EFF Slams Google Fiber For Banning Servers On Its Network

MojoKid writes "Anyone who has tried to host their own website from home likely knows all-too-well the hassles that ISPs can cause. Simply put, ISPs generally don't want you to do that, preferring you to move up to a business package (aka: more expensive). Not surprisingly, the EFF doesn't like these rules, which seem to exist only to upsell you a product. The problem, though, is that all ISPs are deliberately vague about what qualifies as a 'server.' Admittedly, when I hear the word 'server,' I think of a Web server, one that delivers a webpage when accessed. The issue is that servers exist in many different forms, so to target specific servers 'just because' is ridiculous (and really, it is). Torrent clients, for example, act as servers (and clients), sometimes resulting in a hundred or more connections being established between you and available peers. With a large number of connections like that being allowed, why would a Web server be classified any different? Those who torrent a lot are very likely to be using more ISP resources than those running websites from their home — yet for some reason, ISPs force you into a bigger package when that's the kind of server you want to run. We'll have to wait and see if EFF's movement will cause any ISP to change. Of all of them, you'd think it would have been Google to finally shake things up."

Comments

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Adelphia used to have these anti-server rules way back when and it even applied to P2P traffic.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand... "Seem to exist only to upsell you a product"... No, they exist because people running servers put significantly more upstream load on the network. Upstream is the very limited side of these asynchronous connections which you're sharing with many other people. So these clauses are there to require you to pay more because you're using more.

I don't understand what it is with people and just expecting that network capacity is an infinite resource, everyone seems to expect that they should be able to use unlimited bandwidth and all times, in both directions, and that everyone doing this for 10 a month will work just fine.

Get a reality check already, network infrastructure is expensive, and has limited capacity. It's entirely reasonable to expect people using more, or using the part which is more scarce to pay more.

Who cares what it is

[Naatach]

Who cares if it's Torrents or running your own porn site. Don't block it. Be the non-evil medium of transport, not another Comcrap.

Re:Who cares what it is

[easyTree]

As consumers become more capable on average, there's less opportunity to sell a service delivering the modern-day equivalent of writing your own name.

Re:Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when your computer is infected? Isn't your computer functioning as a spam server or an infected ad server or a file server for malicious content? Tjose servers are OK but a web server isn't?

Re: Who cares what it is

[alen]

Isp's care about uploads since it costs them money to send data to another network operator

This is why business service costs more
They assume you will send more data to other networks

Re:Who cares what it is

[Wootery]

The intent is different, and that's important.

If a user is intentionally doing that, I imagine Google wouldn't be pleased.

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Isp's care about uploads since it costs them money to send data to another network operator

This is why business service costs more
They assume you will send more data to other networks

Well, that's one consideration, there are others as well. For example, it's a lot easier to keep spam operations on your network to a minimum if you simply block mail server ports for residential connections. In actual practice, most ISP's don't mind if you run a more private type of server these days, especially things like games.
The other reason is that when you run a server, you're a lot more likely to utilize your entire bandwidth capability, and do so around the clock in many cases. This messes with the "buffet style" internet service sold to most residential subscribers. Yes, ISP's could offer dedicated bandwidth but most people don't want to pay what it would cost to actually have enough bandwidth to support their connections 24/7 at max capacity. In many places you'd have to charge people upwards of $100 a month just to give all of them a dedicated 5meg.
Another reason, specific to cable modems, is that instead of offering a symmetrical connection they offer a low upload with a high download. This is because they use a larger chunk of spectrum on the wire for the downstream carrier than they do for the upstream. Many ISP's who offer business grade modem service do it by using different carrier ranges for residential and business modems, and segregate traffic through the IP network so they can have a lower "over-sale" percentage on their network for businesses.

The list goes on, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's far more complex than simply writing it off to greedy ISP's.

Re:Who cares what it is

[drcagn]

Actually, most ISPs disconnect your access when they notice your computer has become a zombie...

Re:Who cares what it is

[poetmatt]

what's stupid is the article title. It's targeting *all* ISP's ridiculous policies, not just google for going along with it.

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Tier 1 ISPs charge based on bandwidth, not on upload or download. Most peering agreements now-days don't even care about ratios, just value.

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

In many places you'd have to charge people upwards of $100 a month just to give all of them a dedicated 5meg.

Holy crap! that's expensive. You can purchase 1mb/s from a Tier 1 backbone provider for near $0.60/month. Plus fiber lease, plus port cost; but those are fixed costs.

Re: Who cares what it is

[symbolset]

I seriously doubt there is an ISP in the world that would dare charge Google to send data to their customers. The negotiations would be swift: "OK, we won't."

Re:Who cares what it is

[symbolset]

While I agree with you there, the stupid goes deeper even than that.

Re: Who cares what it is

[unrtst]

Isp's care about uploads since it costs them money to send data to another network operator

This is wrong for so many reasons.

* The ISP's that most of us deal with are the cable and dsl providers. Uploads are limited so they can offer a higher download speed, because that's what most people using that service need the most of since they're consumers. The upload/download ratio has little to do with anything else.

* If most uses ran servers on their home connections, then, as far as their bandwidth costs, it would actually behoove the big ISP's to encourage that usage pattern. Since there are only a few large ISP's that users use for the last mile (time warner, comcast, verizon...), much of the data would stay on their network (user -> user). As it is, people still put up pictures, video, information, etc, but they're putting it on places like facebook, youtube, flickr, etc.... so any time a user accesses that, they're paying to transit that data (well... it's a lot more complicated with the CDN's and peering agreements and such, but it'd still be cheaper if it was user - to - user).

* A blanket statement like "uploads ... cost them money" completely ignores all the different points and ways that bandwidth billing occurs. For example, with many peering agreements, deciding who pays is often based on who *provided* the most data (ie. whichever party is "uploading" more data gets paid, because that represents content which people want to access - it's valuable). So in that case, more users uploading would be beneficial. That said, the really big ISP's also offer a lot of business services (colocation, leased lines, etc), and they have a lot of the content on their network already. The users actually help them balance out their usage patterns.

In any case, business service costs more due to technical reasons, not because the ones and zeros going one direction cost more than the other direction; reasons such as: There is dedicated bandwidth which is FAR more costly than being able to share it among thousands of people; The last mile has limited bandwidth and they have to pick channels (or the equivilent) to be upload/download; There are SLA's and uptime guarantees; There is far better support which costs them more money too; etc etc etc.

Re: Who cares what it is

[hhw]

Absolutely false. Ingress traffic is much cheaper than egress traffic. Try negotiating bandwidth pricing as an eyeball network (consumer ISP), vs as a hosting provider, and the difference in cost can be an order of magnitude. Peering is often based on equal ratios, and that applies for both egress and ingress traffic. When the traffic is balanced, the network that has more egress traffic may have to pay the other network for the difference. Therefore, ingress traffic not only costs these providers nothing, but can actually reduce their paid peering costs. As such, they will sell transit connections to eyeball networks for pennies on the Mb.

Re: Who cares what it is

[rtfa-troll]

I seriously doubt there is an ISP in the world that would dare charge Google to send data to their customers. The negotiations would be swift: "OK, we won't."

Google is more than google.com. The ISPs want to force them to pay for Youtube traffic whilst getting free access to the search engine.

There is a whole world of hurt coming for someone.

Re:Who cares what it is

[serviscope_minor]

It's targeting *all* ISP's ridiculous policies, not just google for going along with it.

Yeah, but google was the only one that ever claimed to not be evil.

Everyone knows that the rest would boast about selling their own grandmother for a buck.

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

This is crap (but true). ISPs connect to other ISPs and networks to other networks. Everything one receives, another one sends.

It doesn't *cost* more, they simply want to charge more so they have the power.

Re:Who cares what it is

[cdrudge]

Google states their policy which follows the norm within the industry. They don't advertise one thing, then refuse to deliver when the time comes. They aren't pulling a fast one on the customer. How exactly is Google being evil? Just because Google doesn't provide a service that someone thinks that they should doesn't make them evil. It makes them a company that is trying to make money.

Re:Who cares what it is

[serviscope_minor]

How exactly is Google being evil?

Because they claimed to support network neutrality. They lied.

Re: Who cares what it is

[shaitand]

The ISP's charge each other to send data over one anothers networks so they care if their consumers send more data across. So... stop charging each other to send data over one anothers networks. Problem solved. This is just the ISP's colluding to invent an excuse to charge you more.

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Peering is often based on equal ratios, and that applies for both egress and ingress traffic.

Most Tier 1 backbones charge on bandwidth, regardless of the direction, and the expected price of world-wide transit on a Tier 1 is expected to reach somewhere between $0.20 and $0.40/mbit/month by 2016.

Peering refers to "free" bandwidth. That costs $0.00/month. Those are private contracts, and while many try to maintain ratios, plenty have asymmetric ratios. Look at YouTube or Netflix. They will peer with anyone that can manage 100mb of traffic. This is win-win for ISPs and YouTube or Netflix.

Most ISPs are willing to peer if port costs of the peering link is offset by the bandwidth savings from having to pay their up-stream for transit.

Re:Who cares what it is

[poetmatt]

Every other ISP claims they support network neutrality while they do this. What is different aside from your own perspective (which has no basis on facts)?

Re: Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Hosting providers charge more for upload because upload is a limited resource. Their connections are all symmetrical, so when their 10gb link is at 8gb/s up and 200mb/s down, you don't charge for down because it is not a limited resource.

Same thing, but opposite on the other side. Customers tend to pull data down, so the download is a limited resource, so you charge for that, but upload is relatively untouched, so it's cheap.

No one pays because of the direction of the data, but based on the limitations of resources. Un-used resources are lost forever, so an under-utilized direction on a symmetrical connection is essentially free.

Re: Who cares what it is

[cthulhu11]

Also, transit isn't the only cost. Serious routers can easily add up to half a million bux -- I've seen the PO's. Want your provider to be highly available? Need two of those then. And space to run them. Lots of power. Big-ass UPS systems and/or redundant diesel generators on the roof. Talented people to architect and maintain the network. Hell, buildings sometimes even charge monthly fees per *crossconnect*. Now enter Joe Six Pack who throws up some random "server". He has no concept of "bandwidth" or how much will get used over the course of a month, but you can bet he'll be pissed and tie up CSO resources (which also cost) when he gets charged overage. Trust me, ISP's are hardly raking it in.

Re:Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's a good thing too. I'm all for net neutrality. And I think the spirit of net neutrality is embodied in deep packet inspection and cutting off of zombie computers.

Re:Who cares what it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if it's Torrents or running your own porn site. Don't block it. Be the non-evil medium of transport, not another Comcrap.

===
Now-a-days, you can buy a small webcam security package that permits you to put the output to the web. In other words, a few bucks at Costco will get you four or 5 cameras and a web interface.

These packages are used mainly by nurseries to allow parents at work to click the host ip address and see if their baby is doing OK.
There are also similar other businesses that need to do that. (In a large building, putting the cameras at the building entrance to show full time who, if anyone, is there.
Those are servers. Why should they be permitted. The internet has to be open. Google may choose to throttle the server performance, to match what competitors charge for the same bit-rate. Eff is right.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of all of them, you'd think it would have been Google to finally shake things up"

Maybe when the do no evil line seemed to ring true, now they seem nearly as evil as the rest around.

Re:Why?

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

Some evildoer modded this coward down. What a surprise.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blessed are the evildoers, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Re:Why?

[TheInternetGuy]

Blessed are the evildoers, for they shall inherit the Earth.

I thought it was: -Blessed are the Geek, for they shall extend the Earth's super class.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Fiber's gigabit offerings did shake things up. This story is just arguing that it was a gentle shake.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So this. If you want to run servers espceially public or for profit you should be using a business class connection not abusing your personal home connection

Re:Why?

[symbolset]

It's

The meek shall inherit the earth, one meter wide and two meters long." - Lazarus Long

Re:Why?

[symbolset]

• The story is not true. Google does not prohibit servers. They do not ban servers. They do not block servers. They suggest that you "should not" run servers. This is actually IN the article. So the evil you speak of, it ain't Google.
• The devil would tar the saint with unearned Evil, so to corrupt the hearts of Men. He is the father of lies.

Google really doesn't care if you run an mtr network stress test between Kansas City and Norway 24/7 and suck up your whole gigabit both up and down. They would just prefer that not everybody did all at once. If too many people try that they're going to have to do something about that.

I'm pretty sure Norway is with them on that. By now Kansas City's aggregate bandwidth is probably greater than the capacity of the transatlantic fibers.

Re:Why?

[symbolset]

Oldschool ISPs oversubscribe their uplinks 20x or more. I was one way early when 40:1 or more was more common and my uplink was a T1 that cost over $10K to install and $2K monthly. A T1 is 0.00154 gbps, and I broke even oversubscribing fractions of that to pay for my own crazy Internet habit back in the day. That's what you get with Comcast, TWC and all the others: the legacy many to one design. They architect for minimal uplinks and oversubscription at the neighborhood, town, city, metro area and region levels. They do it because they have the burden of history: they have installed kit installed at great cost that wasn't fiber, or is the wrong kind of fiber. They moved too soon. That's not Google's problem. I see no evidence Google is doing this, or at least not at this level. Google doesn't have to pay for peering and uplinks - they have their own insane bandwidth backhaul, dark fiber, peering points and nobody would dare deprive their customers of Google services. Google earnestly believes that end users are each going to need this bandwidth both up and down and so will have built it to reduce oversubscription. They design their own network stuff down to the hardware level and hire out the build, so it's not like they're paying $1200 for a 10gig GBIC and millions for switching architecture. At L2 these signals aren't even properly Ethernet from the neighborhood to Google's switching center. They're likely on 100Gbps all the way to the neighborhood, and terabit for distro links, and plenty of active and dark fibers on every run because the labor is the biggest cost so may as well pay for the thick bundle. Having architected a solution that supports insane symmetric 1Gbps bandwidth to every home they are creating a Kansas City Enclave of bandwidth that will soon exceed the aggregate of the entire rest of the US, both consumer and commercial.

