HR 5252 Bill Dies

Oronar writes to mention a post on the 'Save the Internet' site applauding the death of Ted Stevens' bill. From the post: "The fate of Net Neutrality has now been passed to what appears to be a more Web-friendly Congress ... The end of this Congress -- and death of Sen. Ted Stevens' bad bill -- gives us the chance to have a long overdue public conversation about what the future of the Internet should look like. This will not only include ensuring Net Neutrality, but making the Internet faster, more affordable and accessible."

Comments

summary of ted stevens' bill?

[Aurisor]

Can someone please link to or provide a quick summary of what Ted Stevens' bill would have enacted? I keep up with the network neutrality to some extent, but all of the corporate power grabs start to blur together after a while.

Thanks.

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[forgotten_my_nick]

According to the cable companies Net Neutrality means that you pay more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPIYxtjLFeI

Dam those evil Silicon Valley companies!!

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[BalkanBoy]

In a nutshell it means that currently there is no QoS (quality of service, or otherwise known as priority queueing in computer science) at the last mile from the ISP to your home. This means all IP traffic arrives at the rate at which they are delivered to you, whether that is HTTP traffic, VoIP (Skype, Vonage, etc) traffic, or any other type of data. There is no discrimination of traffic.

A consequence of that is traffic that may need to be routed there in a more timely manner (like VoIP) may arrive later than desirable. What does this mean to you? You will experience jerkiness and stuttering in your VoIP conversation. Or jerkiness in your YouTube video, or whatever else requires realtime (or near realtime) quality of service.

The argument of the net neutrality people (albeit a dubious one) was that QoS can and will be used to stifle competition, free speech, etc - and hell will freeze over before anyone in America lets that happen.

The argument of the pro-QoS people was that "if you want better, higher quality internet service, we need to do QoS so your conversation over VoIP with your mom can continue flawlessly". The stuff about free speech, well that's a non issue to the pro-QoS people, because they think the net neutrality people are a bunch of paranoid schizos who have nothing better to do than complain.

Whom do you believe? :) (come on, pass judgment, it's ok)

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[karmachild]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:3:./tem p/~c1091d9OrP::

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[jmauro]

So what was it with all the talk from the presidents of the telephone companies using a QoS network to extract more money from the Googles and Yahoos to allow their traffic a "higher" priority then others all about. If it was just about QoS and they gave tools to the end user to adjust his or her QoS settings, then it wouldn't be a problem. It seems to be more about the telecom companies being allowed to decided what traffic they will/will not carry without losing their common carrier status.

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[modeless]

I'm sorry, QoS inside the network is and has always been a bad idea. The Internet is a dumb network. It was designed that way and that is why it thrives. QoS can and should be done at the edges of the network, by the nodes which are actually doing the communicating. If your VoIP traffic is delayed by the HTTP download you're doing, throttle it! It's not as if your computer has no control over the rate people are sending it data.

Now, if your VoIP traffic is being delayed by the HTTP download *someone else* is doing, you don't have control over it. However, the correct solution here is NOT QoS. The correct solution to this problem is more bandwidth inside the network at the congested node. Adding more bandwidth is cheap, probably just as cheap as adding QoS, yet more bandwidth solves all of the problems QoS does, plus it increases the utility of the network for *everyone*, not just those using latency-sensitive applications. Furthermore, it keeps the network neutral to everyone, and doesn't introduce the possibility of QoS discrimination between classes of users.

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[chis101]

I think you are confusing line speed with net neutrality.

You are saying 'If I pay more, I get a connection that is faster. The 3MB line can download files and webpages at 3x the speed the 1MB line can.'

Net-Neutrality is more like, "You pay for a 3MB line. You can download Google at 3MB, Yahoo at 512k, some files at 3MB, some at 1MB, not dependant on your line speed, or the other end's line speed, but the QOS your ISP is putting on the packets. It is basically putting artificial limits on some traffic (such as web pages or file downloads) to allow other traffic better speeds (such as VOIP), but would be easy to abuse, to say, let Company A who paid more than Company B have better download speeds.

Re:summary of ted stevens' bill?

