Control of the Internet

[Goatnapper'96]

I really believe in most markets there is adequate competition to prevent the facility based ISP from slowing content. It is a solution in search of a problem. Even Pai's rules demand that network operations be made public. Slowing Netflix content for the benefit of your Comcast movie cache business makes no sense to me from a business perspective, but I suppose I could be wrong. Further, the real money in the internet is in browsing history and this puts the ISP on equal ground with the silicon valley content giants wrt that valuable info.

I do this for a living and I am convinced this is much ado about nothing.

Let me be clear there were aspects of President Obama's administration that slowed down business investment and facility deployment in the telecom sector. I think most sane people realize he was a fairly liberal ideologue. IMO, Net Neutrality was an indicator of that. A solution to an imagined problem that fired up wanker liberals to make them feel like they were living in the glory days of freedom rock, so turn it up man! But there were many reasons that investment under the Obama Presidency was slow, part of which was just the lingering economic malaise that while Obama might not have helped he certainly wasn't culpable in creating. Part was also how his administration ran things. However, to take that stew and attempt to pin the blame on net neutrality to justify reversing it is dumb. But that is what we are becoming as a people. All too many of us are dumb enough to believe it really was about freedom rock man and then all too many are dumb enough to believe freedom rock man is why google fiber decided to discontinue its fiber to the prem deployments.

Good gawd I am starting to sound like Randy Knight.

[Uncle Ted]

I used to be a net neutrality disciple but I am ambivalent at this point. It seems like some of the arguments against this recent action are grossly overblown.

Yeah, I like how the ISPs package up the internet into little content packages...



https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/...-ajit-pai-plan


But I don't see a package with CS?!?

[falafel]

Yeah, I like how the ISPs package up the internet into little content packages...



https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/...-ajit-pai-plan


But I don't see a package with CS?!?

You didn't even read that link, did you? It actually explains how what you are saying is going to happen is not what is happening in Portugal (the source of the image you linked).

This is why bots will never fully replace human thinking.

[Uncle Ted]

You didn't even read that link, did you? It actually explains how what you are saying is going to happen is not what is happening in Portugal (the source of the image you linked).

This is why bots will never fully replace human thinking.

Ah, that is too bad... I already picked out the hollywood and music packages for mine.

If the ISPs did do something like that I would imagine that Onion Routing would get very popular (and the NSA would be mad).

[Uncle Ted]

Embedded Tweet

[All-American]

Yeah, I like how the ISPs package up the internet into little content packages...



https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/...-ajit-pai-plan


But I don't see a package with CS?!?

The big news is that napster's back.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Uncle Ted, I recognize that you are probably the wrong person to ask, but what is the libertarian spin on this whole thing? For or against net neutrality?

[falafel]

Embedded Tweet

While I agree with some of this, there was talk of ISPs creating tiers, etc. back then. Perhaps that is why net neutrality came about in the first place. Perhaps rolling back the regulations will actually result in the thing that the regulations were meant, in some part, to prevent. Perhaps.

[Uncle Ted]

Uncle Ted, I recognize that you are probably the wrong person to ask, but what is the libertarian spin on this whole thing? For or against net neutrality?

As an libertarian I am against net neutrality. Let the market dictate the rules of the internet as long as it is not just Microsoft or Google dictating the rules. (No monolopy crap going on.)

As an user of the internet I don't want anyone messing with my bits (slowing them down or blocking them) or even looking at them (I am looking at you, NSA). Therefore, in that respect I am for it.

[Walter Sobchak]

The big news is that napster's back.

And grooveshark.

[BigFatMeanie]

I don't see the competition in the marketplace that Goat refers to. In my neighborhood, there are only two companies with lines in the ground:

• CenturyLink, which offers DSL and wants to charge me $45 a month for 10Mbps. Yuck.
• Comcast, where I currently get about 240 Mbps right now for $90 a month. This is pretty good as far as residential internet goes but Comcast has got to be one of the most evil corporations in the country and I have no confidence that they won't somehow screw me over some day.

