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New Network Neutrality Squad — Users Protecting the Net
Lauren Weinstein writes in to announce the new "Network Neutrality Squad" — NNSquad. Joining PFIR Co-Founders Peter G. Neumann and Weinstein in this announcement are Vinton G. Cerf, Keith Dawson (Slashdot.org), David J. Farber (Carnegie Mellon University), Bob Frankston, Phil Karn (Qualcomm), David P. Reed, Paul Saffo, and Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane). The Network Neutrality Squad ("NNSquad") is an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable
restrictions. The project's focus includes detection, analysis, and incident reporting of any anticompetitive, discriminatory, or other
restrictive actions on the part of Internet service Providers (ISPs)
or affiliated entities, such as the blocking or disruptive manipulation of applications, protocols, transmissions, or bandwidth; or other similar behaviors not specifically requested by their customers.
..awful name. I can't help but think of Geek Squad, and that doesn't make me happy.
We already understand the issues surrounding network neutrality (and Best Buy). To a normal person a name reminding them of the people who fixed their computer adds credibility.
No. Different tiers of internet service are like having a first-class and business-class seating section. You pay for X downstream and Y upstream.
Net neutrality is like saying that the airline can't sell you a first-class ticket, and then bump you down to coach unless you win a bidding war with another guy in first-class after you're on the airplane.
I think it's more like the airline charging the receiving hotel to take you. If they don't pay to get you off the plane, you sit there for eight hours.
Not a sentence!
If one user's activity degrades the quality of another's connection, then the ISP is selling a product that they don't actually have. I should be able to use all the bandwidth that I pay for.
When the world is covered with a grid of network nodes every meter, when we are online 100% of the time everywhere we go, we are going to need a network infrastructure which is flexible and smart. This vision of ubiquitous connectivity isn't going to happen if we allow the telecoms to make the rules: they will charge so much for every little service that it will be far too expensive to maintain the connectivity you mention. As for "infrastructure which is flexible and smart"--I believe that's part of what network neutrality is about. One of the issues with allowing ISPs to filter content based on type (and especially based on origin/destination) is that such a system inherently becomes inflexible. Moreover it isn't smart, because people will fight against the traffic shaping rules if they don't conform to the way people want to use the net (e.g. people will start encrypting everything or spoofing origin IP or hiding one kind of traffic inside another).
An "arms race" between the infrastructure and the users is neither flexible nor efficient. It is wasteful and frustrating. The genius of the Internet was that it was a simple system that would blindly pass packets to their destination. It was this generality and equality that allowed a whole slew of new applications to evolve. The point is that we can't imagine, today, what the next "killer app" of the net is going to be... but traffic shaping inherently says "these are the services that are important"--which means anything currently unimagined will remain unimplemented forever.
Its all great running around banging the drum and asking users to 'join the war on non-neutrality' but it's all for nothing if you cannot DETECT non-neutrality in the first place.
/. where someone was writing an application to detect non-neutrality... but it went quiet very quickly. Now the way I see it is that the list contains people that have the skills, or know the people who could write an application that could aid in the DETECTION of unfair practices from the ISP's.
I recall some discussion a while ago here on
The application could be used by the volunteers, and test the various protocols to various hosts (Skype, Google, youtube, TPB) and between the users themselves with various traffic (p2p, ping, tcp/ip, udp etc...) and see if any 'delay' occurs specific to one type of traffic. If it contained an automated reporting tool (OMG Tinfoil hat!!), then the aggregators could see trends across the various providers and not rely solely on one or two users. Of course you're entering a war of cat and mouse....
Before we can go accusing ISP's on non-neutrality, we need the tools to detect unfair play in the first place... anyone know of any?
Let's drop all the bad analogies for a minute (pretend I'm new here) and actually look at the situation.
