I use that 1Mbps any way I want?  If I want to share a linux distro 
>> (which, BTW, started with NO corporation running it) via BitTorrent, 
>> I should be able to upload my 1Mbps every minute of my contract with 
>> you.  What right do you have to throttle that traffic?  Because you 
>> don't like it?
>>
>> I know you were talking about white males in the airline analogy, but 
>> that is wrong.  It's more like picking up a phone and trying to call 
>> Planned Parenthood, but because you are against the idea of them, it 
>> always rings busy.
>>
>> Or, it's like this:  You think that YouTube (owned by Google) has 
>> deep pockets and a big drive for people to want to view it, so you 
>> try to bribe Google into giving you money.  Even thought you buy your 
>> bandwidth from, say, Company X, and Google buys it from A, B, and C, 
>> you want to charge Google _extra_ because you have the customer who 
>> wants to watch a YouTube video.  Should you be able to slow down 
>> YouTube downloads until Google coughs up a million for you?  If so, why?
>>
>> On 6/5/2010 9:50 PM, Travis Finch wrote
>>>
>>> Most internet service providers have something in their terms of 
>>> service relating to the health and well being of their networks.  I 
>>> have a section in mine which prohibits a customer from causing harm 
>>> to my network or other networks.  I have had to enforce it on more 
>>> than one occasion.  I have, in the past, considered blocking or 
>>> throttling BitTorrent because of the harm it causes to my network 
>>> and impacts it has on all my customers.  Having the government tell 
>>> me "tough, upgrade your network," isn't a solution.
>> Not over selling your bandwidth is the solution.  If you are selling 
>> 10,000 tickets to a show that can only hold 3,000 people, you don't 
>> blame the government when more than 3,000 people show up!
>>> And if those customers chose to no longer subscribe to my service 
>>> because of this, I probably wouldn't change my stance, since the 
>>> market would be telling me most people don't use BitTorrent.  If 
>>> another provider didn't block or throttle BitTorrent, they would 
>>> obviously get those customers, and if I lost enough customers, I 
>>> would probably need to rethink things.  I'm sure the same could be 
>>> said for Comcast.
>>>
>> This is just like what Rand Paul said: It was bad business to deny 
>> black people the right to sit at lunch counters.  BUT, the fact is, 
>> businesses DID deny black people that right for decades and decades, 
>> and it took government interaction to fix this plainly wrong stance.
>>> The argument that not having net neutrality rules will stifle 
>>> technological advances is just plain wrong.  If anything, it will 
>>> encourage innovation.  If every internet service provider in the 
>>> world conspired to block BitTorrent because of the harm it causes to 
>>> their networks, wouldn't that spur a more network-friendly 
>>> technology to be created?  If enough people needed BitTorrent, might 
>>> someone design a new network access technology that was superior to 
>>> the current ones?
>> You are missing the point that BitTorrent already _is_ the 
>> innovation.  People could just download 4 gig files from an FTP 
>> server, but after 20 or so people start that up, speed goes down to 
>> nothing.  With BitTorrent, you can get 1,000's of pieces from 1,000's 
>> of people, which keeps speed up and utilizes all the bandwidth that I 
>> the end-user paid for.
>>
>> Also, if you and everyone else blocked BitTorrent, the innovation we 
>> the people would come up with is something to circumvent your 
>> blocking software.  Google "Tor Network" for more info.
>>>
>>> Not having net neutrality gives (or forces) customers the ability 
>>> (or responsibility) to choose which provider best suits their needs.
>> How many other providers are their in your neck of the woods?
>>>  If every provider is forced to provide government-mandated 
>>> boilerplate services, the competition between providers to have the 
>>> biggest, best, fastest, most cutting-edge services will become a 
>>> thing of the past.  The word apathy comes to mind.  It seems that at 
>>> some point we may regulate ourselves out of existence.
>> The internet is not going away.  There will always be someone with a 
>> faster, cheaper network.  There will always be more need.  
>> Personally, I stopped getting TV from my Dish provider because the 4 
>> or 5 shows I watch are on Hulu.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Aside to Kevin:  You said, "Most of the technologies behind the
>> Internet were made by private corporations."  This is so very wrong.  
>> Public Universities and DARPA made most of the tech behind the 
>> internet.  Cisco might make the most routers now, but they didn't 
>> invent TCP/IP.
>>
>> Also, every car you drive, house you enter, road you drive on, cell 
>> phone you use, school you sit in, all of them are closely regulated 
>> by the government and it doesn't seem to bother anyone.  If fact, 
>> it's required.  Otherwise, you'd have unsafe cars too wide for the 
>> government built roads, no code to build houses to, no FCC making 
>> sure your cell phone doesn't cause airlines to fall out of the sky 
>> because of interference.
>>
>> If you want to know more about how good government can be, check out 
>> some books about the meat packing industry before the FDA got invented.
>>
>> Share the day,
>> Seer Snively
>
>
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