[cecil_turtle]

Think of Net Neutrality like making your ISP's service to you a utility, like electricity. You pay for what you use (bandwidth). Without Net Neutrality, customers (you) or content providers (google, youtube, etc.) will have to pay more money on top of the bandwidth they use for no good reason (it doesn't cost the ISP any more money to transfer google's bits than it does AOL's bits or VoIP bits). The equivalent in our electric utility example would be if the electric company charged you a higher rate for the electricity that powers your TV vs. the electricity that powers your refrigerator. Or even more accurately if your electric company charged you a higher rate for electricity when your TV is watching Lost or Heroes vs. when you're watching a Stargate rerun. Net Neutrality is good - you want your internet connection to be like a utility - bits is bits, like watts is watts. Others have addressed the QOS issue, but basically QOS is a solution for getting good enough performance out of a specific protocol / service when your bandwidth is all used up. If this is the case, buy more bandwidth to give you the overhead you need and then you won't need QOS.

Hold on a minute

[JoshJ]

What? You can't just pack up one Congress and replace it with another. It's not like a truck. Congress is a series of tubes.

Re:Hold on a minute

[Bemopolis]

Two things:

1) I think in that last word you accidentally typed a 'b' instead of an 'l'...

2) ...and, in any event, that's not how it's spelled.

Re:Hold on a minute

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Given the brains some of them display, that would be specifically vacuum tubes.

Yep, dead for now...

[zappepcs]

Next year we will see it as a tag on part of a bill called something like "Keep soldier safe bill" and in trying to save our soldiers or keep porn from the kiddies, they'll find a way to control the tubes of the intarwebs...

Re:Yep, dead for now...

[jlarocco]

Next year we will see it as a tag on part of a bill called something like "Keep soldier safe bill" and in trying to save our soldiers or keep porn from the kiddies, they'll find a way to control the tubes of the intarwebs...

Yep, just like they used the SAFE Port Act to block online gambling. I'll never understand why that's legal.

The story assumes

[Crashmarik]

That government involvement can make anything faster better or cheaper. If you are actually looking at the situation you might realize the problem stems from the government granting monopolies initially.

Re:The story assumes

[MindStalker]

While I agree with you post, it ignores the history of US telecommunications. First of all the US government paid most of the initial infrastructure cost for the phone network in the US. Time for an example. Lets say the US government in its grand stupidity had contracted out the creation of the Interstate system. They said, OK private companies here is a load of cash to build the interstate, you build it, and you can charge fees, and 95% of those fees have to go back into maintainance and building new roads. That is exactly how the phone system was build and maintained untill the mid 90s. At that point they said, Hey there is demand for an all new phone (sorry falling off the methaphore here, oh forget about the raods) system using fiberoptics. You remove that 95% requirement and give us some extra tax breaks, and we will be motivated more to build a newer better system. Congress fell for this (bribed, whatever..) and that is where we stand today, with the new system that was promised never built. The phone companies are now saying, hey we are thinking about building extra toll booths, ones that allow us to charge large trucks based upon the value of their load and not just how much it weights, and other stuff too. Technically there was nothing in law to stop them from doing it besides oversight, but the new HR 5252 was going to remove a lot of that oversight. Now we are just waking up and realizing the boondongle we got ourselfs into.

Personally I think the government should claim ownership of ALL lines, and then remove all regulations. Meaning if you want to build new lines and compete with the government, thats fine, but you're going to have to do it on your own penny. But the current system which was created from government money really should belong to the people, not these companies.

Re:The story assumes

[ciscoguy01]

If you are actually looking at the situation you might realize the problem stems from the government granting monopolies initially.

Close, but not exactly right. The government granted monopolies to the phone company, the electric company, the gas company for good reason. We really didn't want 17 sets of electric wires on the pole out back, did we? Nope.
So what we as a society did was HIRE those companies and gave them a special position in society as regulated utilities.

We paid them to build those networks. The money they used, it wasn't their money, it was OURS. Remember the "Rate Cases" they had to file with the PUC to get a rate increase? "We had to build new wires here, we built a central office there, it cost this much." They were then granted rates as the exclusive provider for those services that guaranteed them a certain ROI (return on investment).

Now there's the "special" position they got, what business is guaranteed to make a certain amount of money, if they lose money somehow they would magically get new increased rates to guarantee that ROI I mentioned? All the while being protected from competition? Not too many.