Google's insane architecture and backhaul supports this: remember, they read and index the entire Internet EVERY DAY minute by minute, and failover entire datacenters from one country to another in milliseconds - so fast you can't even tell it happened while you're using it. Their backhaul is likewise ridiculously undersubscribed or they wouldn't even have entered this game. They have to carefully meter their googlebots to not overwhelm poor feeble servers. They deliver Youtube to every home that can take it in HD at full rate, unlimited streams. One KC subscriber with wget on this link looks like a Denial Of Service attempt to a traditional blog server. All of them at once is a freaking flood that could bring down Taiwan or intercontinental links, and they're barely even started building out one city. Google has the bandwidth to support unlimited 1Gbps servers. The non-Google Internet doesn't. They have to not bring down the global Internet, so: they give guidance on how to be a polite users of your Google Fiber flamethrower, rocket launcher and nuclear weapon.

I think that's what they mean by "you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection". Your Google Fiber connection is a serious responsibility. It's the Internet equivalent of WMD. You should use it responsibly.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

They suggest that you "should not" run servers

This is how it starts out, the problem is Google will try and get people to not run servers, instead of clearly outlining you have two "open" options. Run on, or don't, it it is your choice, and considering the fallout from previous things, before they were caught hand-in-hand with the NSA. They seem to be like every company out there they want to run things in a copy cat manner. "Well these other ISP's are doing it, it only makes sense we follow".

Your post should be modded to the top for pointing out they are not forcing it. But they will sooner or later, I always looked a Google fiber as Google trying to run there own monopoly on internet connectivity. Google has come out with this PR over, we are free and open to helping out those in need, and to better lives, but they continue to do the opposite. They never follow thru with anything, they dump it on someone else to update or maintain there projects, and refuse to take blame when it goes wrong, or manning up to take it upon themselves to make sure an issue is being tackled and fix before it becomes an issue.

Re:Why?

[symbolset]

Usually I'm OK with "slippery slope" arguments, even though I know it's a logical fallacy. The slope is rather slippery usually, after all.

The thing is that you group them with others, when they are breaking with the others. The others say it is not allowed. They say they would rather you didn't. It's quite a departure from the slope.

As for what they will do in the future: when Google Fiber was first presented Google Founder Sergey Brin was first to call out this clause and say "if we had had 'no server' terms early on there would be no Google." Sergey is not Google's CEO, nor it's Chairman, but he is their moral compass. Google isn't going to cut off any servers.

As for NSA: I would believe that Microsoft built in backdoors for the NSA, that they installed a tap direct to the NSA datacenter, and for other governments too. It's not like their software lacks for exploits. When China presented Google with "tap and censor or get out" Google got out immediately without question, and Microsoft's Bing trumpeted their China win over Google. Microsoft might play that. Google though? No. Sergey Brin's father was a suppressed Russian Jewish dissident who fled to America with young Sergey at an impressionable age. I don't believe Sergey could participate in such a thing. In fact his revulsion to the prospect of caving on this moral issue is actually why Google left China, Eric Schmidt left the CEO spot and Larry Page became CEO. I think the "don't be evil" motto isn't a corporate marketing thing - Eric and Larry might do the most profitable whether or not it was evil but Sergey just isn't able and he limits.

Now Eric does strategy, Larry does operations, and Sergey wields the power of "no, we don't do that."

Re:Why?

[the_B0fh]

Uh, "server" means you are serving. How do you bring down the Internet by sitting there waiting to serve content?

If you're talking about a botnet, sure. But that's *sending* by initiating connection. Servers send by replying to a connection.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, this is a tangent that has little to do with the actual meat of your post, but it's worth noting that a slippery slope argument is not in itself a fallacy. The "slippery slope fallacy" is only when the "slippery slope" scenario is assumed without warrant.

Re:Why?

[HereIAmJH]

Google really doesn't care if you run an mtr network stress test between Kansas City and Norway 24/7 and suck up your whole gigabit both up and down

Google would care, because there is no way for them to make any money from it. Now if you changed your stress test to do random searches through Google, then they might not care.

Re:Why?

[CoolHnd30]

Interesting... I used to believe that.. However, it's getting harder and harder...

Re:Why?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Actually, they've gone the other way. Their original policy forbade servers on Google Fiber. The "should not" language is a loosening of restrictions over the former policy. So there's no slippery slope. They went up hill without difficulty.

Buisness Package

[ZombieBraintrust]

Does Google offer a business package? If so what is the cost?

Re:Buisness Package

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, couldn't you just like, you know, check that on Bing?

Re:Buisness Package

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a TV show, so no.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is obvious that Google Fiber doesn't want to allow people to host their own server parks behind that really fast broadband line. (I can understand that.)
I reckon that personal servers (like a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with files for oneself and friends) is OK for Google, but hosting a high traffic business website is not.

Re:Obviously

[gl4ss]

Well, it is obvious that Google Fiber doesn't want to allow people to host their own server parks behind that really fast broadband line. (I can understand that.)
I reckon that personal servers (like a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with files for oneself and friends) is OK for Google, but hosting a high traffic business website is not.

well what are they selling then exactly? write some goddamn rules down about it. tell the users of the service the goddamn rules!how many megabytes daily is too much? that's what it's all about in the end. if it's an income generating rule then tell that(if you're making money with the connection).

a fileserver for a few friends can take EASILY the same amount of traffic as a general web service that has let's say 300 daily users.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone transferring 1GB during peak hours will cost the ISP more than someone transferring 10TB off-peak hours. It's not how much data you use, just the shape and timing of what you use.

Re:Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

how many megabytes daily is too much?

If you plot every customer's usage on a graph, you'll see a few outliers on the low end and high end, with most people clustered over a range in the middle. You're using too much if you're one of the people exceeding the average high-end by a large percentage.
Yes, I realize that's vague. Which is why they don't bill you based on such systems, and just come up with a 'cap' or 'connection speed' which is aimed at being just above the high-end users.

There's a lot more than just bandwidth considerations, but those are the big ones. Bandwidth is pricey, if you want to know how much it costs to supply everybody with the full advertised maximum "speeds", call your ISP and ask how much they'll charge you for a dedicated 10meg circuit on a business plan. It's not cheap, and that's not because they're ripping you off. Well, I can't speak to your specific ISP of course, but in general terms.

Re: Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

They did read the fucking Terms of Service, it says they forbid for business servers, ie you make money off it. But no one on Slashdot can read.

Pros/Cons

[dlarmeir]

Yes, running a server from a home ISP is great for people to learn technology, sparks creativity, and is great for those of us who are IT focused. On the other hand, imagine the security nightmare a network like Google Fiber could become with 1gb uplinks and tons of rogue apps and sites infected by malware, bots, etc. There are a lot of IT admins not taking security seriously and if you couple that with inexperienced home admins the threat is real. I'm not taking a stance on this issue saying yes or no, but there would have to be tight controls on the network in order for this to work effectively - hence one of the reasons Google may be reluctant to support it.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Sarten-X]

To wit, with great bandwidth comes great responsibility.

Re:Pros/Cons

[vux984]

There are a lot of IT admins not taking security seriously and if you couple that with inexperienced home admins the threat is real.

The "threat"? The threat of what exactly?

You do realize botnets are already a very real thing. What on earth would be made "worse" if a handful of savvy customers were also running their blog on a private webserver in their basement?

Re:Pros/Cons

[maccodemonkey]

On the other hand, imagine the security nightmare a network like Google Fiber could become with 1gb uplinks and tons of rogue apps and sites infected by malware, bots, etc.

Because this never ever ever happens on machines that aren't web servers.

Re:Pros/Cons

[dlarmeir]

Right on!

Re:Pros/Cons

[dlarmeir]

I never implied that there are not other problems on networks, I was just stating a truth. I feel unnecessary exposure exasperates the problem. This is not a attack on home based servers, I am very much keen on running them myself.

Re:Pros/Cons

[maccodemonkey]

I never implied that there are not other problems on networks, I was just stating a truth. I feel unnecessary exposure exasperates the problem. This is not a attack on home based servers, I am very much keen on running them myself.

I'm confused. It's not like the article is saying everyone should turn on an http server. Just like how other users run Bittorrent servers, or Starcraft servers, or advertise any sort of port at all, why should people not be able to run web servers when they deem it necessary? I don't think the implication was that everybody should unnecessarily run web servers.

If we're out to prevent unnecessary exposure, why not ban all those all services that have server components and could use resources or be reverse engineered?

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the main point would be about risk, and if you were running the network as a admin your primary job would be risk mitigation. Google probably doesn't want to spend the money and deal with the additional overhead and expense of dealing with servers on home user networks. There are plenty of other ISPs and service providers who are willing to do so at a premium.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

ou do realize botnets are already a very real thing. What on earth would be made "worse" if a handful of savvy customers were also running their blog on a private webserver in their basement?

"Savvy"? Give me a fucking break. What I see are a bunch of assholes who know enough to be dangerous who run insecure httpd/smtp/etc installations.

mod_proxy, anyone? How about useless fucking backscatter email.

Re:Pros/Cons

[girlintraining]

here are a lot of IT admins not taking security seriously and if you couple that with inexperienced home admins the threat is real.

Hi. I've been doing network administration for close to a decade. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can't cure stupid. And being smart and experience is no bar from fucking up either. I've done it. You've done it. The guy replying to this comment insisting he wouldn't, yup -- he's done it too. You don't get good network security on your own... it's a team effort. The more eyeballs you have, the less of a chance of screwing up. But it's never zero. There's never perfect security; If it was achievable, I'd be out of a job.

So let's just put to bed now the notion that "tons of rogue apps and sites infected" wouldn't happen if the people on the other end were intelligent and experienced. It'll happen to anyone you put on the other side of that router. Anyone.

Now, let's talk about servers: On the internet, there's no such thing. Oh, you know and I know what a server is. But defining a server at the network level is like defining porn: You know it when you see it. But it's an arbitrary distinction. As far as the network is concerned, it's just a network address... like all the other network addresses. Its only job is to get the packets from the source to the destination. At the network level (ie, the internet), there's no such thing as a server. Now, here's the rub; Whatever arbitrary definition you come up with for what a server is, you're going to find an exception. A grey area. Bittorrent has no concept of a server, for example -- everyone is both a client and a server... or more accurately, a peer. Many protocols are like that.

From a practical standpoint, there is no way to define a server that won't, in some manner, ban a legitimate use situation by someone who isn't trying to "serve" anything. It's unenforceable anyway -- you're just a tunneled connection away from plausible deniability. Connect your server to the Tor network as a hidden service...

Ultimately, the only thing the ISP will be able to claim is that your upload:download ratio isn't like most of the others on their network. And this, right here, is the key to the argument. ISPs don't want people to have a lot of upstream capacity because they can't cache it, buffer it, or otherwise manipulate the data streams to avoid paying for bandwidth out to their border routers. Comcast, for example, intercepts windows update connections and re-routes them to local servers. They have hundreds of them. As far as the actual download of a patch goes, Microsoft never hears from your computer if you're a Comcast user.

Stuff like that is the reason for the fail whale language about "servers"; It means less profit. Network administration and security is separate -- it may be the excuse, but it's not the reason.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

and that is Google's problem. Not mine.

Re:Pros/Cons

[wbr1]

This argument is spurious at best. There are millions of malware hosting, email relaying, bot net infected machines out there. Having some (even a lot) of home servers of various ilks spewing crap is no different.

If some cracker wants to host infected wares or ransomware, there are plenty of places to do it for free or cheap, especially out of the US. Hell though, even spawning, tearing down AWS instances are used to constantly move the hosting of crapware, as long as the person perpetrating it has some method of updating the links to it, or a redirector that does so for him from static email links, he is gold.

You also speak of inexperienced home admins. Do you think every mom and pop small business on a 'business class' account with 5 computers and a nephew that setup their internet presence is any more secure? If so, I have some prime swampland for sale in Antarctica you may be interested in.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Scott Swezey]

If you colo a server with an actual data center, you don't get a free pass to run a compromised system. Home ISPs should be no different. Abuse department alerts you to an issue, you have 24 hours to correct the problem and respond, or your service is suspended. Simple.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

ou do realize botnets are already a very real thing. What on earth would be made "worse" if a handful of savvy customers were also running their blog on a private webserver in their basement?

"Savvy"? Give me a fucking break. What I see are a bunch of assholes who know enough to be dangerous who run insecure httpd/smtp/etc installations.

mod_proxy, anyone? How about useless fucking backscatter email.

You do realize that the majority of machines sucked up into botnets aren't "servers" at all, but average people's windows machines hit with some trojan because they're either not behind a firewall(/router) that is properly configured and/or they hit every porn site in existence and rely on either poorly configured or no antivirus software, poor security practices in general, etc?

Most people I know who are savvy enough to configure "httpd/smtp/etc" run linux/bsd, and have a decent amount of security knowledge, generally are firewalled, etc.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

The most thought out and correct post I've seen on slashdot in years.

