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Cory Doctorow Draws the Line On Net Neutrality
Nerdposeur points out that Cory Doctorow has a compelling piece in The Guardian today, arguing that network neutrality is not only crucial for the future of the Internet, but is what the ISPs owe to the public. He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?" "If the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke. All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day... If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work — give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
Yes, a black flag in my case.
No. I feel like marching in protest. That didn't make me feel more patriotic. It made me feel more willing to express my frustration with the telcos.
Unless he meant a white flag. In which case I have to say, definitely no. That did not make me want to surrender. Of course, I'm not a telco -- maybe reading that would make them want to surrender -- price-gouging surrender monkeys that they are.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As long as a competitive, free market is ensured, this won't happen.
If a ISP starts filtering, people will move to the next.
Of course, things may turn out very different if we allow dominant market positions to be built in the ISP market.
(But this won't happen, right? Just as we never let any dominant market position arise in the OS market, or in the microprocessor market. Now sorry, gotta rush back to my cave).
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
Not sure what kind of flag he's talking about, but I'm thinking a red one?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
How about the opposite... how anout as municipalities, we band together and start charging them rent on our ditches and land that they are running the cable through. They want to screw us on the received end then we will screw then on the intake valve. If we stand firm enough, the fear of being charged billions to use their own lines will put the fear of some sort of ancient evil from beyond the stars into them.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Ridiculously high upfront cost, is a waste of resources to make multiple sets of them for each competitor, internet cables, like roads, seem like the perfect thing to have under government control. We can have private companies competing for the services they can provide over these lines.
I don't think I've ever heard an argument that was serious for the other side of this issue. Am I just ignorant? Or is this a non-issue that people like to discuss?
Regardless, censorship is a scary thing. Fortunately, the internet is probably bigger than most blacklist-based censorship attempts, and I don't think we're in such a bad position that people would tolerate anything more restrictive (whitelists or graylists). The great firewall of china is obviously the exception to this.
Cory Doctorow is working his ass off to come out of obscurity.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why-publishing-shoul.html
It's a shame that he's turning into a loudmouthed pundit rather than an author I'd care to read.
I drove down the highway today and was stuck in traffic for a long while. There were lots of cars zipping in and out, but the main problem was a group of long-haul trucks taking up a mile of roadway. The amount of road we have is finite, so the addition of these large trucks is fine for a few, but once you start getting more than a handful of trucks on the road, all traffic is affect.
But Net Neutrality is a tough issue. Yes, clearly, as users we want as unfettered a line as possible. However, the ISP also needs to balance the needs of all the users against the needs of certain special users.
If it weren't for some users flooding the network with massive filesharing packets, this would all be a non-issue. Actually, for most users it still is since most users are not affected at all by bandwidth strangling.
Right...because the Democrats aren't sold out to the telcos.
This is ploy to sell shovels. The rumor has it that he's been piling up options on Ace Hardware shares.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The only sucker around here is the one that thinks that either one is better than other.
The both have sold out. Blasting one and supporting the other is height of foolishness.
A few points to consider:
(1) If you treat Cory Doctorow like he's relevant, then he will believe he is.
(2) Yes, it is important to preserve NetNeutrality, but I'm surprised anyone is writing up an article so late in the game.
(3) "Finally, there's the question of metered billing for ISP customers." This has nothing to do with net neutrality. I don't see what the problem is. He's arguing that people don't know how much internet they're going to use. But, please don't try to fool us into thinking that we have *no idea* how much internet we use. The only way you're going to end up in the top 2% is if you're downloading massive quantities of information (not webpages!) Metered access to the internet isn't much different than cell-phone minutes. (Oh! We have NO IDEA if we're going to use 10,000 minutes a month, or 50 minutes a month - therefore telecoms can't charge us by the minute!) How absurd. I'd be pretty unhappy if they started changing a lot per MB, but in the real-world, I don't see this being much of a problem at all unless you're uploading/downloading Gigs of data. And, isn't this how companies pay for internet service anyway? A company's internet usage will vary significantly based on factors like "number of employees". So, they simply charge by bandwidth.
You're half right. If you had said "Fuck the Republicans AND Democrats" I could agree with you 100 percent.
Whereas today's hottest technologies are texting and Twitter. Stop. Which are very different from the telegraph in... some way. Stop.