But now they are big companies and they don't wanna be protected anymore, at least in their "new media" divisions, but there's no real competiton there either.

Think about it: Seen those AT&T ads for $12.99 DSL? After a 1 year term they raise that to $26.99. The $12.99 price is only for "new customers". After you have had them for a year you are no longer "new" so they jack the prices up.

What can you do? Not much, since they have put most of their competitors out of business by overcharging them to use the copper wires that go out to your house and the space in the CO to where they were losing money.

The few competitors that are left are selling DSL on much the same terms but you can't really switch from AT&T to them since AT&T is using your copper pair to provide that DSL service to you, the one they just jacked up the rates on. If you want to switch you have to first cancel the AT&T DSL and wait 2 months for them to "release the line", after which the competitor can hook you up.

You get 2 months downtime. So no real competition.

Back to the "net neutrality" argument. Here's what's really going on:

The phone company wants to screw up the packets of their competitors. Mostly VOIP packets, but they are not proud, they will figure out more mischief that they can use to cheat us.

If you get VOIP phone service from one of their competitors they will delay every fouth packet 950 ms. So the phone calls would arrive out of order. Choppy, digital distorted calls. You couldn't use their competitors, only them. Nothing else would work.

If you get VOIP phone service from them it will work great since they control the network and they will then let the packets go on through.

Their argument is they want to provide service to *their* customers. If you are someone else's customer, you will be screwed with. Now they aren't really going to use their scarce resources to serve their own customers instead of YOU, they are going to screw you up deliberately. They have plenty capacity and you are paying them anyway.

When you call them to complain about your bad internet connection that won't work for the services they want to sell you they will say "switch to us and you will then get good service."

The ideal of "hands off the internet" is a completely bogus argument dredged up mostly by the same phone companies. It's mostly fake. A smokescreen.

They don't want to have to provide the service YOU are paying them for. They WILL, but only as long as you keep paying them.

If you want to use a competitive service they will screw it up so you will come back to them.

They hate competition.

Re:The story assumes

[Dhalka226]

The government granted monopolies to the phone company, the electric company, the gas company for good reason. We really didn't want 17 sets of electric wires on the pole out back, did we?

That's only half true. The examples you provided are what economists refer to as "natural monopolies," the definition of which is when one firm can provide a service cheaper than many competing firms can. It's not so much that we would mind 17 different sets of wires on our poles (I'm sure that carries it's own problems, though); it's that it costs an ungodly sum of money to run all these wires, gas pipes, telephone cables, etc. If we somehow tried to fragment the audience 17 different ways, the nearly sure bet is that most if not all of these companies would fail to make enough money to make back the money they spent laying those wires, or they would be forced to charge absolutely obscene rates to do so. Knowing that, we did subsidize these industries.

That's not to say that you're not allowed to compete with them if you wanted -- that's exactly what CLECS did, by concentrating on big urban areas and installing then-new fiber optic lines in those densely-populated areas to handle telephone traffic -- just that we recognize competition in these areas was, at the time, fairly limited. The FCC was created to manage the nonsense, and they have been struggling with ways to do it ever since. For example:

"We had to build new wires here, we built a central office there, it cost this much."

Was one of their original attempts at the matter, but that encourages gold plating--buying the most obscenely expensive equipment regardless of whether or not it was needed, because the government would use those costs to increase your profits. Obviously that was not desirable, so they went from scheme to scheme trying to find one that works.

Not much, since they have put most of their competitors out of business by overcharging them to use the copper wires that go out to your house and the space in the CO to where they were losing money.

I'm fairly certain that the costs of these UNE (Unbundled Network Elements) are still regulated by the FCC and state agencies for copper lines. Fiber, however, was recently determined by FCC decision to not fall under the same rules. That's why you saw telephone companies suddenly burst onto the scene with plans to lay a gazillion miles of fiber. They aren't obligated to lease it to competitors.

You're pretty much on about the net neutrality stuff, and they obviously have a bullshit case. The public owns the majority of their wires; whether we use them as our ISP or not should not affect our service. Carrying traffic indiscriminately was part of the deal they signed up for all those years ago.