Thanks.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Streetlight]

It looks like by your discussion every computer on the Internet might be considered a server. When one launches any web browser the first thing it likely does is send out a request for the download of a home page. The act of sending an http://..../ string into the Internet void is acting as the origin of data, thus some might consider this as behaving as a server. ISPs need to tighten up what it means to be operating a "server" on a residential account. This might get pretty complicated as much of what residential customers do involves serving data to the net. Those TOS documents might become incredibly long and would not be complete. One discussion I read believes that something as common as "hosting" a Slingbox is hosting a server.

Re:Pros/Cons

[DigiShaman]

Are those Akamai servers hosting updates in Comcast's networks on behalf of Microsoft? Or, are these Comcast's owned and operated Windows Updates cached servers? It's it's the later, I'm curious to know how Microsoft feels about not being in control of this process.

BTW, would be nice if Netflix had local cache servers at the ISP backend. But being it's in direct competition with Comcast's own VOD services, I'm sure that's not going to happen anytime soon. Not a technical issue, but one of competition.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Wingman 5]

Microsoft is fine with it, they even bundle the software in to windows server to do it yourself!

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

It will lead to dogs and cats living together.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, let's go back to 9600 modems then...

Oh wait! Did we reach broadband without it being a nightmare?

Re:Pros/Cons

[AngryNick]

running a server from a home ISP is great for people to learn technology, sparks creativity, and is great for those of us who are IT focused

Isn't that the supposed reason Google is doing Fiber, to encourage learning, collaboration, and innovation by removing bandwidth as a contraint? Or is this a lie?

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it has anything to do with bandwidth or cost. Google can't access or sell your data on your server, like they can access your data on their servers..

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

Even spiderman knows to use his webs wisely.

Re:Pros/Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

That is most likely not what Comcast is using, since Windows has to be manually configured to use WSUS (generally via group policy)...

Dynamic DNS is your friend.

[roc97007]

p.
Just sayin'. I've run three websites out of my garage for years. The router provided by the ISP has dyndns support built in. A little tricky to set up, and then I forgot about it.

Re:Dynamic DNS is your friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed the entire point what EFF is trying to make.

And since we are talking about static and dynamic, good luck running a DNS server on dynamic IP.

Re:Dynamic DNS is your friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

What fucking difference does that make? You can update a cname record with your DHCP assigned WAN address. That doesn't magically make all the incoming connections on port 80 (or whatever you have configured) invisible to your ISP. I don't think you understand how this stuff works.

Definition of a server

[Frobnicator]

A server is something that serves data. If it responds to a request for data, that makes it a server.

Does your IP address have ports mapped open for games or other products? It is a server!

Does your IP address respond to ping requests? It is a server!

Does your IP address respond to ANY inbound connection? It is a server!

An ourtright ban on servers does not make sense. It breaks the Internet. Bandwidth limits might make sense in some scenarios, but not in this case for fiber-to-the-home. If the data needed to travel through their servers and other equipment a cap could be potentially justified in not saturating their equipment. But for fiber to the home where the other end is connected to internet backbones, the ISP doesn't bear any traffic so bandwidth limits are nonsense and profiteering.

Re:Definition of a server

[Zero__Kelvin]

"A server is something that serves data. If it responds to a request for data, that makes it a server."

Your SlashID is low enough that you have no excuse for knowing that this simply isn't true.

"Does your IP address respond to ping requests? It is a server!"

No. It isn't. Please turn your geek badge in at the front desk and escort yourself over to digg. Thank you.

Re:Definition of a server

[VortexCortex]

I've created game servers that escape your definitions.

My centralized server lists game host machines that can be connected to.
To connect to a server you contact the negotiation server and receive the scheduled synchronized time of the next host connection window.
The clients send requests to the negotiator just prior to the host pinging the negotiation server to get the list of client port ranges.
Both the game client and game host try to connect to each other over the range of ports each the other.
The connection has punched through the firewall without anyone having open ports by default and no UPNP support is required, the port numbers are even fairly randomized due to the routers at both ends.

TADA: A game "server" that's not a "server" by your definition.

Re:Definition of a server

[VortexCortex]

To perhaps dissuade other retarded moderators from downmodding: My post was in agreement with its parent, illustrating that the definition of server is even more illusive and far reaching than simplistic definitions of application logic. TOS rules need to be very precise and clear to determine what is meant by server, else uploading a video to Youtube could be considered becoming a video server.

Note that my explanation of standard "punch through" technique is similar to that used widely in peer to peer applications using the STUN protocol. Neither the game client or game server waits to "accept" connections with open ports, they only send UDP packets to each other after determining port ranges. Skype used to act this way: If you had your ports configured correctly you could become a "super node" and thus serve as a relay.

Feel free to downmod this self reply if you're irrationally offended by anything I've ever written. Also feel free to fuck right off if you do so.

Re:Definition of a server

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose I have a "HTTP 1.1 GET" server running most of the time. It typically responds to inane internet comments, which are just begging for more data.

Re:Definition of a server

[Anubis IV]

I agree with what you're getting at, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you've overgeneralized the meaning of what a server is by quite a bit. After all, TCP/IP relies on ACKs coming back, and surely we can agree that just because a device ACKs, it doesn't have to be a server.

Really, we should refine your definition to be that a server is something that serves content, with a distinction being made between content and data that is used to acquire access to that content. Of course, where "data" ends and "content" starts is a question that's open for debate. After all, you could easily make an argument that — when considered in context — responding to a ping is indeed responding with relevant "content", yet none of us would likely consider such behavior to be a sufficient for referring to a device as a server, which means that even my refinement to your definition is still insufficient for our needs.

As such, until it can be defined better, the rule should not be enforced, since there's no way to enforce it consistently.

Re:Definition of a server

[Anonymous Coward]

So my iPhone, that responds to FaceTime requests is a server?
or my Nest thermostat?
or my web camera?
A server is as it is defined by the provider, not the client server paradigm.

Re:Definition of a server

[Anonymous Coward]

this simply isn't true [wikipedia.org].

"A peer-to-peer (P2P) network is a type of decentralized and distributed network architecture in which individual nodes in the network (called "peers") act as both suppliers and consumers of resources, in contrast to the centralized client–server model where client nodes request access to resources provided by central servers."

So, all the nodes act both as clients and... servers.

Re:Definition of a server

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. They don't. They are both suppliers and consumers. Servers are suppliers, and not consumers. When data is exchanged bidirectionally in a peer to peer setup there are no servers. Again, the definition is quite explicit, and both of you are showing how little you know about network terminology.

Re:Definition of a server

[Frobnicator]

you are showing how little you know about network terminology.

Seeing as I've been developing servers since the 1993 and working on the business and contract end for about a decade I'm pretty confident I understand what a server is. As for their agreement, it does not define server anywhere I could find. It says that they are disallowed, but never defines them.

As for your slightly incorrect definition, in P2P systems like bittorrent the machine is both a client and a server. If the machine is a leecher (does not accept incoming connections) then it operates only as a client. If the machine is a seeder (does not seek new connections) then it operates only as a client. The application is both a client and a server.

Re:Definition of a server

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Seeing as I've been developing servers since the 1993 and working on the business and contract end for about a decade I'm pretty confident I understand what a server is."

So you are telling me you've been at this since '93 and you still haven't figured out why it is always important to be specific rather than ambiguous? I can only assume that you failed to check my SlashID before trying to present yourself as someone with more experience than me. In any case, one can refer to a P2P node as being both a client and server simultaneously, though this is a foolish think to do. There is a reason why we have a term P2P, and it is specifically to differentiate (i.e. disambiguate) this scenario from the client/server model. While the term is ambiguous, we can determine some things that make it clear that the ISP is not referring to that. They are certainly not saying that your machine cannot respond to pings, nor that you cannot use, for example, teamviewer to allow a skilled relative to assist you with a computer problem. They mean web servers, email servers, and other standard business servers which corporate environments typically have set up in a client server configuration. While they don't make it explicit, they are clearly speaking in the context of the client/server model.

not that different from cheap servers

[Trepidity]

Google offers 'unlimited fiber to the home' in the same way that Dreamhost offers 'unlimited web hosting': unlimited with some restrictions on the kind of use you'll make of the service. So Dreamhost won't let you use the unlimited space for hdd backup, since it's only supposed to be for webhosting, and Google won't let you use the unlimited bandwidth for hosting an FTP server, since it's only supposed to be for residential internet access.

I would personally like there to be reasonably priced unrestricted fiber to the home. But I suspect it would cost a lot more. Have you looked up what an unrestricted port at these speeds costs at any kind of colo facility? If you really want a 1 Gbps commit, you're going to pay a lot more than Google Fiber's prices, even at the cheaper facilities.

Static IPv4 addresses and non-NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

Is really what's at the heart of ISPs wanting to charge more for business connections that have servers on them. Yes, I know, dynamic DNS kind of makes that not important but not really. For IPv4 where the address pool is limited, there is very definitely a cost associated with having a server.

The other side of this is that running servers (or expecting to be able to run servers) means that your IP address is globally visible - i.e not NAT'd. Whilst at the moment Google may be providing fibre users with non-RFC1918 addresses, they may at some point in the future move various groups of fibre users to RFC1918 addresses. At that point the service will become incompatible with running servers so if you had been using a non-business account for servers then all of a sudden that would change. By prohibiting servers as part of the ToS now, they're keeping themselves clean of future anger around a change like that.

Re:Static IPv4 addresses and non-NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

So charge extra for a static IP. My ISP does (only a few bucks, though). That will also encourage people to NAT and use virtual domains if they're hosting multiple web sites.

Don't prohibit it, charge for it.

I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[Simulant]

I can live with not running a business off my consumer internet connection but I am mad as hell that I can't run my own mail server.

At this point one wonders if the NSA is involved....

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, except for the part where nobody runs a mailserver off of their home internet connection. All reputation services (AKA blackholes) block address ranges assigned to home internet services. It's pretty much impossible.

I don't know why people are up in Google's grill for what is basically a boilerplate policy that ALL home ISPs follow. Google doesn't want people buying home fiber links to host their web sites.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[skids]

Yeah, except for the part where nobody runs a mailserver off of their home internet connection

I do, on the months when Comcast doesn't arbitrarily block inbound SMTP. Then on the months they do, I have to change my MX and tunnel from another IP.

RepDB's usually are only used to block your outgoing mail (which is more client than server), and you can work things so that you send directly (with opportunistic encryption) to anyone not using those reputation feeds, and bounce through your ISP for the people who's servers turn you down.

That is, on the months when your ISP doesn't arbitrarily block outgoing SMTP.

It's really friggin annoying that ISPs use these shotgun measures and can't just aid honeypot/dynamic repdb projects with nice short TTLs so that only the actual spammers and owned systems have to jump through hoops.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can live with not running a business off my consumer internet connection but I am mad as hell that I can't run my own mail server.

This points to a protocol shortcoming. There's no way (afaik, though I have not read through the relevant RFCs) to associate a port with an email address (i.e. random@gmail.com:2526), like with various other protocols. Otherwise, email servers might not be so easy to prevent without deeper (more intrusive) inspection.

Perhaps there are technical reasons why this feature is not available.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[DigiShaman]

Foreign SMTP traffic being blocked at the ISP level. Home IP block ranges being blackholed. PTR records not provided to home accounts. All these issues are solved using a Smart Host. Unfortunately, depending on the monthly fees, it might be cheaper to just upgrade to a business class ISP account or host your e-mail elsewhere.

I've only had to setup Smart Hosts for clients with an SBS box that was in rural parts of America. Sometimes netblock ranges were blackholed and/or PTR records weren't supported at the ISP level for their DSL connection. And they were lucky to even have that for connectivity.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[jdogalt]

disclaimer: complainant here who hasn't RTFA yet. My standard response to the business issue is this quote from the FCC Network Neutrality document-

FCC-10-201 Report and Order Preserving the Open Internet:
(*** emphasis mine ***)
"
Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet’s openness enables ***anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else***,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy through e-commerce
"

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[Simulant]

Yeah, except for the part where nobody runs a mailserver off of their home internet connection. All reputation services (AKA blackholes) block address ranges assigned to home internet services. It's pretty much impossible.

I don't know why people are up in Google's grill for what is basically a boilerplate policy that ALL home ISPs follow. Google doesn't want people buying home fiber links to host their web sites.

I did not find reputation services to be a problem. Comcast blocking inbound port 25 as of a few months ago is the problem. I've run a mail server at home for nearly 10 years.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[crashcy]

I can't help but feel a lot of this anti-Google venom is from people not living in one of the cities getting fiber.
For what it's worth, I'm getting my fiber hookup in a couple weeks, I will be hosting my own server from home (just a hobby, non-profit, doubt it'll get any traffic), and I really don't expect to get any trouble for it.

Re:I'll be donating to the EFF again this week.

[cdrudge]

Feel free to start your own ISP and set your own policies. Until then, you're a customer and you play by someone else's rules.

WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Announcer]

Why run a WWW server at home, when you can use a hosting service for as little as $4 per month? Why not let someone else worry about installing patches to the OS, and keeping the hackers/bots at bay 24/7? I have several sites on several domains, and it's only $100 a year. IMHO, that's far more worthwhile than having to keep constant vigilance over my own hardware.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[ODBOL]

Your choice. Other people have other reasons to make other choices. The question here is not, "why run a WWW server at home?" but, "why prohibit people from running servers at home?"

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[kwerle]

Because.

