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Father of Internet Warns Against Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "At a recent talk at the Computer History Museum Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, warned against net neutrality legislation that could hinder experimentation and innovation. Calling 'net neutrality' a slogan, Khan also cautioned against 'dogmatic views of network architecture.' A video of the talk is also available."
So we should allow the highest bidder to choke off the bandwidth from their less wealthy competitors? Honestly, can someone explain to me how this would be a good idea?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Either way, by supporting net neutrality, you will likely incur his wrath.
Fuck the internet, I'm going back to throwing rocks with notes attached.
I wonder, if net neutrality falls apart, and we end up with people charging more for high-speed pipes to certain places, will that generate a big boom in building VPN/GRE/IP tunnels to attempt to work around it? If so, that could become a very lucrative business for Cisco or any other tunnel-equipment maker/provider. Hmmm..makes me wonder if there is a new conspiracy about to brew....
- E
I don't think he's against neutrality, just legislation as a means to enforce it. Because, then, if someone does come up with a better system later, it will be hard to implement. However, the telecom's current proposal isn't really better, and does need to be dealt with somewhere.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
At a recent talk at the Computer History Museum Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, warned against net neutrality legislation that could hinder experimentation and innovation.
Well, as a genetically engineered superhuman, you might want to listen to him. He's a lot smarter than you.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Um, how does this make him the "Father of the Internet"?
Co-inventor of TCP/IP, OK, but "Father of the Internet"?!? What about the CERN guys, what about the router folks, what about the...everyone else who co-invented a piece of technology that enabled the existence of the internet?
Just ranting because I'm kind of sick of hyperbole.
Wouldn't net neutrality help to stop the ridiculous arbitrary blocking of ports that many ISPs impose, which basically keeps people from using the Internet as it was intended?
If anything, I would think that allowing corporate entities to throttle bandwidth for whichever site or service they choose, then hold that service's customer availability up for ransom would do far more damage to "encouraging capabilities" and "inventivize innvation". After all, money that might have gone into R&D from these companies (see: Google, Microsoft) might have to be used just so they aren't impeded from their customer.
It would also stall innovation on the end of ISPs- if they note that their current systems can't handle traffic from a certain site or service, they just throttle back that site/service, make them cough up dough, then use that dough to get more systems to handle the bandwidth (or just release the throttle, upgrade nothing, and screw the consumers; depends on which ISP we're talking about). So instead of handling it with improvements, they'll just look to throw more money for more of the same solution. (Which, granted, could be what they do now.)
Perhaps he's saying that the government shouldn't get involved on pro- or con-neutrality, which I can understand more, but then that opens the door for the greedy corporations to start throttling away.
A side thought on net neutrality: If an ISP decides to limit access to such sites as Microsoft.com, thereby hampering the Windows Update service, and the computers that can't get updated turn into botboxes (for spam or virii- or both), would the ISP then be liable for any damage caused by the spam/virii?
Who is "we", and who put "we" in the position of being in charge of what everybody else can do? If "we" is the government, I think "we the people" can count on them botching being in charge of the Internet.
Yes, We, as in WE the People who vote.
Governments, like it or not, are in the best position to provide certain services like roads, water, sewage, defense and so on. If private industries take over these services, bad things happen, like toll roads, dumped sewage and dirty water. Governments are wasteful because they are not bound by profit. Wasteful includes things like repairing roads that are still passable, but need repair and treating sewage before dumping it back into the water supply, even though it is expensive.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I agree with this guy. We can't even begin to imagine what our children are going to invent after growing up in this early phase of the internet culture. I, for one, am not excited about letting the geriatric politicos shackle our kids from innovating in ways we cannot anticipate today.
Governments, like it or not, are in the best position to provide certain services like roads, water, sewage, defense and so on. If private industries take over these services, bad things happen, like toll roads, dumped sewage and dirty water. Governments are wasteful because they are not bound by profit. Wasteful includes things like repairing roads that are still passable, but need repair and treating sewage before dumping it back into the water supply, even though it is expensive.
:-)
Or, put in another way, TANSTAAFL
A law is advocated to stop behaviour some people see as undesireable. The perpetrators have no such opinion. Whatever impels them to do the undesireable act continues to operate, and they just find a way around.
On net neutrality, in a competitive market, premium services will result in lower prices for bulk services. What do I care about 2000 ms latency when I'm downloading ISOs? I just increase RWIN.
Breaking a forerunner of "net neutrality" is how the Internet got it's international costs so low. Going from channel-switched [voice] to packet-switched [data].
This is not a democracy, or at least it's not supposed to be. People who vote don't have the authority to dictate arbitrary terms to other people, except where specified in a constitution.
Okay, you get some of your infrastructure (water, sewage) from the city. How does that translate into the Feds running the Internet again?
Any legislation will hurt the ability of people to innovate.