Re:The story assumes

[Guy Harris]

First of all the US government paid most of the initial infrastructure cost for the phone network in the US. Time for an example. Lets say the US government in its grand stupidity had contracted out the creation of the Interstate system. They said, OK private companies here is a load of cash to build the interstate, you build it, and you can charge fees, and 95% of those fees have to go back into maintainance and building new roads. That is exactly how the phone system was build and maintained untill the mid 90s.

Indeed? The US government paid all the money to string those phone lines and build those telephone switchboards and switches, and just hired Ma Bell to run it? AT&T and its subsidiaries didn't spend their own money building the phone nework? Could you please cite a document that supports your assertion?

Re:I Am Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but we have corporate mongers on both sides. Version, Comcast and so on vs. Google, Microsoft and so on. Congress nearly exploded trying to figure out which side had more money... in the end they couldn't decide. So nothing happened: status quo remains.

on the highway.

[pseudosero]

In order to get normal people to understand what impact net neutrality will have on them we need to fight the TV ads which conclude "NET NEUTRALITY: BAD FOR THE CONSUMER" and create an analogy they can understand.

Although comparing the internet to highways is only marginally better than a "series of tubes" bear with me.

In its simplest form people can drive on roads. Businesses can transport goods by way of them. In fact, even data can be transported on the highway, on roads. So, in order for you to get your camo gear, guns and tobacco from walmart at everyday low prices, walmart uses the same roads as everyone else and there is no tiered system that you, the consumer, has to pay attention to. So there's more walmart trucks on the road and now it's harder to get to work and in fact harder to get to walmart. Thus is the limitation of the highway system.

Net neutrality gives you the option to ignore all the walmart trucks on the road instead of paying for it in the long run. (because if the walmart trucks have to pay more to get to walmart, walmart's going to raise their prices.)

has anyone seen that net neutrality ad? I think they tried to slip that one in there without us noticing. IT totally goes off the series of pipes idea.

Re:on the highway.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is from a while ago, when people were calling the internet the "information superhighway"

"Free speech is such a slippery little eel... Just when you think the Constitution has it right, you run into an interpretation that fails the "common sense / bull shit" test. Perhaps an analogy will serve... Think of the computer highway AS a highway.

There it is again. Some clueless FOOL talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know JACK about the net. It's NOTHING like a Superhighway. That's a BAD metaphor.

Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the OTHER direction. Suppose the HIGHWAYS were like the NET. All right! Severe craziness. A highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide. Most with potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member VIGILANTE POSSES with nuclear weapons. 237 ON RAMPS at every intersection. NO SIGNS. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE to make use by a single-occupant- vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just SHOOT you without a trial for talking on a car phone.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it. Throwing DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which have been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits. Some are 2.5 horsepower LAWNMOWER ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120.

No license tags. World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES. Bumper mounted MACHINE GUNS. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks with ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch helicopter. A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with HYDROCHLORIC ACID. "

I think that describes it pretty well, and is how it should be explained to the politicians.

What about the rest of the world?

[PhilHibbs]

As a Brit with only a limited understanding of how the interweb works, how does net neutrality affect me? If this bill had happened, how would it affect my internet experience? Presumably it would affect the way my packets are handled within the US, depending on who picks them up at the end of the atlantic cable and who they are destined for at the other end. Are there any signs of change in the EU? My Warcraft packets have to make their way to Rome and back apparently, so I'm a little concerned that they will get held up by a French farmers' blockade or something.

How about dealing with blocking of port 80?

[volkris]

It seems to me that a much more important discussion is being completely overlooked. With all the focus on the interdealings of large selfinterested corporations nobody seems to be talking about the evolution of the access that consumers are seeing today.

"The internet" has largely come to mean "the web" with everything else being secondary. This evolution has severe implications for everything from self publication to the value of peer to peer communication. In short, it seems that most ISPs have made it illegal to run any servers or do anything else that results in decentralization of power. This creates an environment where all content MUST be hosted on the servers of some powerhouse, and therefore be subject to whatever costs that involves.

The internet no longer connects people and people. It connects people to businesses that sometimes happen to relay traffic from person to person.

Let people do what they want with traffic and then it doesn't matter quite so much whether YouTube is being slowed down: the big centralized sites won't hold such a monopoly on the content.