I dislike Cory. I hate Creative Commons. I detest copyright, public-use rights, public utilities, and anything related to non-market forces for real property. Intellectual property is a dying term, long dead in my dictionary (note, I am a writer and I get paid to write).
I want to see municipal allowances for duopolies destroyed. Let residents who own property rent it to whoever wants to take the time to rent it. Let competing companies, even at the local level, battle for access to the last mile. They'll get good international uplinks, they'll battle each other on service and price and performance.
Today, we have public funding across the board, regulations that restrict competition, and people afraid of seeing 500 internet lines over their house (note, they won't).
Cory should roll over and retire. He's a geek's dream, and a capitalist's nightmare. Capitalism will save the web, net neutrality won't.
If you treat brit74 like he's relevant, then he will believe he is. Just saying...
"give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
What generosity? The city owns the land they're using, not you.
In exchange for the huge capital outlay of installing the infrastructure, the city gives them certain rights. It's a win-win.
Let's see if I can summarize the gist of most Slashdot articles recently:
- Screw any internet provider that wants to cap any users or charge a lot more for heavy users.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to give more weight to some traffic over others.
- Give me my P2P
Sorry, something has to give. It's basic economics.
Cheap internet. Open internet. No usage caps.
Pick 2.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
In 1994 I worked for a company setting up an ISP. We called in the phone company to order 50 lines. (Dial up was all there was then ). The company was not happy, especially that we were ordering business lines, with a low cost, 15 cents for each outgoing call but no cost for incoming calls .
As an ISP we only had incoming calls. They had no choice, since phone systems had to sell lines to anyone ( oh the joys of regulation! ). Had the phone version of net neutrality not been in place, the phone companies would have throttled or taken over the internet - and we would not have the open net we have now.
Bookwormhole.net -- over 11,000 published book reviews.
Where do you live where it is possible to just "switch" to a different ISP?
Everyone I have lived (save one place) has only had one option for high speed internet. One cable company which was granted a sanctioned monopoly to service the area. If you didn't like the way they did business your options were limited. DSL for a majority of locations is not nearly as fast as cable- if you live close enough to the service station at all. If the only other option is dialup and you are protesting slow speeds on non-affiliated sites.. what's the point? The entire internet will be as slow as the original ISP throttling (if you do this solely to make a point to the ISP and can live with those speeds- kudos to you).
The problem is these ISPs have been given sanctioned monopolies over certain areas. The consumer does not have a choice. The unfiltered internet will not win because consumers cannot switch to it. The unfiltered internet can not win because it won't have the budget to break into those monopolies, because the monopolies will be collecting money from their affiliated preferred business partners, and the unfiltered internet will not be.
And finally, the unfiltered internet will not win because it will be more expensive than the filtered internet- and Americans refuse to pay an extra 2 cents for a safety airbag that will save their lives.
www.GrenadeHop.com
Parent was referring to the somewhat recent Google April Fool's joke, not actually trolling. See: http://www.google.com/tisp/
My God Slashdot, have we gotten to the point where people just mod as "Troll" anything they don't understand?
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
Does anyone know of an ISP that is actually blocking a competitor's site?
Careful! Some QoS is good! I *want* my ISP to QoS VoIP traffic. If they QoS their internal VoIP traffic, but not traffic that goes outside their network, it that their fault? Will stupid laws prevent them from providing quality VoIP services within their network? What if the ISP routes VoIP traffic to special links? Is this a form of QoS that violates the spirit of the Internet?
I think it is unfair for me to have to pay more for my bursty usage just because some guy wants to torrent 24/7. If you want more expensive Internet service, then by all means, pass a law that prevents capping. The funny thing is that a law like that will just help the big telcoms that have plenty of peering. The smaller, local ISP's will die because they won't be able to support the costs of their transit links.
I understand the sentiment, but the correct answer is "I will never vote for any politician who puts corporate interest ahead of the welfare of citizens and neither should you."
This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians.
Corporations are the enemy of Democracy. Not because it's a necessary part of doing business, but because they've have chosen that path.
The only solution is to take all private money out of the election process. There needs to be iron-clad, enforced limitations on campaign finance, with a Justice Department squad whose only job is to make sure that a brand new set of campaign finance laws are enforced without exception.
