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Net Neutrality Supporters Hammered In Elections
Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn writes in the Huffington Post that one of the results of the mid-term elections was the defeat of Representative Rick Boucher, the current Chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, widely recognized as one of the most tech-savvy and intelligent members of Congress, and long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues. Boucher has been the best friend of fair use on Capitol Hill writes Sohn. In 2002, 2003 and 2007, Boucher introduced legislation to allow consumers to break digital locks for lawful purposes, a fair use exception to the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and while the odds against that legislation passing were always great, Boucher understood the symbolic importance of standing up for consumers' rights to use technology lawfully. 'As important, he served as a moderating force both on the House Energy & Commerce and Judiciary Committees against those many members of Congress willing to give large media companies virtually everything on their copyright wish lists.'"
Very few people that I know who don't work directly with computers have a decent understanding of net neutrality. I actually know several people who believed that moron Glen Beck when he said it was an "Marxist takeover of the internet", which is about as far from the truth as you can get. I don't believe that these candidates were voted out because of their net neutrality stances, I think it was more an issue of health care and the economy, but if they ever want this issue to be understood and voted on by the public then they need to run campaign adds explaining it in very basic, honest, terms.
Democrats may have greater support among the Hollywood celebrities that are visible to the public, but I don't think there is much evidence that they have closer ties to the megacorps that actually own the studios, who are who the MPAA represents.
Forging packets as a mechanism to foil the use of any lawful software or device would violate every net neutrality proposal I've seen, all of which prohibit ISPs from preventing the customer from using any lawful device or software without regard to the mechanism by which that is done.
"The biggest ISP no-no we have seen was Comcast and torrent tomfoolery. But no net neutrality ideas under discussions would have stopped that, because in that case Comcast forged traffic, they didn't limit anything. It was your network's stack response to forged packets that caused a slowdown."
But Comcast did add that traffic onto the network with the intention of limiting the torrent traffic. The mechanism by which they limited the traffic was forged packets sent to your network stack. I believe it should be the intention that makes the deciding factor and not the process by which that intention is done.
Actually Capitalism is any economic system where the means of production are owned and profited by private individuals and organizations rather then the state. What you're talking about is a strict free market where the government doesn't do anything but enforce contracts. Also it is sometimes called Laissez-faire economics. Which is why you can be a firm capitalist and still believe that the Government has the right to stop the selling of lead laced toys.
Under capitalism, the providers get to provide whatever traffic shaping they want. If you don't like it, get a another provider.
This is not a provider issue, this is about who owns the Internet backbone. The company with the biggest portion of the backbone wins. I recommend reading up on the subject: http://advice.cio.com/who_owns_the_internet_we_have_a_map_that_shows_you
You kinda missed the point entirely.
If I am paying for an unlimited plan with say 4GB/s - then I want an ultimated plan with 4GB/s. If I am 'saturating the network' in this manner - they should not have offered this plan at those speeds.
Now, if I really am causing a problem - then if they just throttle ALL my speed would be fair. If they decide to throttle (say) most of the internet, but give me great speeds on a sponsored site - that has nothing to do with me using up 'too much' internet.
Let me enlighten you...
Source Obama Taps 5th RIAA Lawyer to Justice Dept
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
My condo association is largely run by idiots who signed a contract with Comcast to get service. No other provider in my area is willing or able to provide service. And I live in the beating heart of Chicago, in one of the neighborhoods with the highest population densities and median income in the city.
WiMAX/4G I can get, but the latency makes online gaming impossible (no thank you, 2000MS ping times!). Satellite is the same thing, and also has other issues (board rules about dishes, I'm in the midst of a bunch of high-rises and they block most orientations). DSL isn't happening for reasons that the phone company has not made clear.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but I assure you, a lack of choice (or, at least, a lack of any kinds of viable choices if you do anything that benefits from or requires a lowish ping) is not uncommon.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
but I don't think there is much evidence that [Democrats] have closer ties to the megacorps that actually own the studios
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.php?cycle=2010&ind=B02
Time Warner $20,266,434 88% (D) 11% (R)
Walt Disney Co $11,643,166 68% (D) 31% (R)
Vivendi $4,682,771 66% (D) 32% (R)
Sony Corp $338,730 80% (D) 19% (R)
DreamWorks SKG $198,500 100% (D) 0% (R)
Warner Music Group $178,600 88% (D) 12% (R)
TV / Movies / Music overall 2010: 73% (D) 23% (R)
Not a recent phenomenon either; that ratio has been consistent for years. Please don't take my word for it; the data is right there for you to investigate (and then discount/ignore.)