Re:How about dealing with blocking of port 80?

[volkris]

From the beginning of time, huh?

Most people probably run servers of some sort and just don't know it. ISPs are doing society a tremendous disservice by labeling personal servers as some sort of business only or power user only device. If people were allowed to run their own servers, properly packaged as user-friendly appliances of course, many of the internet's problems would be solved. It could even have significant positive influence on the entire OS and ways that people use computers.

The server restriction serves only to make the internet into a one way medium, cracking down on pariticpation in a really sad way.

Exactly

[remmelt]

Well, the ISPs thought it wasn't fair that the Googles of the world got to use their (the ISPs) network for free. They felt they had the right to charge Google or Yahoo or MS for use of those network tubes. This is unfair because Google is already paying for its access to the internet by being hooked up to backbones, renting serverspace (well, not in Google's case, but you get what I mean), etc. This greedy move on the part of the ISPs was then justified by saying it's in the customer's best interest. I don't see how it's in my best interest when my ISP suddenly decides which packets it deems more important than others, and which sites pay them more money to get the best response times. Also, when I wake up tomorrow with the great idea for the new MySpaceGoogleTubeFlickr2.0, I'd have to pay off the ISPs to get my site delivered to the customers in a timely fashion. This would stifle innovation.

That's about all I remember off the top of my head, I'm glad this bill has now died.

Re:Exactly

[DJCacophony]

Not just Google and Yahoo, any website they choose.

Do you want AOL customers to see your website, or call you on VOIP? Without Net Neutrality, too bad, you have to pay AOL for that.
Do you want Comcast customers to see your website or call you on VOIP? Without Net Neutrality, too bad, you have to pay Comcast for that.
Do you want Time Warner customers to see your website or call you on VOIP? Without Net Neutrality, too bad, you have to pay Time Warner for that.

Anti-net-neutrality is nothing about improving services, and all about charging more for them.

Your description is biased, not informative.

[mrchaotica]

You're misrepresenting the situation. People are actually using two different definitions for QoS: it can mean prioritizing by protocol (i.e. HTTP vs. VOIP vs. IRC vs. BitTorrent vs. SMTP), as you mentioned, but it can also mean prioritizing by origin (i.e. HTTP from MSN vs. HTTP from Google, or VOIP from Vonage vs. VOIP from Comcast).

The people opposed to Net Neutrality claim that it will be used only for the first type of prioritization, which is by protocol. This group primarily includes the ISPs. If this really is the kind of QoS that would happen, there's really no reason for anyone to oppose it.

On the other hand, the people in favor of Net Neutrality claim that the kind of QoS the ISPs really want to do is the second kind, for their own benefit. For example, they say the ISPs want to pit content providers like MSN and Google against each other to see who'll pay more money to get their content delivered at higher priority. Or as another example, the ISP could try suffocate Vonage by prioritizing its own VOIP service over Vonage's. This is the type of QoS that what would lead to stifling of competition and free speech, if it were to be implemented.

Re:Anti-Network Neutrality ad.

[hackwrench]

Unfortunately, the ad has actually been airing, and I think that there are people uneducated and prone to just follow to buy into it.

Re:Net neutrality == gov't regulation

[teebob21]

(Beware: this post contains information for someone involved in the cable industry, and thus knows what he is talking about. Slashdotters looking for ignorant bullshit are advised to proceed elsewhere.)

Again, I'm forced to reply to someone making assumptions about the state of cable TV service in America. The fact is that Time Warner, Comcast and nearly every other MSO in the nation pay a pretty penny just for the RIGHT to service the areas which they do. They are a business participating the the same free market that you are welcome to participate in.

While your local cable company isn't going to give up their "local concessions" any sooner than AT&T or any of your POTS providers are, you are welcome to come to my town and establish licensing and permission from the various city offices and county boards that mandate easements and pole rental in the 11 communities that we serve. Pay their fee, and poof! Your complaint about government regulation seems to go up in smoke.

Come on in; in the telco industry, it's called an overbuilder. Keep in mind that in most jurisdictions you are required to cover the entire franchise area that you wish to serve, meaning you can't just service the homes by the golf course where snobbies will pay for whatever is the newest and coolest. You also have to service the south end of town, where the minority population lives paycheck to paycheck, and paying the TV bill is a option rather than a requirement in the monthly budget. (No offense to any creed or color intended, simply describing the simple facts in my job.)