I wanna run a server at home.
I don't wanna pay $4/month more.
I want to run some non-standard OS.
I want to test my custom hardware.
I want to connect my server to my lights.

What do you care why?

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Sarten-X]

I run a server at home because I don't just want web hosting. I want file hosting, email, remote desktop, music and video streaming, video games, and IRC to boot... And I want to access much of that from my home at the same time, and manage it the way I want and upgrade it when I want.

I did once price out what I'd be spending on Amazon to get close to my needs, and it came out to a couple hundred dollars per month. It's cheaper for me to just buy a server and rent space in a data center... and cheaper still for me to run it at home.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying that people who buy cheap hosting are fucktard, I agree that some people don't want/shouldn't try to run their own server. But... Low end web hosts are jokes. Ever seen the latency on those sites? The limitations that make no damn sense? Game servers are another matter. Ever want to run a server for a small Minecraft server for a small group of friends? Just about any junk machine around will do it for you and every bit as cheap as the cheapest respectable Minecraft hosts.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Stumbles]

Because there is no reason to trust your data to "the cloud". What you do with your data is your choice. Be a decent enough person to let others decide what they do with theirs. If they want direct and physical control that is their choice and they should have it.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[pla]

Why run a WWW server at home, when you can use a hosting service for as little as $4 per month?

Why run Excel at home, when you can use Office365 for as little as $8.33 per month?


Some people lease their cars and have a new one every 2 years. Some buy them new and always take them to the dealer for service. And... Some buy a wreck, restore it to drivable condition, and do all their own maintenance on it to keep it running for literally decades.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Gaygirlie]

Why run a WWW server at home, when you can use a hosting service for as little as $4 per month?

That can just as well be turned into "Why pay $4 a month for a hosting service when you can use any old machine at home and host it yourself for free?" On that same note, this website may very well be connected to other services that you're offering and you may not want to hand all the precious data to a 3rd party that may or may not be trust-worthy.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Llamalarity]

Exactly! I wish my web hosting would compete with my ISP rather than the other way around. Lots of cheap hosting options for us wanna bees.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/05/24/1312252/fios-user-finds-limit-of-unlimited-data-plan-77-tbmonth

that's why.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[ancientt]

Agreed and I'd like to expand on the "test my custom" to "everything."

At work I run and admin web servers, mostly Apache. I choose Apache because I have the most experience with it and have developed a feeling for how much I can trust various configurations. I don't have that level of experience with Nginx. However, I like Nginx better and feel like it would be better suited to meeting our business needs. So I need to spend a couple years getting better aquainted with Nginx, what can go wrong, how they find and handle security issues, how quickly patches come out, how easy it is to handle stop-gap measures, etc.

I can only do that somewhat freely at work because there are different restrictions on what I can do with machines at work and what I'm willing to have fail at work. If I can run Nginx at home for a couple years, I don't have those restrictions. It's hardly reasonable to consider my hobby tinkering a business and unreasonable for me to have to upgrade to a business class service just to give me the ability to ensure I understand how to configure the hardware, software and services I am trying to learn.

I tried FreeBSD for a while at home. I absoutely love some aspects of it. After a couple years, I decided I didn't like the upgrade cycle, but I didn't learn that at work and shouldn't have to. I tried OpenBSD too and discovered some drivers didn't like some of the hardware I was using and that would have been a misuse of my time to discover at work since they don't pay me to play around learning new stuff. I'm a better admin professionally because of my hobby experience at home.

I too had to ask and answer "what is a server?" I have an old Cisco router a couple switches and a 1U server with no onboard hard disk. The Ciscos have built in telnet and web server interfaces. Even my wifi router has an onboard web server for configuation. Surely they wouldn't consider the Ciscos and wifi router servers? Of course not. The 1U dell needs a tftp server to function and can run various systems but none of them necessariy have to offer externally available software servers of any sort. That doesn't sound like a server to me either. In the end, I try to keep my homework limited to a couple things I'm tinkering with and not offer anything the general public might be interested in from my home connection and I believe I'm operating within the spirit of the rules. That doesn't stop me from wishing that the rules were actually more clearly established along reasonable lines. As an admin of a network myself, I believe that it is my job to ensure not only that we have clear rules about what is allowed and what isn't but also to ensure that dangerous or abusive use is curtailed by technology, not a "you find out that you broke the rules only after you've gone far enough to be punished" approach.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Wrexs0ul]

I get your point that for the majority of people it's not worth your time to setup a web server when a thousand providers offer good service for the price of a specialty coffee. But, when I was 16 I wanted to learn about the WWW, Linux, and CGI, and a local web server with Perl let me host some friend's sites. Nowadays I still have a web server at home plus three racks in our DC for projects.

Controlling your hardware and OS is a good learning environment, plus complete control over things that might cost way more than $4/mo. I learned a lot about tweaking hardware and network security by having to do it early on. Today I use a home web server for some automation projects whose hardware needs physical access to the devices it manages.

So, in short, lots of reasons to host at home. Not even high-bandwidth-for-cheap ones.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do not trust the cloud"?

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

Sorry, that was the wrong answer, thanks for playing
  -- Google

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Demonantis]

Technically my router is a server since I have the router management site open on the WAN side and it has dyndns running. My ISP sold me the router and the firmware is unaltered. The terms of service language is absolutely vague. This isn't just about just WWW servers.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[ruir]

Explain than to me why *I* as a customer should shoulder the costs of what you don't want to pay. Because at the end of the day, the ISP is a business and has to recover costs somewhere. Maybe hmmm, they will invent *tier* contracts in alternative of having a socialist alternative reality where I share your costs for a service I don't need or want?

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

...and because I want to know if someone subpoena's my data.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[skids]

No, that's an example of the ISP not having developed a proper economic model nor invested in the gear to enforce it. Any ISP selling "unlimited" data should be prepared for that pipe to be full to capacity. Or in other words they should staple their PR department's dicks to the table for promising what they cannot deliver.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[kwerle]

Explain than to me why *I* as a customer should shoulder the costs of what you don't want to pay. Because at the end of the day, the ISP is a business and has to recover costs somewhere. Maybe hmmm, they will invent *tier* contracts in alternative of having a socialist alternative reality where I share your costs for a service I don't need or want?

Fine by me.

Because I should be able to run a trivial little server that turns off my lights using a webpage. Bandwidth is nothing. I should even be able to run a coms server so I can voice chat with my friends while playing whatever game is hot this week.

Frankly, unless you're hosting porn, your bandwidth usage for hosting a website is likely to be peanuts compared to someone who is only doing 'client' things like torrenting movies.

I'm all for honest limits. Bandwidth limits, byte limits, whatever.

But arbitrarily declaring servers as not being allowed is lame. And lamer still from Google. I ran servers on home machines for years though disallowed. How many ISPs do you know that are competent enough to catch it? But Google? They'll figure it out.

Or maybe this whole thing is miscommunication? You do realize in this case that I am theoretically paying google for internet connectivity, right?

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[ruir]

google port knocking http://www.zeroflux.org/projects/knock/

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[kwerle]

Right, and that's a fair workaround if you are only serving for personal use. And you aren't worried about being at locations that limit your outbound ports. And you don't mind jumping through the additional hoops of setting it up. And you are running on an OS that is ported to (or you're willing to put the server behind something else that does run a ported to OS).

But in this particular case it is a workaround that should not be needed.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Streetlight]

Because.

I wanna run a server at home.

I don't wanna pay $4/month more.

I want to run some non-standard OS.

I want to test my custom hardware.

I want to connect my server to my lights.

What do you care why?

Item two might be: I wanna pay more than $4 per month for electricity, cooling, hardware repair

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[formfeed]

I run a server at home because I don't just want web hosting. I want file hosting, email, remote desktop, music and video streaming, video games, and IRC to boot...

That works with ISPs that don't allow servers. The ISP doesn't care all that much about the servers you run, as long as you limit the access and don't run a public server, know what you're doing, and don't turn into a nest for spam and virus breeding.

Their Call Center people on the other hand are a different case. Never ever mention the word "server". Not even "display server". Just remember, that you don't run a server. You simply enabled remote access for that one file manager thing on your home computer. And that other port is open, because your thermostat app wouldn't work on your cellphone otherwise. No, not a server but a thermostat that has something built in, so I can change the temperature through my cell phone. File server? No, it's just my laptop connecting to my external hard drive that hangs on that pogo thing .

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandma uses less bandwidth than you. WTF should she be subsidizing your use?

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloud hosting for 24/7 dedicated hosting of a server (or servers) is the biggest rip-off ever conceived by sales departments. They managed to turn what was a commodity with a surplus of supply and plummeting prices into a freaking cash cow, with every Tom, Dick, and Harry entertaining illusions of "Big Data" grandeur forking over cash like it was the end of the world.

Cloud hosting, with image cloning, real-time VPS instantiation, etc, makes absolutely no sense for like 99.9% of customers. They'd save gobs of money by leasing or co-locating physical servers, even paying out exorbitant "remote hands" fees.

Amazing. Just amazing. Oh, and to top it all off, in the process they basically handed all their data over to their provider and to the NSA.

The mind is absolutely, fscking boggled.

Re:WEB hosting isn't expensive

[Announcer]

This post was voted "troll"? Good grief, all I did was ask an honest question! I did NOT intend this as a troll.

My definition of "server" in the context of this post was a WWW server that would be hosting multiple page sites, possibly even leasing space to others. Obviously, that definition is different than some people's.

The idea of it being a completely PRIVATE "server" where one logs in to control devices in their homes didn't occur to me.

So, if that was worth wasting Mod points to vote "troll" so be it. They're YOUR Mod points. Waste them if you wish.

Why so confused?

[scarboni888]

It's very simple. If it's a 'server' that can generate revenue then they want their share.

You can't charge bittorrent clients you are seeding to but you can take credit card numbers, paypal donations, and bitcoins through a web page.

Remember to always follow the godforsaken $$$ whenever you want an answer to anything even remotely related to business.

It's not hard, really.

Re:Why so confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of home users have ever purchased such packages through their ISPs? I suspect it's vanishingly small. The ability to throw up free or ridiculously cheap servers for personal use or even hobby business use is so common that going with your home ISP doesn't even register as a possibility.

Google (and all the other major ISPs, which all have such clauses) are chasing non-existent customers.

Use more, pay more

[bhlowe]

If you're using the service more, you should expect to pay more. Otherwise, the little guys end up subsidizing your bandwidth hogging ways... rather than the other way around, where the big data guys pay more, and the little data using guys pay less. You expect that with almost every known business transaction.... get off your wallet and pay the extra cash for a business account... (I have Comcast business level internet for an extra $50/mo and I have 30Mbps upload... a terrific deal that I don't expect the little lady down the street to subsidize.)

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that no "more" of the service is being used. Just because you are accepting connections doesn't mean you are receiving any or sending any substantial data over them.

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly our house uses less than 10 Gig each month but yet we run a SIP for our phone line (so run asterisk), run an openvpn server ssh smtp etc.

Re:Use more, pay more

[gallondr00nk]

If you're using the service more, you should expect to pay more.

Assuming you ran a mail and web server within the agreed bandwidth limits, how would you be abusing or over utilising the service?

It strikes me as one of those arbitrary decisions that are made purely for the bottom line, like how some telecom companies charge extra for tethering despite it costing them absolutely nothing extra.

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're using the service more, you should expect to pay more.

Of course, but a server does not necessarily use more. A lightly used server can use much less data (both up and down) than Joe Typical Consumer who downloads movies, music, games, Windows updates, etc.

The owner of a server using 1GB up + 1GB down per month should not "expect to pay more" than someone who browses websites amounting to 2GB up + 10GB down per month.

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is business customers use less bandwidth than residential customers do. Businesses don't have the time to waste watching Netflix streams and youtube. A little facebook maybe. Mostly email and database access. They pay more because they are used to it. Backwards than that of other services like telephone, which that they do use much more than residential customers do. It's the norm. I have some residentail customers that use nearly as much as a large office with over 150 computers in it. The residential customer pays $44/month, the large offce $250/month. At least on my network, business customers use 1/4 the bandwidth of a residential customer on average.

Re:Use more, pay more

[misexistentialist]

What if the Comast rep talked the little old lady down the street into signing up for a plan that costs the same? Does that mean everyone else's bill has to go up? You'll never see an ISP offer real usage-based billing, because they'll never admit how little bandwidth costs.

Re:Use more, pay more

[bhlowe]

Besides their "triple play" $99 deal that goes up to $150 over 3 years, I haven't seen a lot of pricing games from ComCast. Pretty sure Granny isn't going to sign up for business class internet. If she does, she pays an extra $50 and does really well on FPS games.

Re:Use more, pay more

[jdogalt]

"If you're using the service more, you should expect to pay more."

disclaimer: complainant here: I agree with this. But there is not an option for it, nor an option to _not use the service more_ *and pay the same* (just happening to be running an openarena game server instead of skyping like your next door neighbor, but using no more bandwidth than your neighbor).

Re:Use more, pay more

[dave420]

Exactly - business connections are expensive because of the SLAs, not bandwidth.

Re:Use more, pay more

[fnj]

Assuming you ran a mail and web server within the agreed bandwidth limits, how would you be abusing or over utilising the service?

Nobody said it was abusing or overutilizing. Body said it was utilizing more bandwidth. Why do you think they charge by the litre for motor fuel? They could just charge by the fillup, right? It is the absurdity of a flat monthly rate for internet connection that is the issue. The end-user pipes have become so gigantic that if everybody started running the water continuously at max rate, the general water pressure would fall to practically zero.