The notion (put forth by corporatist SCOTUS judges) that MONEY=SPEECH has been the single most destructive opinion put forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in our history. We will never again have fair elections, accountable office-holders or a strong middle class until we have reduced the influence of money in our political system.
Term limits aren't enough. Campaign finance "reform" isn't enough.
You are welcome on my lawn.
because we would still be using telegraph if we had to rely on the government to improve communications infrastructure
What about
sounds like we'd still be using a glorified telegraph without the government to me.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Because the government is terrible at managing things, has no competition, and little oversight.
Not true, no matter how much it's the cornerstone of libertarian thinking. It's just that the stuff that the government does manage really well hardly ever gets noticed. Examples include municipal water systems, fire fighting and prevention, traffic controls, and park systems. Municipal power companies also tend to do at least as well as their private competitors in the next town or city over in terms of providing cheap and efficient service to their customers.
I am officially gone from
And that's a valid reason to vote Republican?
Some progress is better than no progress. After a while, maybe the Republicans will get a clue and become even more progressive than the Democrats!
But even if that never happens, it's still better to choose the party of least corruption (unless, I suppose, you are a purveyor of corruption).
Because the telcos are terrible at managing things, have no competition, and little oversight.
There, fixed that for you.
But even if that never happens, it's still better to choose the party of least corruption
That is generally going to be the party out of power. So it's actually not a bad idea.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
And his article isn't THAT compelling, but he does bring up a point that telcos and cablecos would like us to forget: their physical plant makes use of public roadways and rights of way to route their wiring to their customers. If they refuse to invest sufficiently in their networks to provide adequate service to all their customers without traffic shaping shenanigans, then government should replace them with someone else who will.
I think telco and cableco ISPs are classic examples of "gatekeeper" organizations who feel entitled to a cushy income by merely existing and having the power to exact that income. In Michael Heller's recent book "The Gridlock Economy" (highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the harm that "gatekeeper" organizations and their sense of entitlement can do to the economy) he relates the history of the so-called "robber baron" castles along the Rhine River in Europe who exacted heavy tolls on all river traffic. There were so many castles and so many tolls to pay that river commerce became largely uneconomical. The economy of the time suffered until the advent of railroads which could bypass the river toll collectors.
Telcos and cablecos are by no means the only gatekeepers who hold back the economy - there are many other good examples. Net neutrality legislation is a good way for us to cut down the power wielded by these modern robber barons and freeing the Internet economy from their tolls.
I agree with your general statements but I do take exception with the statement "This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians."
That statement regarding republicans and libertarians is part of the current liberal myths.
See this: http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Look here: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/DonorDemographics.php?cycle=2006
See that the Dems got the $10k and the $95K plus donation lead categories in even the 2006 cycle. IIn 2008, they smoked it by business.
Democrats got paid by business more than the Republicans. The MSM likes to say the Republicans are bought off more but it is not supported by the facts.
I'm not sure public campaign financing will work however. Do you really want to give these people more power to vote themselves more money to promote themselves? I do think it is a free speech issue and I would rather see a laws around TOTAL DISCLOSURE DOWN TO THE PENNY!!! Every penny, every donor, every time I believe would work better. Money should not equal access rather than saying money=speech is the problem. If I want to buy a billboard for my candidate, it is my money and I should be able to spend it as I see fit. It just should be fully disclosed and any quid pro quo should be obvious. That use to be what the press did but...
p.s. I'm not a republican or a democrat.
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
The truest form of "'Net neutrality" is for We the People to force the telcos - at gunpoint if necessary - to sell us back the "wires" and shared public infrastructure that they built for us. Cory seems to have *almost* identified the problem, but not quite, and so doesn't identify the correct solution.
The telecom industry should have been nothing more than contractors to the public interest, just as road construction crews are contractors; we don't allow road crews to retain ownership of the asphalt they lay down, and neither should we have allowed AT&T and its imitators to own the telegraph wires and everything else that has followed. We should have paid them ONCE for that work, and then perhaps kept them on as maintainers of that network, but at no point should they have been allowed to own the wires. That is where we screwed-up. Those wires belong to all of us, just as do the roads and the "airwaves" and the air we breathe. Those are all things shared by everyone that lend themselves perfectly to a bit of socialism... in this case public or (*gasp!*) "state" ownership.