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I was all set to vote against her until she ended up as the G.O.P. candidate.
If you're going to refer to two women in the same sentence, please do not use pronouns for both. Since you were last talking about Carly Fiorina, the first "her" should be referencing Fiorina. Since that makes no sense in context, you should have simply said "I was all set to vote against Barbara Boxer until Carly Fiorina ended up as the G.O.P. candidate."
It's the only arrangement that makes any sense.
Carry on!
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
In the case of natural gas, which is an interchangeable commodity, you can have one set of pipes and multiple suppliers. The company that I buy my natural gas from is not the one that delivers it to my house. For Internet service, you can separate the delivery service (wires or cable) from the service that connects that "last mile" to the Internet.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
You're also not telling the whole story: Those weren't just "some concessions" to build the networks that were tiny. AT&T's network was built out over the years with government subsidies at the national, state and local levels. The cable company networks were built out with government concessions... that they would have some say in how fair the network would be by being able to hold them accountable through their franchise contracts.
The government gave the companies this money to build their networks, then the networks went out and got the rules changed (state level franchise contracts, no more public access, no more inexpensive cable for low-income residents, etc), and now the networks are saying "you have zero say in your investments". THAT'S tantamount to robbery... of the taxpayers.
quick! someone funnel that money through a non-profit which doesnt have to disclose where the money comes from!
The consistency seems to be based on whose in power at the time - this is from 2006 where clearly the money is going to the Republicans.
Rank Organization Amount Dems Repubs
1 Qwest Communications $709,753 35% 65%
2 Sprint Nextel $591,075 47% 53%
3 Qualcomm Inc $451,050 65% 32%
4 Level 3 Communications $432,526 69% 30%
5 Corning Inc $402,860 34% 66%
6 Motorola Inc $362,721 33% 67%
7 AT&T Inc $295,150 40% 60%
8 T-Mobile USA $293,075 44% 56%
9 Cellular Telecom & Internet Assn $263,574 42% 58%
10 Verizon Communications $244,600 43% 54%
11 Loral Space & Communications $201,282 92% 5%
12 Alltel Corp $162,300 49% 51%
13 Western Wireless $140,000 7% 87%
14 Alcatel-Lucent Holding $116,044 42% 58%
15 Nortel Networks $110,237 38% 58%
16 Strategic Communications $78,325 1% 99%
17 Anderson Group $74,025 91% 9%
18 CompTel/ALTS $73,000 38% 62%
19 Avaya Inc $65,850 38% 62%
20 Tower Ventures Iv LLC $63,900 98% 2%
> Libertarians think that REGULATING an entire INDUSTRY because of POTENTIAL problems is tyranny.
Can you show me an industry that's completely new and is being pre-emptively regulated even though they're never done anything wrong before?
Of course you can't. You seem to think that screaming about tyranny will get you votes though. Sorry, that only works for Republicans.
Relevant to this specific /. article, the telecoms are regulated because of how they acted before (and the way they constantly continue trying to push the boundaries does NOT help your, or their, argument).
None of that is entertainment industry money, those are pretty much all pure communication players, and indeed companies that would stand on different sides of a net neutrality debate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Somehow it seems like this wouldn't be a problem if you could just divide the country regionally between these two philosophies
I think the left-wing half is called "Scandinavia" ;-)
Interesting factoid: in a recent episode of The Young Turks featured on Best of the Left, Cenk (the host of TYT) talks about wealth distributions. Americans think the richest 20% of the people own 59% of the wealth, they want the richest 20% to own 32% (59 and 32 are averages among the asked), and in fact the richest 20% own 84% of the wealth. [32, 59, 84: IIRC]
In Denmark, the richest 20% own 34% of the wealth, see http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Europe/Denmark-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html
You're welcome over here; we talk english reasonably good, the food's nice, the tax rate is high and the weather is shit during the winter but the people are friendly and trusting. When you've got enough you don't need to squeeze more out of others, and when squeezing isn't the norm people don't have role models to learn it from. [We're like the Canada of Europe :D]