Net Neutrality is an issue I'm concerned with. However, the only information I get from the Net Neutrality camp seems to be "the-sky-is-falling" sensationalist propaganda. So while I want to support NN, my rational mind says "Hold the phone. This is just an ad-hominem rant, not a rational argument."
Say I'm a network operator. (I am, actually. I have more than one PC at home. And quite a few I'm in charge of at work. But let's also say I'm in the business of renting access to my network -- an "ISP" as we all say.) So I've got a bunch of subscribers paying me a fee for a connection my network. I've also got connections to other operators. Some of those are transit I pay for, some are peering agreements. My customers use those connections indirectly, of course.
Now let's say I'm looking at my traffic logs, and I see that a ton of traffic is going to and from YouTube. So much so that I have to buy more transit to operators connected closer to YouTube. So now I have a bigger bill. And that cost has to be covered (TANSTAAFL).
I could raise rates for my subscribers. Or I could say to YouTube, "Hey, guys, you're a hot ticket. If you give me some more money, I'll buy a faster pipe to you guys. If not, well, you're going to be stuck on an overloaded transit line."
While I do have concerns with the above scenario, it does not make me want to take to the streets with a torch and pitchfork. Can someone explain what is so evil in the above?
If you want to propose scenarios that involve abuse, censorship, wire-tapping, giant insect overlords, etc., that's fine, but please also address plain old business scenarios like the above.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
It's like saying everybody must fly coach, and nobody should be able to offer first-class or business-class seating.
No,
Net neutrality is like saying that the airline can't sell you a first-class ticket, and then bump you down to coach unless you win a bidding war with another guy in first-class after you're on the airplane.
No,
Net neutrality is like using a vacuum cleaner to pick up lawn clippings, while a dwarf follows behind you with a rake.
Aren't analogies helpful? Everyone always tries to come up with analogies to deal with things, but most of the time they are misleading and even manipulative. Everyone tries to find an analogy which makes their position look best.
I would say, instead, that issues should be analyzed from first principles. If net neutrality is good or bad, just say so, and say why. Don't say it's like a chicken with eyeglasses or a frog jumping out of a pot. That doesn't help.
The question is not irrelevant. They are selling a service that is only possible to provide on the communications gear that *they purchased*. If you are willing to argue that they don't really own the stuff they provide that service with, then who does? Society? The problem with this for property advocates such as myself is that it is a very slippery slope. Who knows what other rulings against property will come of it - or how courts may use this precedent to justify taking others property for some kind of "common good". If you favor net neutrality, you should start your own telco without charging content providers extra for what bandwidth they use, rather than using the saw to prevent others from using property that they legally purchased.
Yeah, they sure did purchase that property legally.
With a government-granted monopoly over a municipality, and with government-granted rights to bury their legally-purchased property under other people's legally-purchased property.
I think if you are going to be given special rights by the government, then your responsibilities to that government (and ultimately to the people who are governed) are much higher than someone in a standard free-market scenario. It seems that the politicians have forgotten that little point, choosing instead to champion The Almighty Free Market, when in this market there is no such thing.
If the ISPs want to buy all the land their fiber is buried under, and the local government wants to allow more than one provider to do the same in the area, then they have a right to say "we can do whatever the hell we please with our property". I will just give them the heave-ho and move to a provider that gives me what I want. But since there is no competition, the telcos have a much higher responsibility to society than someone without a government-granted monopoly.
If you want to look at it from a backbone perspective, consider this: all of these major telcos are interconnected in a giant mesh, and it is impossible to get access to "The Internet" without crossing over between these providers. The internet is an end-to-end network; the stuff in the middle shouldn't be providing much other than access. So if Google is hooked up to Comcast, and has paid Comcast for fast access, but you're hooked up to Quest, and Google has not paid Quest, then Google will still be slow for you, which is unacceptable. And if we make sure that everyone pays everyone else for every connection, then it's just a giant payola clusterfuck where all the money ends up in the middle, and the little guy is squeezed out of the market.
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