The only choice beyond those two is wireless. Yippee. The satellite ISPs with their 15Mbps offerings are a total joke.

I can't get Google Fiber no matter what I'm willing to pay per month.
I can't get CenturyLink Fiber no matter what I'm willing to pay per month.

I can't get any other service because ISPs have local monopolies because cities don't want every guy with a backhoe to go digging up the streets to lay down their own fiber.

So the fact that local monopolies exist, and the fact that telcos in general and Comcast in particular are known to be evil bastards, makes me favor the net neutrality rules.

[Clark Addison]

I don't see the competition in the marketplace that Goat refers to. In my neighborhood, there are only two companies with lines in the ground:

• CenturyLink, which offers DSL and wants to charge me $45 a month for 10Mbps. Yuck.
• Comcast, where I currently get about 240 Mbps right now for $90 a month. This is pretty good as far as residential internet goes but Comcast has got to be one of the most evil corporations in the country and I have no confidence that they won't somehow screw me over some day.

The only choice beyond those two is wireless. Yippee. The satellite ISPs with their 15Mbps offerings are a total joke.

I can't get Google Fiber no matter what I'm willing to pay per month.
I can't get CenturyLink Fiber no matter what I'm willing to pay per month.

I can't get any other service because ISPs have local monopolies because cities don't want every guy with a backhoe to go digging up the streets to lay down their own fiber.

So the fact that local monopolies exist, and the fact that telcos in general and Comcast in particular are known to be evil bastards, makes me favor the net neutrality rules.

This is basically how I feel. Obviously some net neutrality proponents overstate the imminent threat we are under, but at the same time, you can't pretend that this industry currently operates like a free market for the vast majority of Americans. My options are almost exactly the same as BFM's; there is one provider who can give me more than 10Mbps. In that environment, I would prefer to either keep net neutrality or break Comcast and Charter into 8 smaller companies and have them all go at it.

[frank ryan]

The FCC and Ajit Pai suck at pr.


The FCC Is Blocking a Law Enforcement Investigation Into Net Neutrality Comment Fraud
In addition, the agency told me there was nothing it could do after someone hijacked my identity to claim I falsely supported killing net neutrality protections.

The FCC is blocking a law enforcement investigation into fraudulent comments designed to provide bogus support for the agency’s looming net neutrality repeal. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced his office has been conducting an investigation into who submitted millions of fraudulent comments (some using the identities of dead people) during the public comment period.

The FCC is already facing a lawsuit alleging the agency ignored FOIA requests pertaining to these fake comments. The agency similarly told me there was nothing it could do after someone hijacked my identity to claim I falsely supported killing net neutrality protections.

Detailed analysis of the record 22 million comments filed with the agency indicate the majority of the public overwhelmingly supports keeping the rules intact. But several analysts also found that some group or individual tried to counter this genuine opposition with fake support for the plan. Schneiderman's office believes these comments were filed by a bot that pulled identities from a compromised database of some kind.

According to Schneiderman, his office made nine attempts over a period of five months to obtain server logs, API key details, or other information that could aid his office’s investigation into the identity theft. But in a public letter to FCC boss Ajit Pai, Schneiderman noted that the agency simply refused to aid the investigation in any capacity whatsoever.

“We all have a powerful reason to hold accountable those who would steal Americans’ identities and assault the public’s right to be heard in government rulemaking,” argued Schneiderman. “If law enforcement can’t investigate and (where appropriate) prosecute when it happens on this scale, the door is open for it to happen again and again.”

Last week, the FCC doubled down on its refusal to cooperate in a more formal response to the AG.

In a letter to the AG’s office by FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson, the agency lawyer again makes it clear the FCC has no interest in helping law enforcement get to the bottom of whoever is behind the farmed support for its repeal. Throughout the letter, Johnson repeatedly tries to imply that the wholesale fraud that occurred is inconsequential.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...urce=mbtwitter

[tooblue]

[All-American]

I couldn't watch more than a minute. What a stupid way to try to explain net neutrality.