Re:Use more, pay more

[xyzyxx]

I hope you're not equating running a server with "using the service more". I have an old desktop running as a server at home, and all it does is handle FTP for my KeePass database at 40KB per inquiry. That's less bandwidth per request than simply browsing the web.

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

The end-user pipes have become so gigantic that if everybody started running the water continuously at max rate, the general water pressure would fall to practically zero.

Then the water company needs to take the Billions they have made and, instead of giving the CEO (and the vice-whatevers) a bonus, upgrade their pipes already!

Re:Use more, pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

So charge me a base price (say $30 a month) and then charge me for what bandwidth I use (say 5 cents a gig, which is actually a hefty markup.)

This is what utility companies do.

Wake Me

[camperdave]

Wake me when they reach my country. Until then I'll stick with TekSavvy.

Re:Wake Me

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

TekSavvy + static IP has been great for testing many of my projects (which are now moving out into hosted data centres as they are becoming more serious).

Re:Wake Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too! It's $4/month for a static IP and they never ask questions about my activities, and don't give any into to the government or any other third party without proper legal requests. I think they'll give you /28s, /29s and /30s for reasonable prices too.

I wish more people knew of TekSavvy around here.

Stanford

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that Google used Stanford's network to get their start (google.stanford.edu). Google wouldn't exist today if they were not allowed to create a server which "provided" them access to the Internet.

Re:friends

[Anonymous Coward]

How did this spam bullshit get posted on /.? Aren't these things screened?

This doesn't make sense

[ruir]

There are a reason there are domestic packages and professional packages: uptime, help desk assistance, troubleshooting and cost. I for one, don't wait to pay extra in my home communication package because the government is messing with and dictating rules to private business. At the end of the day, is a matter of cost, and distributing it - residential have it cheaper, businesses foot a bigger bill. The security nightmare and also extra administration for this to happen in the ISP side has to be paid. There are no magic rules. Unless the EFF wants to foot the bill, it is not the EFF job to dictate who does what. Also most of the residential contracts throughout the world have ridiculous upstream speeds compared to residential contracts who are designed to favour download speeds. Anyway, nowadays who is running services server side must do something wrongunless you are an organisation with considerable resources it is so much cost wise to run it on the cloud.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[MrEricSir]

You seem to have missed the point entirely. Google, like every ISP, is selling something that they claim is "unlimited," but that claim is 100% bogus.

The issue isn't that the EFF wants the government to tell Google what they can and can't offer, it's that Google (and other ISPs) need to be honest about what they're selling.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.. that was incoherent and difficult to read, but it appears you support Google and don't agree with the EFF.

It seems that you don't understand the problem. As you can't define what is and isn't a "server", this means that Google wants to arbitrarily disallow certain kinds of traffic or protocols. This is a real slippery slope. You either sell Internet access, or sell something that resembles Internet access, but has road blocks everywhere.

Here's a car analogy: Say you're renting a condo with a garage, and the condo association says you're not allowed to allow visiting relatives park in your garage, even though you have space available.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly I would say Google isn't offering "internet access". There is more to the internet than outbound port 80 connections.

Re:This doesn't make sense

[ruir]

I haven't read it anywhere in the articleit is talking about running servers. Note, I don't condone deceptive marketing about it being "unlimited". Here the cartel of mobile operators redefined unlimited in 4G as 15GB DOWNLOAD. I even filed a complaint in tmn.pt only to be given a stupid boilerplate answer message. Anyway, unlimited and running servers *is* not the same thing. I fully maintain what I said, I don't want to foot the bill for the hoarders/freeloaders 5%-10% of users who misuse the resources. The price is made with certain operational assumptions, and you get what you pay. Want more, pay more. Want the government to blackmail them to misuse the resources, then also ask the government to charge a flat fee on motorways to charge the same to motorbikes and trailers, or the mail/UPS to charge the same to a letter or sending all your belongings to another city, or force MacDonalds to charge the price of a meal when your extend family of 15 is going there for lunch. Oh, my god, they are profiteering. Business is business, don't like it, don't use it.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[Mitreya]

Fuckheads addicted to high volume piracy, plains and simple.. multiple order of magnitude more bandwidth than anything..

also, the brainwashed people who believe corporate announcements...

First of all, if they didn't want anyone using "orders of magnitude" more bandwidth, then the solution is simple: do not sell unlimited plans! Advertise it as X-GB plans and charge people extra for going over. But they prefer to advertise it as "unlimited" because the commercials have a better jingle to them (vs "200-GB a month plan").

Second, today anyone with active Netflix/Hulu/streaming accounts can easily use a lot of bandwidth without any pirating whatsoever. And these people will be targeted just as much as anyone else. Your average obnoxious webpage without flashblock/adblock will start playing 3-4 decent quality videos and blaring sound! I am sure that uses a lot of bandwidth

So bottom line, let them advertise exactly what they sell and life will be fair once again. But none of this "people who use too much bandwidth will be throttled/kicked-off, but won't tell you what 'too much' is, because that will ruin the surprise"

logic fail

[raymorris]

Browsing the web and such, a person will use full bandwidth for about a second, look at the page, load another in about a second, look at it, etc. Between the time they get home from work and the time they go to bed, the typical web user might load a hundred pages in a day. 100 page loads of bandwidth is what a typical customer costs the ISP, do their bill is based on.

A server can easily serve up 100 pages per MINUTE, 24/7. That's 3600 times as much bandwidth cost than a surfer. If you want to use thousands of times as much, costing the ISP thousands of times as much, you're going to pay more. You're paying more because you cost a lot more. I pay $650 / for the connection I use for my servers, because I use $650 worth of resources.

TFS says "Some heavy BitTorrent users also use a lot of bandwidth, costing more than they pay."

So since they use more, they should pay more, is the logical conclusion.

Re:logic fail

[MF4218]

Clearly you donâ(TM)t use Tumblr. That maxes out my internet connection for hours at a time (All. Those. Gifs.)

Thereâ(TM)s also Vine, Youtube binges, getting the latest episode of GoT/Breaking Bad⦠Running a server just means the data goes in the other direction.

Re:logic fail

[misexistentialist]

You're seriously claiming that expected usage is loading 100 pages per day? Come on now, it's not 1990, and these people are paying twice as much as cable for a reason, and it's not to load 200 pages.
True, Google's $70 fee assumes some typical usage, and at some point the usage becomes unprofitable, but it seems that it must be better for business to be vague about it, while the provider for your servers is operating in a different market.

Google, Marijuana, Slashdot

[crhylove]

The same google who gives all your data to the NSA? Who's high on Slashdot today?

Re:Google, Marijuana, Slashdot

[Streetlight]

It looks like NSA gets all your data before it ever gets to Google or Google sends it to you. These guys have equipment in the backbone providers' facilities to split and intercept the fiber or coax signals on their way to their respective destinations.This way the NSA sucks up all the data in the world on its way to wherever it's going.

Mental corruption

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Admittedly, when I hear the word 'server,' I think of a Web server"

Sad, eh? Because the WWW is the end-all, be-all of the entire internet. Ports 80 and 443 are all you need to know!

Re:friends

[Sarten-X]

Here at Slashdot, we take pride in our relatively-uncensored publication practices. We rely on the public moderators to appropriately judge the value of comments, and accordingly hide spam comments from most viewers. Spam stories, however, are given free reign over the front page.

The other side

[barlevg]

Google Fiber Server Neutrality Violation Being Overblown

In short, Google isn't doing anything that the other ISPs aren't doing (it's not like there's any indication that they will actually enforce the ban), and the reason the language is there is that Google will likely roll out a business package in the future.

Re:The other side

[Anonymous Coward]

Google isn't doing anything that the other ISPs aren't doing

1. Not every ISP does this. At least for ISPs outside the US (but I believe it's true for some US based ISPs as well).
2. Just because others are doing it, doesn't make it OK.

Re:The other side

[jdogalt]

disclaimer: complainant here who hasn't RTFA yet. My standard response to the business issue is this quote from the FCC Network Neutrality document-

FCC-10-201 Report and Order Preserving the Open Internet:
(*** emphasis mine ***)
"
Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet’s openness enables ***anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else***,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy through e-commerce
"

Re:The other side

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, Google isn't doing anything that the other ISPs aren't doing

Oh, being evil? I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice.

Re:The other side

[intermodal]

The problem is primarily in the assumption that any and all "servers" are business usage. Increasingly, personal "servers" of various kinds are finding their way into people's lives, whether it be their remote desktop access programs or the multitude of "peer"-style programs that use what amounts to a hybrid client/server at each end for synchronization or mutual transmission, such as Skype, Dropbox, btsync, and a plethora of others.

And that's not even addressing the idea of running SSH for personal remote access, or one's own noncommercial blog or a personal-use tinytiny-rss server for access from one's mobile phone or tablet.

Re:The other side

[intermodal]

The term "server" is essentially meaningless in this day and age as far as what a home user will generally have. These contracts basically rely on two things. First, that judges don't understand the technology. Generally, they'll be right. Second, that they can use the term "server" for whatever they please. Which is also correct at present, but only if they don't overplay their hand. Judges and lawyers may be largely ignorant when it comes to technical matters of computers and networking, but even they're not going to fall for it when an ISP wants to punish someone for running a progam that lets them remotely access their home desktop as a "server".

Re:The other side

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, Google isn't doing anything that the other ISPs aren't doing (it's not like there's any indication that they will actually enforce the ban), and the reason the language is there is that Google will likely roll out a business package in the future.

Just because other ISPs are really evil doesn't make Google non-evil for only sharing a few of those policies. On the flip side, I do wonder how much Google fiber will charge for a guaranteed static IP address and a business-type connection.

Re:The other side

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, HE DOES IT TOO!" is not a valid justification for anything.

One argument in the ISP's favor

[Chewbacon]

By making it difficult to run a server on Joe Schmo's DSL connection, you remove the problem of malicious servers (spammers, bots, etc). I'd love to run my own mail server the way things are going. I already use SSH to tunnel home and BTSync to keep myself out of the cloud.

Re:One argument in the ISP's favor

[Zero__Kelvin]

"By making it difficult to run a server on Joe Schmo's DSL connection, you remove the problem of malicious servers (spammers, bots, etc)."

Dude,

Put down the meth pipe and step away from the keyboard. That has to be one of the most ridiculous claims I have read in quite some time. Seriously.

Those who torrent

[viperidaenz]

Tend to be victims of traffic shaping and are the first to be throttled if the ISP is low on bandwidth.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

But data transferred is not the issue. You try explaining to customers that they will be charged base on their 95th percentile of bandwidth used during peak hours.

Internet Access

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay for internet service. I want ALL packets transferred uninterupted, period. I do not pay for "Internet Consumer service".

Additionally, when we seperate out a server as buisiness, we are discriminating against people that can not afford to be a business, like small non-profits. I wonder when the day will come that all people form a business just to not be discriminated against.

But Google said...

[wjcofkc]

When they started this whole fiber deal, Google clearly stated that they had no idea what people might use this bandwidth for. They said it was an experiment to see what creative uses people might find for it. This policy clearly goes against that statement. As someone who will have Google Fiber available in the next couple months, this is frustrating. I am a "tinkerer/pseudo hacker", and that means sometimes running an internet facing server of some sort for pure nerd learning purposes. Sigh...

Re:But Google said...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to tinker on your connection, running a server from time to time, I suggest you just do it. Odds are no one will ever say anything to you, and the language in the terms of service is so gentle that it basically says they'll just ask you politely to stop if they do say something.

Start up a commercial data center in your basement and you might have an issue. Otherwise, meh. Google isn't going to bother you.

Re:But Google said...

[MistabewM]

Then embrace your inner nerd. Setup on non standard ports or via VPN with a VPS server as a front end, reverse proxy even. Then you do all sorts of port redirection etc. Providers blocking stuff like this is just a challenge.

Default blocking and non-comm OK, but make opt.

[damacus]

My opinion is that it makes sense for default settings (protecting those inadvertently sharing, preventing a trojan from starting up a common service or opening VNC to the world, etc etc), but a customer should be able to call in and ask that they be exempted from those restrictions. I do understand also non-commercial stipulations and am fine with that too.. but I should never have to wonder if, as a customer, I'm violating my ToS by having SSH and a VPN service sitting on my connection.. it's one of those things where even unenforced it can be used as means for termination and whatnot.

A tale of two fibers.

[DewDude]

Screw whatever karma points I'm not going to get...I have nothing too insightful to say on this matter; but i'm going to talk anyway.

I, too, feel it's a trumped up way of making customers pay for a higher tier. I too wonder why they specifically are targeting web-servers than anything else. One part of me wants to say it's a "public" vs "private" aspect. Look at a device like a Slingbox for example. When you get down to it; it's a server. It's a little device that sends data over the internet. At the same time; it's "hidden" and not publically accessible. You need two individual logins to be able to connect to it; one for the slingbox website; another for the slingbox itself. It's not like *anyone* can drive by my IP and go "I think i'll stream some video". I don't know of a single ISP that's had issue with this. I'm sure there's a few people with google fiber running one. Verizon has never taken an attempt to block mine. or tell me I needed to stop running it. Hell, having this insane amount of bandwidth is what made me invest in one in the first place. Same goes for my remote SSH access. Yeah; that's a server alright; but again, it's not a "public" thing...and mine isn't even on a standard port. So, maybe there's a distinction between a "public" server; like an httpd; and "private" servers like SSH, games, torrents; etc. I run a VPN on my network...and that's not even raised any eyebrows by my ISP...and within that VPN I've got access to any server running on my LAN. Again, this is what leads me to believe they make a distinction between public servers pumping out data to everyone; and private servers that "just happen to use your residential" account.