Not true. The regional broadband duopolies can do far more to hamstring innovation than net neutrality legislation would*. For example, with net neutrality, anybody is free to innovate in the fields of VoIP and VoD. But if the broadband companies had their druthers, they'd be the only providers of those services to their customers. How does that help innovation?
* Yes, it's possible to craft legislation that would do more to hamstring innovation and then label it "net neutrality", but then, at its core, it wouldn't strictly be net neutrality legislation.
Net neutrality IS just a slogan, and not a very good one because it means different things to different people. To Robert Kahn it obviously means locking network protocols, which obviously he is against.
But the central issue already has a name--it's called "common carrier." ISPs need to be held to a standard that is content- and author-neutral. My Web site or e-mail or video should not be able to be blocked or slowed based simply on what it says or who wrote it. I don't care about the technology that gets it there--just get it there and don't let me be discriminated against.
Common carrier is so important, and so ingrained in our way of thinking, that to some people it's impossible to imagine that it can't exist. But the fact is that it must be specified by legislation, and right now for Internet services it is not. This is the essence of the issue.
Network protocols, frankly, are not. The network protocols used on telephone and cell phone networks change all the time, but the right to have your call delivered remains. Trucks and tracking technology are improved all the time, but the right to have your package delivered has not changed in over 100 years. There is no shortage of models for how common carrier can be enforced without hindering innovation.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
My stance is that, since the experts are disagreeing over the issue, the worst thing to do is to write something into law.
In fact, I believe the only reason the issue is so important is because too many things have already been written into law. Specifically, existing laws make it difficult to set up ones own telecom operation. This is what makes the incumbents so powerful, and this is why we need to be worried about them locking people out or providing suboptimal service.
If the barriers to entry were lower, perhaps we could have different carriers for different niches, rather than what is basically a yes/no proposition.
If you _really_ want to know my opinion about whether there should be net neutrality or not, I would say there has never been, nor will there ever be net neutrality. There are always some who get better service than others, even if nobody is making a specific effort to make it that way. While I think ensuring everyone can have a certain minimum level of access to information has some merit, network neutrality is either a misnomer or taking things waaaaay too far.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
John Hodgman and Jon Stewart explain Net Neutrality
I'm not looking forward to PneuMail.
Using this definition, I am very confused, as I would expect Kahn to support this type of thing. He talks about innovation a lot. I always thought the prevailing consensus was that if ISPs have their way and quash NN, little companies would be effectively "locked out" of the Internet.
Am I wrong here?
Did you sleep through the 90's? The reason every geek on Earth was excited about the Internet and extolled its virtues to a critical-mass of non-geeks was that it delivered information and innovation to you as fast as it could be generated, and by anyone who could express it - not that "goods and services" were being delivered.
Finally modding someone offtopic when they rant about what "Begging the Question" means: priceless.
Not sure that's a very convincing argument.
I don't live in Chicago. I sure as hell don't want to pay for their highway. Therefore, having toll roads so that it doesn't cost me more in tax dollars sounds like a really good idea.
After all, having the government pay for something doesn't make it "free" it just distributes the cost among a whole lot more people; people whom, in many cases, will never see the benefit of what they're paying for.
If you want to show that government funding for something is a good idea, you have to be able to demonstrate that it's good for everyone who's going to end up footing the bill, not just the metaphorical Chicagoan who doesn't want to pay a toll.
Nobody likes paying tolls, but I think a lot of people like paying for roads they don't use and which may be on the other side of the country even less. That's why you have toll roads: it spreads the cost of a project across the people who actually use it, and assumedly who derive some benefit from it. (The arguments against tolls usually take the form of demonstrating that "people who use" and "people who benefit from" are not the same.) While a toll-free highway in Chicago would be understandably popular to residents there (just like the Gravina Island Bridge is popular with residents of Ketchican), I doubt you'll find a lot of support for it in Honolulu or Miami: after all, those people are going to ask, what are they getting by footing Chicago's bill?
The argument people are making against network neutrality is similar. Someone who doesn't use much bandwidth, and sticks mostly to services provided by their ISP, isn't going to like a 'neutral' net, because to them, it means a higher bottom-line cost than a tiered service might. In other words, they're basically subsidizing heavier users, or users of content that would cost more on a non-neutral net.
If you want to argue against the opponents of network neutrality, you have to come up with some sort of salient argument why it benefits the user who just wants a minimum level of service for the cheapest possible price. What does the $12.95/mo. DSL user, who does nothing but check email and look at things that are on the Comcast portal page, going to get from network neutrality, other than the possibility of higher rates?
Now, for the record, I support network neutrality, but comparing it to toll roads isn't going to help the cause any. If anything, "toll roads" are exactly the argument that the telcos and big ISPs are going to make. You don't want to go down that path.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And the mother of the internet warns that the internet better get this room cleaned up and that trash taken out before its father gets home, young man.
