Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Spends $1 Million For Throttling Detection

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.

foamrat writes "Google has awarded $1 million to Georgia Tech researchers so that they can develop simple tools to detect Internet throttling, government censorship, and other 'transparency' problems."

17 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Google by James_Duncan8181 · · Score: 2

    Say what you like about them, but I'm hoping they'll bring this idealistic side out to play more now Eric has been given the elbow. Eric openly admitted that he was the most gung-ho on China of the leadership team, and I have to say I trust Sergey rather more and am a bit happier that he's 50% of the decision-making again.

    --
    "To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
    1. Re:Google by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't trust Google's altruism further than I can throw it(though it is likely that the founders are better than the outside CEO in that regard...); but it is somewhat convenient that Google's business model and business interests happen to be fairly strongly aligned with most of the internet's virtues.

      It cannot be ignored that they want to data-mine you to dump ad impressions down your consumer gullet; but this does mean that they view anybody else trying to do so as "competition" rather than "our bestest buddies in profit"(as with ISPs and Phorm/NSA for instance).

      Similarly, their desire to operate communications services without hindrance is not identical to an ideological stance in favor of freedom; but the end results are substantially closer than are those of entities that wish to hinder communications services in order to raise prices, or prevent "piracy", or the like.

      I don't trust them; but I would say that their self-interest aligns atypically well with much(though certainly not all) of what would want from the ideal internet. I do trust them to follow their self interest. I would certainly prefer the internet according to some genuinely freedom-focused entity; but those tend to be penniless ragtag optimists, rather than corporate behemoths....

    2. Re:Google by ShakaUVM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's always funny to watch an anti-corporate person trying to pay a compliment to a corporation without appearing hypocritical.

    3. Re:Google by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's funny about it? He's basically saying that Google (mostly) does things that he likes, just not for the reasons he'd like them to. It's a perfectly reasonable position to take.

    4. Re:Google by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm curious to know what about my post marks it as "anti-corporate". As best I can tell, I started from a wholly orthodox account of how corporations operate and worked from there.

      Corporations are complex systems designed to serve the (typically financial) interests of their owners. Within the limits imposed by the principal-agent problem, this is supposed to mean that the people who run the corporation serve the interests of the shareholders, by some combination of upping stock prices or issuing dividends.

      Because of that, trying to infer the behavior of a corporation from the human motives of the guys at the top is typically going to be a bad model: one should instead expect that the corporation will act in the interests of its shareholders.

      I was under the impression that that was pretty much the standard model of corporate behavior. If that counts as "anti-corporate"(rather than, say, somebody actually challenging the notion of 'limited liability investments', or even just asserting that having mercilessly self-interested entities around is a bad idea...), then what kind of bowing and scraping would I need to engage in to be "pro corporate"?

    5. Re:Google by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Given that it's a thinly veiled application of Smith's 1776 examination of how selfish actors can end up achieving surprisingly positive effects and externalities(arguably to be found, in less formal language, in Mandeville's 1705 Fable of the Bees...) to the question of what Google is up to in terms of the health of the internet, I wouldn't claim too much original insight....

      As you note, though, my bafflement about how I managed to be "anti-corporate" is only increasing. All I really did was apply a vaguely Smith-esque examination of "invisible hand" effects of profit seeking agents to a classic model of a self-interested corporation...

  2. Boot Strapping... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    a suite of Web-based, Internet-scale measurement tools that any user around the world could access for free

    So, what happens if the Web-based suite is throttled or censored?

  3. Good - more transparency by GFLPraxis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The easier to detect, the harder it is for ISP's to keep such practices out of the spotlight.

    1. Re:Good - more transparency by jd · · Score: 2

      http://www.kitchenlab.org/www/bmah/Software/pchar/
      http://www.isc.org/software/irrtoolset
      http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/
      http://www.caida.org/tools/

      If you want transparency, you can always do it yourself. Why wait for Google? You've a list of tools right there that will tell you who is throttling, when, where, how, by how much, and maybe even what they had for breakfast.

      http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm
      http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm

      Then there's the Weather Channel for geeks. That should give you a good indication of "unusual" packet losses, indicative of throttling.

      http://www.noc.ucla.edu/weather.html
      http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/weather/weather.html

      For more local weather on the tens, there's UCLA and UCSF.