But, let me focus on Verizon for just another minute; since it's the only ISP I've used for the last 11 years (12 if you count the year my DSL was technically GTEi). My original DSL TOS was on like...a 4"x4" leaflet...and said *nothing* about servers. I read that tiny piece of paper three or four times.....GTE (this was before they completely merged the networks sometime in '02) didn't care if you ran a server on your DSL. Therefore; I did. In fact, I ran a server a large majority of the time I was on a DSL connection. Verizon never blocked port 80....and I don't think they even scanned. Oddly enough; the only port they blocked was 25. It was for trying to reduce the amount of spam people's PCs were sending out; and they gave a TON of notice about it. I didn't have a business account...they probably didn't have to tell me; but they did. They even called me to make sure I knew about the upcoming block on incoming port 25. I ran web-servers; ftp; ssh; shoutcast, even an ircd; never had Verizon "get after me" or block any ports.

Ok, granted FiOS isn't offering a 1gpbs plan yet; and I don't know what ever happened to XG-PON...but even now, they don't forcibly prevent you from running a server by blocking ports. A buddy of mine up in MA has a residential FiOS account and has been running an httpd for who knows how long. I've tried running services that are public on standard ports and never had an issue.

There's...a lot I don' t know about how they handle; or even if they check. If google's blocking port 80 incomming (which is what I gathered from some of the comments); then how is it Verizon...whose been called extremely evil...not?

Maybe part of it is the "old" way of thinking it seems tech companies don't want to shake. Maybe they're lumping *anyone* who runs a server as a business; completely shunning the fact a home user might want to run a server as a hobby.

Google Lure

[Anonymous Coward]

All Google is doing is luring you in to sell you to its real customers its advertisers, thats all they do! When will people learn to not trust Google, they are a dirty dirty company!!

Server description

[enriquevagu]

all ISPs are deliberately vague about what qualifies as a 'server.' ... because TCP clearly specifies it.

The fact that some programs might behave correctly when implementing a server, or not (eg: skype) or the fact that, in some cases, ISPs allow certain services or ports, does not mean that a 'server' is something arcane. It's you that don't know it.

Becoming more capable

[tepples]

Except there's little evidence that the sort of users commonly described as "consumers" desire to "become more capable on average". They tend to choose convenience over flexibility, such as iPhone, iPad, and game consoles.

Re:Becoming more capable

[tlhIngan]

Except there's little evidence that the sort of users commonly described as "consumers" desire to "become more capable on average". They tend to choose convenience over flexibility, such as iPhone, iPad, and game consoles.

They become more capable in what interests them.

Tell me - would you want to be "more capable" by learning to read literature? History? Arts? These make you "more capable" in being able to appreciate the world. Or perhaps accounting. Or law (since we can't eve seem to get basic IP law of trademarks, copyright and patents (design and novelty) straight). Or have we gotten to naÃve to think that we know it all? (Given the level of commentary on /.). Or hell, what about mere basic spelling? Or about such niceties as etiquette? (How much are complementary studies courses hated as a "waste of time" when pursuing a degree?).

The thing is - the world is complex. There's way more to learn than one could ever know. And rather than try to learn it all, we specialize. We know IT inside and out (and not all of it - some know how to admin servers, others know how to write an OS, others still write applications that run on top, etc., including databases, web sites, etc.). Then there's designers, blah blah blah.

Well, other people don't care about computers. Being a modern world, you can't AVOID using a computer - there will always be useful websites on your choice of interest for which you can learn, and the Internet took off because no one needed to know how networks, TCP/IP, OSes, etc., worked, and it grew into this whole place where everyone can share information from computers to guns to cars to furries and porn.

The computer is a tool. The vast majority of people see it as a convenient way to access the internet, gather information, share information, keep in touch with family, friends and relatives, etc. It is to many like the car, or telephone, or television - they don't care how it works, just that it works and it enables them to go about their day. They don't care how a car works, they just twist the key and turn the wheel to arrive at their destination. They don't care how the phone works, the basics of circuit switching (or virtual circuits) or ODFM modulation, they just punch a few numbers and in a few seconds, they're talking with someone who can be next door or around the world. Likewise, they don't care about bits or bytes, what CSMA/CD does, or what QAM is - they know they can click an icon, and start perusing information they want to know, or to make contact with someone, etc.

The vast majority of people do not care to learn how to set up a web server just to put a few photos online - they'll use facebook, flickr, picasa or other service. Or if they want to write, they'll go open a Blogger account with Google. Some may want to go into business and create a website - you can do that to without knowing how HTTP works - just purchase some web hosting service, upload a few web pages, and enjoy. None of them need to know how to write an httpd.conf file, what /etc/init.d/httpd does, firewall configuration, etc.

And to be honest, if they had to know it, they'd go "cool" and end up doing things the old way that they always had because they can concentrate on getting stuff done, and not learning unrelated crap just to get stuff done.

That's why smartphones, tablets and consoles are popular - they're good at the "get your stuff done" part and hiding away the crap people don't care about.

And hell, let's say you wanted to learn Linux, so you install Ubuntu, open port 80 on your firewall, and put up some websites. Oh wait, your Linux box suddenly got compromised by some PHP bug and is now uploading at gigabit speeds. Of course, you don't know enough Linux to fix it, your websites are still working and you don't want to take those down (or you copy your stuff off, reinstall, put it back, get infected again...).

Re:Becoming more capable

[tepples]

That's why smartphones, tablets and consoles are popular - they're good at the "get your stuff done" part and hiding away the crap people don't care about.

Why are all applications banned from smartphones and tablets and games whose developers don't qualify for a console license necessarily "crap people don't care about"?

And hell, let's say you wanted to learn Linux, so you install Ubuntu

You'd need a computer to do that first. A high school student who has only a smartphone and/or a tablet may not have any way to earn money to buy a computer.

Re:Becoming more capable

[CronoCloud]

Why are all applications banned from smartphones and tablets and games whose developers don't qualify for a console license necessarily "crap people don't care about"?

Stop asking why, because it's simply not something most are interested in. Your interests are not their interests and all your whining about how Nintendo/Sony/Whatever won't hand out dev kits willy to every wannabe game developer with a missle command clone they want to publish, won't change it.

You'd need a computer to do that first. A high school student who has only a smartphone and/or a tablet may not have any way to earn money to buy a computer.

How old are you, and why do you keep focusing so much on the "kids"? If a young person doesn't have enough money for a computer and doesn't have access to one at school, they can wait till they do, won't take long. If they want to be a programmer even some cheap refurb will do.

Re:Becoming more capable

[tepples]

why do you keep focusing so much on the "kids"?

Because my aunt has kids, and because in my opinion, adolescence is a good time to introduce computer science concepts to sort out who has the most aptitude for coding.

I disagree with the EFF this time

[msobkow]

Every ISP I know of and every one I've ever dealt with had both commercial and private links. Technology wise, they were no different, but commercial links allow you to run a server; private/home links do not. Sometimes the prices aren't even any different, but are only to help with upload/download capacity planning.

Sorry, EFF, but "network neutrality" means neutral access, not free for all hosting.

Re:I disagree with the EFF this time

[dubbreak]

Yep. All the local providers here it is pretty clear even if it isn't explicit: commercial vs non-commercial use. If I want to run a web/app server I have to purchase a commercial account and fair enough since that's a different product (I generally expect to pay for hosting or a static ip etc).

They are ambiguous on purpose though. One of my friends worked at a one of the big ISPs. Most people could get away with running whatever (heck even a mail server back then) as long as their bandwidth usage did draw suspicion. As soon as they find a bandwidth hog they'd nail them on "running a server" or similar. One example he gave was a customer who's upwards bandwidth was pretty much pegged all the time (this was during the early era of high speed connections when there weren't monthly caps, just speed caps). They checked out where all the traffic was coming from and it ended up he was running the audio streaming service for a local radio station. Definitely not a legit use for a home line, but I could see why someone would try to pull that off (T-carrier lines were 10x the price of consumer high speed connections).

Re:I disagree with the EFF this time

[ralphaostrander]

Your a special kind of stupid. EFF has it dead nuts.

Re:I disagree with the EFF this time

[msobkow]

Oooo. He called me stupid. Such an insightful argument.

Re:I disagree with the EFF this time

[dave420]

I'd assume most business packages have SLAs that consumer ones don't. That's what I've seen, anyway, when looking at what's available. And wait a minute - how does it help with capacity planning, when some home users use far more bandwidth up & down than some companies do? It seems a rather poor technique to me.

Re:I disagree with the EFF this time

[msobkow]

It's not a good way of capacity planning, but the general assumption is that a commercial link used for hosting will use up all available bandwidth, while a home account will only use some fraction of the capacity of a link.

Thanks for mentioning the SLAs -- I forgot that part.

If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[tepples]

Isp's care about uploads since it costs them money to send data to another network operator

If transit cost is the problem, then why not just offer users something like "250 GB download and 25 GB upload allowance per month"? That'd solve the bandwidth problem while still allowing low-bandwidth hobby servers.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[alen]

because people will go over the limit and complain and say its not their fault. the cell phone carriers had this problem when minutes were rationed out on plans long ago

it is cheaper to sell unlimited plans and set rules limiting what you can do with a consumer plan than pay people to answer customers' phone calls

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Ichijo]

Better yet, charge by the megabyte during prime hours, and make it free at other times. Then people would schedule their torrents to run in the wee hours when it won't disturb their neighbors. It would also make Google Fiber cheaper for grandma who only needs e-mail and Facebook.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Copperhamster]

We do? News to me. All of my upstream bandwidth connections (admittedly I'm not big enough to be a 'peer' or 'near peer' are symmetric and the upstream side is hardly used. I only care from a last mile standpoint because most of the technology we use (Not counting our latest fiber tech we're putting in) is heavily consumption oriented (yeah I can give you 50 mb down... you want 10 up? no I can't do that.)

The only thing I see as a 'I don't really like servers there' point of view is static servers, especially web server are more likely to get attacked, slashdotted, cnn'd, or whatever and I've got specific portions of my network that are better protected against that impacting more than a small segment of my network.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

Upstream costs no more than downstream in the grand scheme of things this is purely to pick on the power user since to us our internet is more important they know they can force us to pay more for essentially the same service

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

Data caps do nothing to change 95th percentile, which is what costs money. People need to stop talking about data caps because transferring 100mb/s costs the same if you do it 1.2 hours a day or 24 hours a day.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

Google Fiber is already free for Grandma who only wants to email, Facebook and Netflix one FullHD stream at a time. I wish you people who like metered Internet would just go away. There is no good reason for it. Bandwidth is not precious. There is so much of it that well over 95% of the transit fibers are entirely dark or using legacy tech that doesn't saturate 1% of what modern endpoints would give.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[cjb658]

Bandwidth is not precious. There is so much of it that well over 95% of the transit fibers are entirely dark or using legacy tech that doesn't saturate 1% of what modern endpoints would give.

Isn't that the point Google is trying to make by offering fiber in the first place?

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[tepples]

Data caps do nothing to change 95th percentile

I'm not understanding. Please explain in more detail how data caps at the level of an individual subscriber do nothing to change 95th percentile aggregated across hundreds of subscribers.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[maliqua]

ISP get billed by 95% billing which is confusing and explained here much better than i can summarize: https://secure.dslreports.com/faq/10333

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Ichijo]

Google Fiber is already free for Grandma who only wants to email, Facebook and Netflix one FullHD stream at a time.

What if she wants to upload 100 photos to her Facebook album without waiting 15 minutes? Or what if she wants to watch a Netflix SuperHD stream without it periodically rebuffering?

Bandwidth is not precious.

If bandwidth is not scarce, then MC>MR and Google has overbuilt their network. This fiscal inefficiency costs them and/or their customers money.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

Grandma has 5mbps up and 1mbps down in the case of Google Fiber free Internet. AFAIK she can saturate the whole thing for the whole seven years and it won't bother her or them. Google has said they expect 1Gbps connections to be free in 7 years.

As far as overbuilding their network: they bought dark fiber already laid in the ground at pennies on the dollar during the .bomb era when companies who laid fiber thought interstate Long Distance at 56kbps and a dollar a minute would still be a thing. They bought it lock, stock and barrel. They didn't pay for overbuilding their network - failed telecom companies and their investors did. Technology has advanced now to where Google can put thousands of times more bits down that pipe than even the builders imagined. They didn't buy it to do this - they bought it to prevent being deprived of backhaul by a well monied competitor who wants to kill them. It is just incidental that technology has progressed to the point where they can push terabits rather than 100 megabits through each fiber.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Ichijo]

So you're saying they didn't overbuild their network because they got it on sale?

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

They bought an overbuilt network in a yard sale.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

Data caps reduce data usage off-peak, but on-peak data consumption is what drives the cost. The 95th percentile allows bursts, but only the minutes with the top 5 percent bandwidth consumption are thrown out. That means on-peak data consumption (minus short bursts) defines the cost to an ISP. What happens off-peak neither costs the ISP nor does it impede other people's use of the network.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[rastos1]

Buying X MB of data transfer actually means that you expect to need Y MB of data where Y < X but you pay for X when you actually should only pay for Y. For a consumer it is obviously disadvantageous. But your comment suggests that you want more of that.

