Save The Internet

Jim #642 Wed, Jun 28th 2006 3 [ Read: First / Last ]

There is a bad thing coming down the pipe for the Internet. New legislation is being considered that will let ISP's decide how good your connection will be to individual sites. For instance, if Comcast decides that they want to drive more traffic to Rapsody, the online music store, they have a deal with, they can slow down your connection with iTunes, Yahoo music and all of the other online music stores. Comcast could then charge the competition a premium in order to remove the slowdown/block so Comcast customers would be able to get their content. So why is thre a picture of a ninja with this post? Ask a Ninja has a synopsis of what net neutrality is. For more info click on the title of this article.

Comments: 3

	Jim - #1 Mon, Jul 3rd 2006 @ 10:40 AM 54 words
	All hope is lost. Our leaders, (The ones who are going to decide this whole thing.) are clueless on what this really means. Heck, their cluless on the basics of the Internet. http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1512499

Guest:Greg - #2 Wed, Jul 5th 2006 @ 2:49 AM 90 words

i listened to the stevens tape. It was really painful though. Honest question - has he suffered brain damage? His ability to string words together is on par with really really smart rotifers.

At the same time, he sounds genuine in his concern for consumers. You have to wonder who convinced him that net neutrality was a bad thing. poor dumb asshole. Like so many americans, he feels right at home voting with only a cursory understanding - its just scarey because his vote carries so much more weight :-x

Aaron - #3 Mon, Jul 10th 2006 @ 10:28 AM 604 words

As I understand it, the debate is surrounding the creation of laws forcing internet providers to treat all packets equally, i.e. working as hard as possible to get each bit of data to it's intended destination, as fast as possible, without special treatment such as speedier delivery for a premium, or blackmailing certain customers to pay extra or risk spotty service or full on denial of service.

The argument for this sort of legislation is clear: you as a consumer pay for Internet-wide service, not a walled garden with content determined by a handful of faceless, unaccountable corporations. If you and your desired networking correspondent are both on fast links all the way through, you expect it to go fast. You expect it to get through.

If your ISP signs a deal with Yahoo, they shouldn't prevent you from going to Google. So, let's make sure that they can't, right?

Except it's not that simple. How do you "make sure that they can't"? These are private networks. QOS is already enabled on these links. They already give priority to certain packets. They already deny access to content they deem inappropriate - for instance, some ISPs block the ports used by P2P applications.

So what do you do? Well, you pretty much have to set forth a series of draconian laws dictating what Internet providers can and can't do. How do you enforce it? As I've stated, these are private systems. The only way you can enforce it is to give access to the routers in question to the government in some way. That's the only way to even tell that it's happening.

So, assuming everyone agrees that this is fine, who does the analysis and enforcement? An existing government agency? We now know that the NSA is already taking a look at the content of our Internet communications, but really, compared to what is needed to enforce Net Neutrality, what the NSA is playing with right now is kid stuff.

So okay, we give it to the NSA as they have the most experience dealing with American's private data without consent, and I am sure, in a wholly appropriate and patriotic way. Or maybe we give it to a newly formed Net Neutrality Bureau. Whatever.

So what do we end up with? Are we happy with that level of government visiblity into our communications? Are we certain that the government won't be naughty with our data? What about the next administration? Or the next after that? What if then, for national security purposes, the program is rolled into Homeland Security, and greatly expanded beyond the original intent, giving the government the power to root out not only people who are thinking unpatriotic thoughts, but find and care for people who might? Woo, my tinfoil hat is going off! Thank goodness that the powers that be care only for our welfare and not their own personal interests. So that could never happen.

So, let's go over our options:
1. Let whoever is controlling your part of the Internet decide what you can and can't see, or at least how fast you can see it.
2. Open the whole Internet to the U.S. Government, so they can make sure that 1. doesn't happen.

No matter how this turns out, it's going to suck.

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