      There ya go, and it cost you rather less than the same information is costing Google.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  4. I for one... by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really appreciate that google consistently places them in the proper position of an infrastructure provider, setting up their monetization to be supported by open, fair access.

    I don't trust "intent," but I do trust a business that is set up to maximize profit when things are best for the "little guy."

    Their APIs are a joy to work with, too.

  5. I want a million bucks too! by DarthVain · · Score: 4, Funny

    If Country = "Canada"
          Then Print "Yes, you're are being throttled!"
    Elseif Country = "China"
          Then Print "Yes, you're being censored, I hope you can read English or this will be really confusing!"
    .
    .
    .
    PROFIT!
    .
    .
    .
    End

    1. Re:I want a million bucks too! by Terrasque · · Score: 3, Informative

      Elseif Country = "USA":
              Then Pr^CHello, this is agent Smith. For your own safety, please stop visiting these terrorist sites. This is your first and only warning.

      --
      It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
  6. First Post!!!! by Dutchmaan · · Score: 4, Funny

    DAMN! Throttled again... That's Google's project right there. Hiring 1000's of first posters and measuring the delay!

  7. Buffer Bloat by seifried · · Score: 2

    A lot of what looks like throttling (especially of latency sensitive applications like VOIP) may actually be buffer bloat - http://www.bufferbloat.net/, so while not malicious the end effect is the same (stuff that should work, doesn't).

    1. Re:Buffer Bloat by mtaht · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The original gatech study showed not only bufferbloat, but enormous variation of base latencies in the first mile for different brands of cable modem as well as for different kinds of DSL and wireless technologies.

      Slides: http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/1102/slides/aims1102_ssundaresan.pdf

      Some commentary: http://gettys.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/caida-workshop/

      I look forward to the followup!

  8. Re:ISPs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I also live in Ontario, Canada. I was on Rogers until about a month ago when I got fed up of their throttling. I switched to Teksavvy cable, which rents/leases the bandwidth from Rogers. As soon as the switch happened I noticed a HUGE difference in my download and upload speeds, and this was before I switched to the new cable modem that I bought from Teksavvy! The comparison is like night and day.

    Proof enough that Rogers throttles? It's obvious to me and anyone else thinking logically. How they can deny that they are not throttling people and get away with it, I don't know. And now this new "Speed Boost" technology they are advertising? In other words, they're basically reducing the amount of throttling they're doing when there is a lot of bandwidth available, to give the appearance of a "speed boost". Criminal behaviour, if you ask me.

  9. Re:Yah! by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

    #1) Google caved to Verison in an effort to break the logjam that is stopping network neutrality legislation. Yeah, I'm not happy they're willing to compromise over something so important. But I'm not seeing how spotlighting network neutrality breakage helps Google with some ulterior motive. It'll probably help them put Verizon over a barrel and force them to accept NN.
    #2) Nifty. Got anything juicy to put in the comparator? Cause aside from some sites being re-ordered and some ads being different, I'm not seeing how letting people detect throttling is at odds with taking into account regional differences.
    #3) Ah yes, Google's cash cow, that whole "Search" thing that they do. I hear it's kind of important to them. Like a proprietary secret of sorts. Alright, alright, the world be more knowledgeable and probably better off in the long run if this was public, open and free. But as far as corporations go, not giving away their main product is hardly evil. And it still has nothing to do with throttling detection.


    Here's a vital bit of info that'll help you get over your fear of Google: A free and open Internet, where everyone uses it to... do whatever, makes Google money. If everyone used ONLY the services in their ISP's walled garden, or only ever went to facebook, then the Internet is diminished. And Google along with it. It is in Google's financial interests to make the Internet a good place to do things. Because finding stuff on the Internet is still the primary thing they do.