When people talk about Net Neutrality, do they mean ISPs can't do any packet shaping at all?
I am, for example, all for ISPs giving lower priority to VOIP if they need to. What I am not OK with is some VOIP company paying an ISP to give them greater priority priority, while the company that can not afford to pay gets shafted.
Working in this article like "the ability of systems engineers to improve latency and jitter issues" make it sounds like no packing shaping at all is allowed. Is that right?
You've killed my Internet, you Klingon bastard!
And what I get is two answers, that in my view are opposing. On one hand, he says he thinks "the net" should flourish with innovation, not just on the edges of the net, where things have traditionally happened, but inside the net as well. And then he goes on to say that he's opposed to anything that fragments or otherwise exclude players in the net.
I'm with him on the latter, but I fail to see where or how any commercial entity operating for profit will care anything about the network's integrity if they can make profit from limiting the performance of others. "Competition" is often defined in exactly that way, after all.
Ultimately, it comes down to either trusting commercial, for-profit entities not to interfere with internet traffic at large or legislating a prohibition against such activity. Ideally, any such legislation should essentially say "innovate all you like, but you cannot reduce the performance of competing traffic." Wisdom illustrates that no commercial can be trusted not to interfere with competing business without requirement of contract or law.
Did you sleep through Econ 101? That's called Allocative_efficiency via the Free Price System. The market price allocation of goods and services is the best that humankind has come up with in the last 4,000 years of recorded history, and the only one that matches production to demand, because it is the only scheme that accounts for human nature and motivations. Price allocation means people will pay for a good if the good is worth the price and other people will produce the good if the selling price is worth their efforts. Every other type of allocation scheme has brought woe and shortages.
If your content is "worthy", people will pay what it is worth to see it. The installed bandwidth will increase to meet the demand (absent any non-competative tinkering like monopolies or goverment franchises, which may be the problem here).
Actually, I did... and I got a B. I did stay awake through most of the stuff about monopolies and public utilities. I see the Internet as a public utility. I understand paying more for more usage, but I don't see giving my neighbor priority because he pays more. How 'bout if the utility company cut off only the poor neighborhoods in a brown out? A bit closer would be if the cable company blocked CNN because FoxNews paid for the bandwidth and the maximum number of people in my area were already watching CNN. So I have the option of watching FoxNews or nothing at all. Of course, FoxNews would get more viewers, meaning they could charge more from advertisers, so they could buy more bandwidth... and of course, CNN would not be able to get advertisers because they have no viewers. Now replace FoxNews with Google and CNN with Yahoo.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I doubt there is any way to avoid being a user of any road in a major city. Even if you don't drive on it. Your neighborhood Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and grocery store (or local equivalants) all depend on easy, low-cost transportation of goods. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, and all manner of services that keep a city going depend on these roads, something that you benefit from even if you don't even own a car.
Having easy, cheap access to clean water keeps the community as a whole healthy, even if you bathe less than your neighbor. Yes, some people may fill swimming pools and over water their lawns, but in the end, you are still better off. I've never had my house broken into, but I certainly don't begrudge those who have my tax dollars for funding a police force.
The government is a valid consumer group, and one whose buying power allows cheap procurement of goods and services that would be prohibitively expensive if offered on an individual basis. Certain investments in infrastructure are what provide a reasonable society for other businesses to continue. I haven't decided on which side of the Net Neutrality divide I'm coming down on, but the idea that non-drivers are getting nothing in exchange for their tax dollars is just plain wrong.
The current economic system does not account for human nature. It assumes humans are driven by pure self interest. Modern economic research shows that people are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity. This research (google "fairness reciprocity economic research") shows that most people act fairly when they have the ability to punish unfairness or non-cooperation. The entire system is based on a falsehood and promotes selfishness by assuming it.
In addition, the system has well known modes of failure. Natural monopolies, imbalance of information, and externalities all cause the market to fail to rpovide optimal distribution of resources. The best system we have come up with in the past 4,000 years is one that includes some level of government regulation of trade. Even Adam Smith realized that, in order to remain free, the market must be regulated. Read Wealth of Nations.
All in all, the free market is a remarkeably effective system. But that system is known to fail in certain circumstances, and thus, a larger system incorporated managed oversight of the market through elected representatives has proven to be the most effective. Lassez Faire failed as badly as communism.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
With all due respect to Mr.Kahn, who I am told invented TCP/IP: Just why should we give any weight to his notion of the best way to keep the Internet from becoming just another channel for corporate interests, instead of the wide-open agora of information and ideas that it has become.