The result of public ownership of the wires would be the inability of the telcos to blackmail us - or each other - for right of access. We the People would be in the driver's seat; if we didn't like the antics of one or more telcos, we could use our ownership of the wires to force them to shape up or ship out.
"Corporations are the enemy of Democracy"
Corporations are simply large businesses, structured that way for better profit and efficiency. While they can be powerful, they're no more an "enemy of democracy" than other large entities, including our own elected government. Furthermore, I'd like to see you live without corporate products for awhile. Come back and tell me what life is like for you when you can no longer buy cars from Toyota, computers from Apple, burgers from McDonalds, fly on planes from Boeing, or take antibiotics from Merck. You get back to us on what it was like to try and build your own cars, grow all your own food, and make your own clothing.
"The only solution is to take all private money out of the election process."
Bull. We need more private money in elections. We should be able to give whatever amount we damn well please to candidates and causes as long as a donor's list is publicly available. This is one thing I absolutely hated about John McCain, this stupid naive notion that government limitations on campaigns would make campaigns cleaner. All he and Feingold did was muck up the works and insure that new dodges and work-arounds would be created.
When you limit what people can give in a campaign, you limit their voice, because everything in a campaign... travel, TV commercials, everything costs money. What you're arguing for is government enforced limits of political speech. Screw that. McCain and Feingold were wrong about this, and so are you.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And prior to that the Repubs got more. Maybe business saw that there wasn't a chance in hell McCain/Palin was going to win, and wanted to put there money where it was more effective (which is indicative of the problem, just looked at the opposite way).
In the present context, it means towards more socialism and away from absolute rule.
Kinda hard to have it both ways.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Examples include municipal water systems, fire fighting and prevention, traffic controls, and park systems.
And Internet in certain parts of Canada.
As a Canadian with a Crown Corporation ISP it never ceases to amaze me how "libertarians" in the US with "open markets" receive so much less service and pay so much more for it, and rail against the type of service I have because "it never works".
I think many people miss the real danger here. Yes, if your own ISP is doing stuff you don't like (filtering, throttling, prioritising, spoofing, whatever) then you can change them -- in a fair market, at least. So that sort of thing generally won't be in their interests.
But what if it's not your ISP? What if it's a backbone provider, or some other middleman?
Suppose an upstream provider threatens to throttle traffic bound to/from Amazon (say) unless Amazon pays them a big fee. If neither you nor Amazon have a direct business relationship with them, then neither of you can work around it by choosing another provider. How can a competitive market fix that?
The real problem, as I see it, is not discriminating against packets based on their type (email, P2P, web, whatever), which some might consider fair and reasonable, or at least justified; it's discriminating against packets based on their source or destination, which can never be fair or reasonable. That's what we need legislation to prevent.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
It always fascinates me, the way grown men retreat to ...
Wait, wait, wait... stop right there. That's one assumption too many. Who says anyone here is a grown man? And if they happen to be so foolish, I challenge them to cite evidence... evidence sufficient to counter 99.97% of all /. posts ever.
[Ego]out
In Canada, back in the good ol' socialist days of a Single Phone Company, if Bell did something greedy and stupid, all you had to do was call up the CRTC, (the Canadian Radio & Television Commission) and lodge a complaint. I'd done it a couple of time, and the problems magically vanished. That was back when I didn't mind paying taxes quite so much, because my government was actually doing something useful.
Then the Public Relations people for some greedy corporate start-up told everybody that a single phone system wasn't competitive and that we were in danger of all becoming communists or some stupid air-head shit, and the idiot masses were manipulated into pressing for Bell's system to be opened up to the glories of competition. And because people are fucking stupid in large numbers, easily swayed by emotional messages, I now have several awful phone services to choose from all of which charge too much and calling the CRTC no longer holds the kind of wonderful powers it once did.
Overarching governmental powers don't fit well for every situation, and in some cases they are downright bad. But when it comes to vital systems, like communications and medical care, I want a really big hammer to smash greedy, lazy, stupid assholes with. I USED to have that big hammer AND an efficient, affordable phone system, and now I don't. So thank-you very much for making my life that much more crappy with your stupid social experiment which I told you was going to fail back when you first jumped on the bandwagon in the heady, wide-eyed days of your first year at some ass-hat university where your young minds were molded. You know who you are.
-FL