/me shakes head

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Kjella]

Can the mythos that there's still tons of dark fiber laid down in the dotcom boom please soon die? It was thirteen years and at least an order of magnitude of traffic ago. Personally I'd like higher burst speeds, I don't need 1 Gbps 24x7 but when you buy a new game on Steam and is waiting for 20GB to download then having it in 3 minutes instead of 30 minutes or 3 hours has an instant gratification but I don't need to push >10 TB/day. Mobile data plans here generally still have caps but I don't see them as a big issue, if you go over you get slow speed (and may buy extra high-speed quotas, but that's entirely optional) and I wouldn't really have a problem with a 1 Gbps service capping me to say 50 Mbps after X GB/month. I guess to me that's more of a "glass is half-full" than "glass is half-empty" situation.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

The half life of that single mode fiber laid down in the .bomb era is 32,000 years. Back then it was 100mbs fiber per strand. Now it's terabit fiber - 4 orders of magnitude more, just by switching out the endpoints. You are complaining that tech progresses. Why would you want tech to not progress?

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

I read a post in the past few years from Level 3 that said that most of their fiber was dark because technology increases way too fast to light it up.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[fnj]

Grandma has 5mbps up and 1mbps down in the case of Google Fiber free Internet.

Er, obviously that is backwards. It is actually 5 down 1 up.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

They planed for further expansion so that they dont have to charge you and I a premium to upgrade the network 10 years from now. so no they did not overbuild the network they planed on future growth like a good investor would do.

  Now get off my lawn

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

Better idea, just stop overselling their bandwidth!!!! stop advertising big plans for 500Tb/s and start to advertise what they can really offer. If they want to advertise more they HAVE to increase their capacity, as simple as that. Limit the total transfer per month is a backward move, just go back to pay per minute. Let's see how much cost 1 search of google and disable all but html to save bandwidth and watch youtube in the lowest res possible, DOWN WITH THE ADVERTISEMENT because it cost money!! so let's go back to the '90 HTML5?, no thanks its cheaper this way, CSS? thanks but just a little, Awful, AWFUL I say.

- Gentux -

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

25 gigs a month? What is this, 1998?

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

Got me there. I plead tequila.

Re:If uploads are expensive, cap them specifically

[symbolset]

It's true. One compelling reason why Google is offering gigabit to every user is that they actually have the backhaul to support it. They make their own network gear and have people in all of the research groups. They own the physical fibers so it behooves them to make the most of them. Their backbone isn't even Ethernet any more - it's a proprietary protocol that encapsulates Ethernet. They pay to have their own SFP+ modules fabricated, and don't even tell the fabricator what they do or what they're for. Google could probably do 100Tbps over single mode if they wanted to, and they expect the speeds will get only faster. Google may never need to light up their dark fiber. They have a LOT of it.

Monthly bandwidth limits

[Jumunquo]

I find the monthly bandwidth limits a bigger problem. Most months we don't use much, but one or two times a year, we go over.

COCX

[Anonymous Coward]

Cox Cable here in lovely San Diego blocks outgoing port 80 for residential cable access. I asked them what there reason was, and they said it was for my protection against some worm. I dont buy it.

Re:COCX

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh I hope you mean blocks inbound port 80... if they block outbound port 80 how on earth are you posting?

If they are talking about blocking port 80

[supermachoman]

Then they misunderstand. The reason why ISPs block port 80 incoming is not to block "servers" primarily to up-charge people. It's done to protect the internet from XP zombies which serve up ads. My ISP (cox) doesn't charge more for a business account than it does for a personal one. The need to specifically ask for a business account with no port blocking is there to ensure responsibility with viruses.

Re:If they are talking about blocking port 80

[ruir]

A sane post, what a pearl.

Re:If they are talking about blocking port 80

[ralphaostrander]

It is trivial to bypass port 80 block.

Re:If they are talking about blocking port 80

[Anonymous Coward]

My ISP (cox) doesn't charge more for a business account than it does for a personal one.

My ISP (cox) charges $349 a month for 28mbps down 4mbps up and only charges $67 a month for 50mbps down 10mbps up. Are you sure your isp doesn't charge more for a business account? The closets I can come to that price is either to drop down to 5mbps down 1mbps up or pay $98 for 10mbps down 2mbps up. That's a pretty big difference in service pricing.

So Hard To Choose

[Bob9113]

Which sardonic quip to use? I can't decide, so I'll post both.

Of all of them, you'd think it would have been Google to finally shake things up.

"Of all of them," perhaps, is true. Google may well be the least evil of the major providers. And Obama was the less evil of the two major 2012 candidates. Not high bars to get over, and yet they both just graze past.

Of all of them, you'd think it would have been Google to finally shake things up.

I think you may be confusing Google ca 2001 with Google ca 2013. They are two very different companies. The latter is a cookie-cutter American megacorp, money over everything; not strictly immoral, but profoundly amoral.

I run a web server from home Zina to serve

[ralphaostrander]

My music when I am not at home. Really fuck um.

Whither unlimited cellular data plans?

[tepples]

because people will go over the limit and complain and say its not their fault. the cell phone carriers had this problem when minutes were rationed out on plans long ago

Even though cellular voice and text have tended toward unlimited on contract plans, satellite and cellular carriers still cap each subscriber's data transfer, usually at single-digit GB per month.

it is cheaper to sell unlimited plans and set rules limiting what you can do with a consumer plan

The problem is the insinuation that everyone who's not a business should resign himself to "consuming" works created by others. Perhaps the solution is a "hobbyist producer" tier between "consumer" and business, much as PayPal has the "premier" tier.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[petermgreen]

Average bandwidth (aka data transferred) and 95th percentile bandwidth are both imperfect measures of "how much of our capacity requirements is this user responsible for".

You don't need a perfect measure just one good enough to weed out users who are using far more capacity than they are paying for.

The problem with ideological purity is...

[divisionbyzero]

nobody is perfect. And so the ideologues turn on themselves fighting with each other rather than the greater enemy, cableco and telco, and so dissolve into an ineffectual cacophony. Comcast must be grinning.

Turn off metering during non-peak hours

[tepples]

You try explaining to customers that they will be charged base on their 95th percentile of bandwidth used during peak hours.

An ISP can deal with simplifying the explanation the same way that sat and cell have for years. Cellular voice plans that bill by the minute often allow the user to pay a flat rate for a "nights and weekends" option that turns off metering outside 0600 to 2100 local time Monday through Friday, occasionally with a second "evening" option for an additional charge that also turns off metering from 1900 to 2100. Exede, a satellite ISP, turns off metering from 0000 to 0500, giving the customer a chance to run large downloads such as game installations, movie purchases, and operating system updates.

Re:Turn off metering during non-peak hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone companies did that because they have circuits. In packet switched networks, you don't charge linearly based on usage, you charge statistically. Anyway, ISPs are charged on 95th percentile by their up-stream providers, so why charge based on data usage when there are way too many corner-cases where the two models don't align? It just doesn't seem logical to charge customers in a way that does not reflect your costs.

Net Neutrality

[gr8_phk]

What ever happened to Google favoring net neutrality? You know, not discriminating on the type, source, or destination of data? Oh right, they were a data source and now they're becoming a data transport. This suggests they're not all about principles unless it happens to suit them.

Internet isn't free..

[XaXXon]

ISPs pay by the bandwidth used. The price you pay for your home internet doesn't cover the cost to your ISP if you used the max bandwidth 24/7. If it did, it would be much more expensive.

By making rules like this, they are protecting mom and dad who don't use the internet much from having to subsidize joe hacker running a porn site out of his home.

Imagine if you paid for gas by the month. Would it be ridiculous if they said you weren't allowed to drive a commercial semi and fuel it there? No. You'd have to buy another plan and pay a bunch more.

This really isn't that much different.

Re:Internet isn't free..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully Google really doesn't pay for bandwidth. They have almost 100% peering, and people pay (usually just port fees) to peer with Google.

Re:Internet isn't free..

[Anonymous Coward]

The flip side to that is that residential customers CAN'T GET "business" internet from most providers.

Re:Internet isn't free..

[XaXXon]

They pay for the infrastructure required to route that traffic, even if what you say is true -- though I'd be interested in sources for that.

It's still reasonable for them to say you didn't pay for 100% 24/7 utilization.

They've already said that if you stay under their radar you're going to be fine anyhow.

Incoming connections

[tepples]

Ultimately, the only thing the ISP will be able to claim is that your upload:download ratio isn't like most of the others on their network.

That and the fact that the ISP can claim that a subscriber was accepting incoming TCP connections. In fact, some ISPs have installed carrier-grade NAT to block incoming connections.

Re:Incoming connections

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, spend $15k on a Carrier-grade NAT to save 10gb/s of bandwidth or spend $10k to get another 10gb/s of bandwidth.

Re:Incoming connections

[retupmoca]

If ISP's just wanted to block incoming connections, they wouldn't be using CGNAT - they'd just be using a stateful firewall. CGNAT is because the IPv4 address pool is becoming limited.

Language, database, and protocol limits

[tepples]

Why run a WWW server at home, when you can use a hosting service for as little as $4 per month?

A lot of these $4 per month web hosts support only PHP and no other languages like Python or Ruby, or they support only MySQL and no other DBMS like PostgreSQL, or they support only HTTP and not HTTPS.

Solution to server ban

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a $9/month VPS, put an OpenVPN server on it, connect your home server to it, and have the VPS/OpenVPN server do SNAT to your VPN client.

Or, just serve your content on the $9/month VPS. Either way, it's cheap.

640K

[tepples]

You either sell Internet access, or sell something that resembles Internet access, but has road blocks everywhere.

I think grandparent's assertion is that "something that resembles Internet access, but has road blocks everywhere" should be good enough for anyone who isn't running a business.

Different cost for each direction

[tepples]

Running a server just means the data goes in the other direction.

Except that the sender-pays model of long-haul Internet transit implies a different cost for each direction, as alen pointed out.

The business tier is Internet service

[tepples]

I pay for internet service.

The business tier is Internet service. The residential tier is not because not is cheaper to provide, and the majority of residential subscribers have little need to run a server.

I wonder when the day will come that all people form a business just to not be discriminated against.

Even if individuals as such can't buy the business tier, is it really that hard to set up a sole proprietorship?

Slashdotters not avg. me: 200. mom: 0.03

[raymorris]

I don't know, I might load 200 pages per day. My mom loads four per MONTH.

I have servers that do thousands of hits per MINUTE.
I've priced wholesale bandwidth. I'm getting a good deal at $650 with a quarter rack. I don't WANT to pay $650 / month for my home connection because pricing has to cover people running servers on non-commercial home internet connections.

Solution: Find a small ISP

[DaveAtFraud]

Small ISPs tend to be more flexible. Find a reseller of Bombastic Cable or your local Ma Bell spin off and see what you can negotiate. I run my own web, e-mail, ssh, DNS and VPN server on a 1.5 mb (down) and .5 mb up DSL connection. What I said to my ISP was, "If I get enough traffic that the connection needs to be faster then that's a good indication I need to upgrade the account." They bought it so I run everything through a single IP address on their fixed IP address, business account. And, yes, it costs a little more than a "no servers", consumer account.

BTW, so far the amount of traffic to my server hasn't been an issue. On the plus side, the NSA doesn't have access to my server.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Solution: Find a small ISP

[fnj]

On the plus side, the NSA doesn't have access to my server.

BWAHAHAHA. Riiiiiiight.

Problem is much deeper and more fundamental.

[caseih]

In fact the Internet, as originally envisioned, hasn't existed for some years now and may never exist again. It's not just that ISPs are forbidding servers, it's that their asymmetric I/O speeds combined with network-address translation fundamentally changed the game from a peer to peer network to a producer/consumer network. The only way to serve up your own content right now is to buy server in a data center, or use an existing service. Just to route around the fundamental brokenness of our modern-day internet, I have to buy a VPS, which is run by a company that pays the big network providers big bucks for peering. Pretty depressing, really.

I wonder how a transition to IPv6 will change all this. Will all ISPs simply assign non-routeable addresses?

Re:friends

[game kid]

They are screened. They only select the finest social networks to send their spammy users here.

Servers are allowed

[masterz]

You just need written permission from Google.

Regional ISPs are often server-friendly

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

The key is to avoid the big-name assfaces whenever possible; much like the major cell carriers, they don't give a shill if they lose any particular customer, as long as their bottom line isn't affected. Regional places like Sonic.net or DSL Extreme are MUCH better for any geek to go with, for example -- neither uses caps/throttling or minds home servers, and while both block port 25, DSL Extreme's TOS states they will open it if asked.

The thing is, regional ISPs are rarely well known even in their area, so a lot of people have no clue that there's any options beyond the cable/phone companies. Even if you've never heard of any independent ISPs existing in your area, spend some time searching the web for a local one (they can be very hard to find) and ask at BroadbandReports & Craigslist's Forum area before signing up with a national ISP. It takes some extra time, but it's worth it.

Everything is a server...

[Rexel99]

It's not just the running of torrent client/servers it is also all the systems we 'have' to have now.
I have a NAS (Network Access SERVER) for maintaining backups and delivering content to me on demand, it even runs a little security web-cam monitoring system which also... is a server.
I have a PS3, that's a server, I have a Smart TV, that's a server, my printer has a web server, my network interface has a web server.
Home automation: I dont have it, but how do you control these things and turn off your lights when your at work, via the integrated web SERVER!
I would even class some of the Android apps and google glass as a potential SERVER!
Even LED lights now have wifi and integrated web based administration.
I am not a business, I do not need to have a business account just to support the products that every first world home now has and that companies like Google themselves expect you to setup.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

But data usage is a horrible metric that does not reflect network at all. Case studies have shown data caps do absolutely nothing to stop congestion during peak hours, but are great at making people stop using traffic during off-peak.