Once you have completed building the entire town, have fun trying to achieve a sustainable ROI in the first 5 years before your funding and capital dries up while you try to convert a entrenched customer base from their choice of either satellite or cable service. Oh yes, don't forget about the (literally) millions of dollars charged by folks' favorite channels. You know, it will be tough to get subscribers without TNT, ESPN, FX, the NFL Network and HBO/Showtime. Wait?! You wanted to offer High Definition? Hmmm, prepared to pay double, since those dollars you are paying to ESPN only covered their standard definition feeds. But at least there are local feeds in HD...unfortunately the retransmission consent laws permit a broadcaster (ie, FREE TV) to charge cable and satellite operators for their HD. (Which is precisely the reason many MSOs still do not offer local channels in HD) In our system, monthly basic service provides 67 channels for $42.50 + sales tax and city franchise fees totaling $48.12. Of that $48, $39 goes to content providers and city coffers. Our revenue monthly for providing your service: $9.

I'd go on about the expense to provide service as an independent ISP...but I believe I made my point already. Point is, the free market exists in cable service just like any business; but the big bucks are going to the content providers (ESPN, HBO, Google/YouTube, etc.) not to the cable co.

Same song, second verse same as the first.

[davmoo]

Anyone who thinks the Democrats are any more "net friendly" than the Republicans is being woefully naive. Neither party gives a flying fuck about John Q. AverageAmericanNetUser or Jane Y. Nerd. Except for one tiny difference (the Republicans rob from the middle class and give to the rich, while the Democrats rob from the middle class and give to the poor), both parties are a carbon copy of each other. And just like the Republicrats, the Democins will do what is in their own best interests and the best interests of their corporate contributors.

The United States has the best political system in the world...we have the best political system money can buy.

Democratic Trivia

[Spazmania]

Interesting bit of Trivia:

Until September the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had their main Internet servers hosted at Verizon Business' Ashburn Virginia data center. This past January, Verizon Business (VB) was asked to provide a quote on a major upgrade: More space, more electrical power, more bandwidth, bigger "tubes." They failed. Badly: it took them two months to provide a quote and when they did it was outrageous. And oh yeah: they couldn't guarantee that they'd be able to meet the very modest space and power requirements: 200 amps @ 120 volts + a cage with 5 cabinets. How outrageous was the quote? Well, with Cogent selling bandwidth for $10/meg and most providers in the $50-$100 per meg range, VB was asked for a rate in the $100 per meg neighborhood. They had been charging $250. The new rate? $290.

But that wasn't the end of it. Oh no. A set of vendors was chosen to replace Verizon Business. The contracts were signed in the summer with completion on each scheduled for the end of August. VB was asked to provide one simple component in the replacement: some Internet bandwidth at a different data center where they confirmed existing connectivity. In particular, the DNC wanted them to do what any reasonable ISP is capable of: move the DNC's IP addresses to the new location. Not only did they miss the August 30 installation deadline by the better part of a month, they never were able to transfer the IP addresses. Working around that with the help of the other vendors was one hell of a scramble.

This mess all happened in August and September, by the way, threatening to spill over into the main part of the election cycle... And the DNC was under contract to host the Internet servers for the DCCC and DSCC this cycle. So it impacted and very nearly impaired election operations for three of the top Democratic Party committees responsible for helping take back the Congress.

So, the next time you wonder how Verizon treats folks whose good will they actually need, now you know.

As for Verizon's lobbying efforts in the 110th Congress? Yeah.

Re:Running servers@home...

[volkris]

and others such as Netmeeting, which lets grandma talk to her grandkids, webfolders, vnc servers, and remote desktop servers, which let businessmen work from home and increase productivity, perhaps even when increasing time with their families, and components of various video games.

Arguably allowing people to run servers encourages them to educate themselves on the basics of what a server is, which then educates them on the security implications of servers. They'll know a little more about what spambots and zombies are and how to protect their computers against infestations. The current one way internet encourages a mindset that can't recognize the existence of these bad things.