We have lived during a rare time, when such a powerful medium has somehow managed to keep from being completely commercialized past any recognition of the fragile and open universe it was for its first decade. There may be no way to stop the dictates of the almighty "marketplace" from having its way with the Internet like a brute with a virgin child, but I give credit to those who are trying to think of ways to keep it free for a few more years.
If we ever see the full-out commercialization and commoditization of the 'net, we will have lost something precious - something that made the turn of the millennium a great time to be alive.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Mr. Kahn seems to be completely overlooking the fact that ownership of the national network backbones is very concentrated, and that these owners are pushing hard to use their virtual monopoly position to maximize ROI. They have no incentive or stated intention of innovating or adding significantly more capacity until they've rung every last dollar out of what they've got.
It's common practice for various industries to sponsor economists, attorneys, academics, and engineers at non-profit think tanks, so it would be all too easy to suspect a hidden agenda in this case. However, a few minutes of Googling Mr. Kahn and the CNRI didn't turn up a smoking gun, so it may be that he's just being native about the market conditions.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Yes. I listened to what he said, and then read the article -- the guy got it wrong, wrong, wrong. What I heard him say is that net neutrality is defined by diffferent people different ways, and if you define it one way -- to mean nothing interesting can happen and no innovation can take place unless it is on the Internet -- then he is against it. He believes people ought to be free to develop innovative things on their own LANs, but if they use the Internet for it then everyone else should be able to participate in it (which is what others mean by net neutrality, though he did not say that), otherwise, you have fragmentation (he said that), which he opposes. For a lot of people, that "fragmentation" is precisely what net neutrality seeks to avoid. The DPS project (which supports a particular brand of net neutrality) would seem to get a boost from his speech, but for people who misrepresent his position as being in favor of Internet privatization and fragmentation -- which is not "the Internet" at all, and which he opposed. He is all for net neutrality if you define it as does the DPS Project, http://www.dpsproject.com/.
Aire Libre
Roads are a public good. You benefit from them whether you use them or not. Look at anything in your home or office, and chances are that it was transported via road many, many times during it's journey from raw resource to finished product. Everyone benefits from the increase in trade. Roads help goods move faster, faster moving goods means an economy that grows faster.
Then there is the public safety factor. Everyone benefits from the fact that firetrucks can quickly reach a fire and put it out before it damages other property. Everyone benefits when police can quickly reach the scene of a crime. Everyone benefits from the fact that, with an efficient transport network, we can defend out territory with a smaller military.
By refusing to pay taxes that go towards roads, YOU are the freeloader. Roads represent an externality, a public good. The free market does not deal with externalities efficiently. Ignoring the public good, roads have utility X. People will pay Y for that utility, and the amount they are willing to pay determines the number and quality of roads available. This will be less than the optimal number and quality of roads, because the true utility of roads includes the externalities that can not be accounted for in market transactions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Nope.
One's rights are an inherent fact of one's existence as a human being.
They are static and universal, and their existence or extent is not subject to government fiat.
The only variable is the extent to which governments choose to respect those rights.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
We have lived during a rare time, when such a powerful medium has somehow managed to keep from being completely commercialized past any recognition of the fragile and open universe it was for its first decade. There may be no way to stop the dictates of the almighty "marketplace" from having its way with the Internet like a brute with a virgin child, but I give credit to those who are trying to think of ways to keep it free for a few more years.
And it's amazing all this happened while the internet was unregulated. Imagne what would of happened if it had been regulated.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think you mean sewerage, although I agree with what you've said :)
"You want low latency in your game traffic?"
Then you'd better hope the game company decided to pay the toll imposed by every network provider between their server and your PC.
"How about smooth VoIP conversations?"
Ditto your VoIP provider, as well as potentially your ISP and the ISP of the person you're talking to (if they're also on VoIP).
"Would you like your ISP to block the spambot from filling your email with nonsense?"
That'd be nice, but I'd rather put up with the spam then give my ISP and every ISP between me and the person I'm emailing carte blanche to pitch or delay every message I send.
"There are good reasons for prioritization and blocking,"
I don't see why net neutrality needs to prevent prioritization. Shouldn't it be possible to write the laws in such a way to outlaw traffic shaping based on who the sender/receiver are while still allowing shaping based on what they're sending.
I'll grant you blocking is more problematic, but do you really want any network provider on the net to be able to arbitrarily block your traffic with no accountability?
"none of which any of our current legislators can comprehend"
Then perhaps we should try explaining it to them.
"If you don't like your ISP's policies, find another. If you have no choice, go talk to your local city council about laying municipal fiber"
And how does that help if some douche-bag backbone provider decides to throttle all traffic coming from a website I like because that site didn't feel like paying the toll? Unless you're suggesting that my municipal fiber network will have transatlantic cables...
Note that I'm not necessarily saying that net neutrality laws are a good thing, or that we wouldn't be better off keeping the government out of these things, but I do think you're over simplifying the argument a little.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything