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FCC's Net Neutrality Plan Blocks BitTorrent
master_p writes "The FCC's formally issued draft net neutrality regulations have a huge copyright loophole in them; a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was 'reasonable network management' intended to 'prevent the unlawful transfer of content.' The new proposed net neutrality regulations would allow the same practices that net neutrality was first invoked to prevent, even if these ISP practices end up inflicting collateral damage on perfectly lawful content and activities."
Obviously, the only use of Bit Torrent is illegal file sharing. /SARCASM
I have a bad feeling about this...
Is this just protocols or also destinations?
Could your ISP block websites which it considers to be involved in copyright infringement?
Might it even only allow you communicate with a whitelist of IP's?
We told you that any government-mandated net neutrality was going to be a lot of fun.
But alas, people continue to live with their idyllic, dog-like trust of government, politicians, and bureaucrats, and didn't listen.
Not to mention the whole net neutrality debate was mostly paranoia anyway. The real solution is for local governments to do something about the monopolies they grant telcos, but it's always easier to pray that god (the government) saves the day.
Stupid. As people will just change protocol, so.. what will you do? repeat your strategy? then enter on a tecnological battle where you ban thinks that "look" like suspicious "bad" traffic. How much time will this war need to result on a almost totally broken internet where all applications that need reliable latency fail for not apparent reason?
Do not start trowing rocks, if you live in a cristal house, concast.
-Woof woof woof!
You expected "net neutrality" regulations to call for actual neutrality? Of course it was going to have some caveat in it to allow ISP's to regulate traffice the government doesn't want to flow.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Here you go, your neutrality regulations,
bought and paid for by your local, friendly *AA.
no no, no need to give thanks, they're here for you.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
I'm guessing this is less an unintentional "loophole" than a very intentional concession to the lobbyists who are writing this bill.
The only reason Congress cares about "Net Neutrality" is that some big tech companies like Google are lobbying hard for it, while big service providers like Comcast are lobbying against it. But since neither group actually cares about your right to use BitTorrent, the RIAA lobbyists are free to stick in some extra restrictions like this.
I'm ever so glad the Supreme Court thinks these corporate groups should have even MORE influence over our elections.
The key word here is: " unlawful transfer of content"
The reason BitTorrent has not suffered the fate of Napster is that there is significant noninfringing uses, ranging from Linux ISOs to public broadcasting to companies like Vuse which use BitTorrent for purely legal, liscenced content.
Thus you could do blocking of specific torrents under this proposed regulation, but you couldn't block all bittorrent.
It is questionable to include, because I don't like the idea of copyright enforcement in the wire (its too easy to abuse), but the headline is wrong: this would not block BitTorrent.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Trouble is, the democrats always want start with a compromise. When you are in a debate cum argument, you never start with a compromise. You do your best to get your way in totality. This is where the republicans succeed, they are ruthless and merciless about pushing their views and only seek bipartisanship when they have exhausted all possible angles.
The irony in all this is that legal file sharers will be harmed, while people torrenting stuff illegally will simply find solutions that are harder to distinguish from normal traffic.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Do you think you'll get more of a response if you write your senator or the CEOs of Comcast and AT&T and Verizon?
If there were no regulation against monopolies, internet service would almost certainly be in the hands of one. They wouldn't ask anyone for permission to block any protocol, they would just do it. (CEO Bob wants another 10% to the bottom line? No problem... shut down port 25 and double the price of mail storage.) Not to mention the fact that without serious investment by DARPA, the internet may not have existed in the first place.
When a functioning democracy is in place, you can affect change with your vote, and it barely costs you anything except your time. That's supposed to be the equalizer for corporate power, since you're not going to have as much money as anyone in the Fortune 10,000 (if there is such a thing). When there's not even a mechanism in place to reign in business shenanigans, they just have to hold back enough so there aren't riots. Unless they can figure out a way to make money from riots.
We are supposed to be a constitutional republic, which holds everyone equal in the eyes of the law, which should be written by the society as a whole -- not just the rich and powerful. This is specifically due to the abuses of the monarchies and churches and companies that dominated society at the time of our founding, and continue today. Once again, the answer to a non-functioning democracy is a functioning one. Throwing away the government check to corporate power won't do anyone a damn bit of good, except for the people who own the corporations.
If they block bittorrent, they'll suddenly have millions of WoW players at their main offices with pitchforks and torches demanding to know why they can't update...
You've got a malformed tag
Every time a net neutrality article comes up, I ask the same question--how is handing control of the internet over to the government somehow better than what we have today, as if the government is some incorruptible entity that does everything right? Giving it to the government makes it susceptible to lobbying from groups like the RIAA, and I knew torrent traffic would be the first on the chopping block.
This is sad but funny. Out of some alarmist political agenda scaring people about a problem that doesn't even exist, naive people were demanding that we give the government control of the internet, taking it away from ISP sysadmins based on the usual anti-capitalism arguments. Well, have fun, because you're getting what you want...government control of your once-free internet.
FOSS can be for pay. See RHEL. The F in FOSS is Free as in Speech, as well as in Beer. Yes, ideally, we all want "as in beer" as well, but it's not required for it to be FOSS.
You are not the customer.
You can sign the petition here: http://www.realnetneutrality.org/
Claims to be part of the EFF's effort and it's linked to directly on their site.
Who could have predicted that more government regulation of the Internet might have a downside?
If there were true competition in the market, the government wouldn't need to do anything.
Right. But there won't be.
Last mile wiring is a natural monopoly: there's a high cost to burying the fibre that goes to your house. Most likely you're only going to be a customer at one ISP. If you want, say, five competitors, that means four unused wires.
That means each ISP has to charge each customer on average at least five times what it cost to bury the fibre.
It would be much more effective to bury one set of wires, have one organization maintain that set of wires, and then let different companies compete on delivering different services (telephony, internet, television) over those wires.
And if you're the first company to connect a wire to Joe's house, when the first competitor shows up, you could offer Joe free internet until the competitor goes away. Then you could jack up his rates to make up for the lost profit when he's back to being locked in to your service.
If there were true competition, the government wouldn't need to step in. But there isn't. So "We The People" need to step in, using the government as our tool.
Unfortunately, our tool apparently doesn't always obey our commands or do what we want.