1) It causes more complaints from stupid caps
2) It doesn't help congestion
3) It encourages wasting bandwidth by not using it

95th percentile is much more reflective of how networks get congested.

Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[symbolset]

Unless you have evidence that Google actually ever blocked a server on their Google Fiber network the "banning servers on its network" headline is bogus. I do not know that such a thing has ever happened, nor ever will. The terms of service don't even actually prohibit it. They only discourage it.

... you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection

The terms do not say "will not". Nor "may not". Nor "must not". Nor "it is a network security violation to", like everybody else. They say "should not", which any kid you know will tell you is code for "you can, you might, and you may, but I'd rather you didn't."

Once upon a time EFF reps could read.

Expand "net neutrality" to incl a "right to serve"

[ivi]

Outgoing FTP is a way to share files, but - for the one holding &
publishing some file(s) via FTP - they must have & run FTP ser-
ver(s).

Freedom of Speech implies a "Right to Serve" IMO.

Being -forced- by ISP restrictions against running servers seems
anti-competitive, since it -forces- the ISP's customer to pay (some-
one) for unnecessary / unwanted hosting services.

By extending the definition of "net neutrality" to -include- a well-
defined "Right to Serve" (since not to have such a right makes
one subservient to external hosting services, by unbalancing
the innately -balanced- TCP/IP protocols, which underlie the
Internet) would let one (with content) choose between self-
hosting & outsourcing the hosting of that content.

Start out self-hosting, until you decide to let someone else
do that for you (eg, after the content becomes popular).

Wireless Routers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that most non-Apple wireless routers have embedded web servers. Is Google going to require people to connect physically to their network?

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[FuzzNugget]

"Should not" is only a line in a config script away from "blocked."

The point is that no ISP, least of all Google, should be taking this position. The terms "server" and "client" really just describe the instigator and direction of traffic flow. You start restricting that, the internet further degenerates into consumer and producer classes and becomes cable TV. *shudder*

See why this is a net neutrality issue here?

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[perpenso]

Unless you have evidence that Google actually ever blocked a server on their Google Fiber network the "banning servers on its network" headline is bogus. I do not know that such a thing has ever happened, nor ever will. The terms of service don't even actually prohibit it. They only discourage it.

... you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection

The terms do not say "will not". Nor "may not". Nor "must not". Nor "it is a network security violation to", like everybody else. They say "should not", which any kid you know will tell you is code for "you can, you might, and you may, but I'd rather you didn't."

You forgot: "and I will put an end to it if you cause any trouble at all."

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[symbolset]

Again, proof? An actual incident?

The plain language is that you may run a server but they prefer you don't. To claim they don't allow servers, denied them, prevented them, you need an actual incident where they denied a server ever. Do you have one?

If you don't have one you're Chicken Little, claiming that one day they might even though in actual words they don't say they will.

/I am symbolset. (symbol)(set). The basic primitive of communication between individuals is a shared symbol set. Unless the words (symbols) mean things, they do not convey information. They are just meaningless grunts. Without a group (set) of them, complex information cannot be conveyed. It is not possible to communicate without a symbol set.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[symbolset]

Not "any trouble at all"

Google is delivering more bandwidth to the KC area than the entire rest of the US Internet combined. That is potentially a problem if all the people so enabled are rude. It's not a matter of them beating down subscribers, it's about not breaking the whole Internet. Having Gigabit Internet is a dire responsibility as a home user. You can't just fire up wget on your favorite site, even /., without crashing it unless you rate limit. You "should not" do that. To most sites ONE user with a gigabit connect and an itchy click finger looks like a denial of service attack. A whole city full looks like a DDOS.

Google is bringing end users into a new era one city at a time, but they understand that most of the Internet is built on legacy tech that can't handle this.

Simple solution

[jxander]

Give an actual data cap. I know data caps are the devil, but if you keep it reasonable, it won't drive customers away, but will eliminate any ambiguity

Or better yet, a few tiers. How about 1/5/10TB per month, just as a few starting figures? Any basic user who surfs the net, streams netflix, pandora etc. should stay well under the 1TB per month mark. Anecdotal : I would consider myself a moderate-heavy bandwidth user, and I still wouldn't need the full 5TB per month.

At that point, google can be completely hands off : it's your bandwidth, do with it as you please. If you want to run a server, that's fine. Keep it under your cap and google can remain blissfully ignorant.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[Anonymous Coward]

/I am symbolset. (symbol)(set). The basic primitive of communication between individuals is a shared symbol set. Unless the words (symbols) mean things, they do not convey information. They are just meaningless grunts. Without a group (set) of them, complex information cannot be conveyed. It is not possible to communicate without a symbol set.

Blow me you pretentious idiot. I don't give two floppy dicks who you are or what your screen name means.

Charter does this same goddamned thing

[Khyber]

They advertise being able to play all of my favorite online console and PC games.

Except many have to run their own server (in fact they run server-client model as the base) and this becomes a big no-no, and thus I can't play these games.

Pisses me right off. I'm not paying for a SLOWER business class line which is more expensive and does NOT come with a 5-9 guarantee.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[Patch86]

It is bizarre and perplexing to me that a company should offer "100MB/s down, unlimited data!", and then be cross when anyone tries to run that connection at its advertised limits for 10 minutes in a row. Apparently I can only have that if I promise to continue to use it as if it were a 52kbps dial up connection...

It's dishonest. If you can't afford to sell me 100MB/s unlimited, don't pretend you can and take my money anyway. Tell me what you can afford to sell me, and your rivals can too and I can decide which provider to use based on who can offer me what I need. The only way to choose between them at the moment is by spurious word-of-mouth rumours...

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[peppepz]

Yes, they've put those words in the terms of services just for the fun of it. Because lawyers are such funny persons.

Google was born out of net neutrality, and now that they've grown into a position of power, they suddendly find themselves against it. What specific words they chose to use has only a secondary importance. The decision they've made is political: you can only be in favour or against net neutrality, and they chose to be against. They don't want you to choose what to do with your internet connection. They want to be in control. In geekspeak, they're evil.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[symbolset]

Words mean things, and in this case they don't mean the things you say they do. You are trying to find a way to paint Google "evil". You are playing to your audience alone. Actually, the further out there you guys go with the tinfoil hat thing the less credible you are.

Network Neutrality

[MrL0G1C]

A better solution would be to have a clause for non-personal uses as in you can't use large amounts of bandwidth for business / charity / organisation etc uses.

And to stop this 'unlimited bandwidth' BS, make the limit something that is relevant to quality of service, such as a limit related to contention ratio, measured at peak times.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[peppepz]

Words mean things, and in this case they don't mean the things you say they do.

Thank god vocabularies exist.

You are trying to find a way to paint Google "evil".

I speak concepts, and I do not question other people's motivations. The image of Google is painted by none other but Google themselves, with the actions they choose to take. You can't have a cake and eat it too.

You are playing to your audience alone. Actually, the further out there you guys go with the tinfoil hat thing the less credible you are.

Yes, resorting to personal attacks is the best-known sign of having good points.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[Anonymous Coward]

and direction of traffic flow

Bingo. Remember, most consumer packages are asynchronous, and heavily biased towards downstream (for a reason). They're asking you to take out the synchronous package if you want to use upstream, so that you don't cause massive contention, and stop anyone else on the network getting any requests out.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[jdogalt]

disclaimer: complainant here: The terms say "prohibited". Look it up.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[Eunuchswear]

That's an argument for them banning clients, not servers.

Put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the EFF should run an ISP with no restriction and see how well it ends up.

Re:Movie Pirates are ruining it for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so let them get rid of the 95th percentile.
But then when they're gone, there's a new 95th percentile. Now let's get rid of them too.
Keep this up and you've booted all your customers, 5% at a time.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just looked it up, the TOS already has been changed to not ban servers but the original TOS said this as per the article.

Your Google Fiber account is for your use and the reasonable use of your guests. Unless you have a written agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection, use your Google Fiber account to provide a large number of people with Internet access, or use your Google Fiber account to provide commercial services to third parties (including, but not limited to, selling Internet access to third parties).

take a look at that again

you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection

. That is not a ban on running a server at all, it does not say prohibited at all. Sorry bub but your trolling fails hard.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[Anonymous Coward]

. What specific words they chose to use has only a secondary importance

Those specific words have a specific legal meaning. They chose the phrase "should not" for a very specific reason. What they say you must not do is use your internet to provide commercial services but you should not use it not use it to host a server. They chose should not for a very specific legal purpose. This is basic stuff anyone who does any sort of documentation that may go to court needs to know the difference between should not and may not.

Recurring fee

[tepples]

Hmmm, spend $15k on a Carrier-grade NAT to save 10gb/s of bandwidth or spend $10k to get another 10gb/s of bandwidth.

Which one is the recurring fee and which one is the one-time fee?

This isn't rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

ISPs want to charge more money for things that can be used to generate income. Websites are a common tool used to generate income, even for individuals who don't have a business, through advertising. If you want to run a game server, that's fine because most people are not going to use that game server as a business. That's it. It just takes too much time to filter out the people running personal web sites that generate no income from the people who run websites that generate income in some way, so they all get moved to the business package.

Please explain more corner cases

[tepples]

Phone companies did that because they have circuits. In packet switched networks, you don't charge linearly based on usage

Are LTE and whatever data link protocol satellite uses circuit-based?

so why charge based on data usage when there are way too many corner-cases where the two models don't align?

Because the data usage with free nights model is simpler to explain to subscribers while remaining close enough, and because you have not yet explained more of these corner-cases to me. My going hypothesis is that 95th percentile bandwidth is roughly proportional to usage per customer during peak hours, and I'm ready to read arguments that prove it wrong.

Auto-upload

[tepples]

What if she wants to upload 100 photos to her Facebook album without waiting 15 minutes?

Wouldn't the photos have been already uploaded the moment they were taken on a camera phone with a data plan? And in the case of scanned prints of photos taken before the camera phone era, I see nothing wrong with scheduling the upload for the next "free wee hours" period.

Or what if she wants to watch a Netflix SuperHD stream without it periodically rebuffering?

Let me know when more well-known movie studios have released 4K versions of works that people actually want to watch, not just 4K demo reels.

Re:Auto-upload

[CronoCloud]

Wouldn't the photos have been already uploaded the moment they were taken on a camera phone with a data plan?

Shudders at Camera phone...even crappy point and shoots take better pictures. Heck I've got a 3.2MP Minolta Z10 that takes better pictures in most conditions than my 3.2MP phone and 5MP tablet.

If peak hours are expensive, cap them specifically

[tepples]

Data caps reduce data usage off-peak

If the goal is to shift usage from peak to non-peak hours while remaining understandable to end users, then run the meter only during peak hours, as I explained elsewhere.

My ISP allows servers...

[Archeopteryx]

...except IRC servers. Beyond that, they're good.

Or you could just do it anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're running a private http server basically just for yourself to get access to your own files, and occasionally to send them to specific other people, they're probably not going to notice. (Posting anonymously because I've been that for years, and Verizon has indeed not come after me. Nor for the ssh server I'm also running, also just for myself.)

2 birds 1 stone

[tepples]

True, but while looking into stateful firewalls, a network engineer at an ISP would probably come across CGNAT and discover that it not only includes a stateful firewall but can also save the ISP money on not having to acquire more IPv4 addresses for new subscribers.

US-only?

[hobarrera]

I've never seen this outside the US, and I don't think it's frequent for ISPs to block this elsewhere.
As for me, I'm in Argemtina, and I've had several ISPs in the last decade, and none of them block or forbade hosting server (including web servers, vnc servers, game servers, etc).

Anyone else from another country care to add their experiences? For what I can see, this is pretty much US-only (as is capping GB-per-month, which only seems to have taken of in canada as well).

NSA dragnet vs. your own email server

[Stainless_Steel_Mous]

I think there is a lot to be said for running your own email server to avoid the warrantless dragnet of stored emails at major ISP's. (assuming the ISP's will pass the port 25 traffic along)

Maybe the fiber taps at all the US based network exchange points makes running your own email server less of a defense, but at least the ISP's would not have the ability to turn over your emails all tied up with a bow.

Make the spooks work for their packets!

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[ktappe]

• The terms do not say "will not". Nor "may not". Nor "must not". Nor "it is a network security violation to", like everybody else. They say "should not", which any kid you know will tell you is code for "you can, you might, and you may, but I'd rather you didn't."

With due respect, your response is also bogus. That sentence didn't just fall into Google's terms of service. It was intentionally put there so that when Google decides they truly don't want servers on their network, they can terminate your agreement and connection. It's truly naive of you to think this language is completely innocent and has zero chance of being enforced.

For the Most Part

[denmarkw00t]

You can say that just about anything is a "server" - drawing a line at what is "served" is a bit difficult - is it port 80? Then just move to a different port. Is it traffic volume? The summary mentions BitTorrent, and along with that there are plenty of other things that can be considered "server" traffic. This is similar to when I was in high school, and the internet use policy stated that we were explicitly prohibited from "downloading," even though every web page that used cookies essentially created a "download," and in fact just viewing pages created "downloads" when a cached version was stored on the hard disk.

My ISPs have never allowed hosting "servers" on their networks, but so far so good as mine hasn't complained about my super-low-traffic web server, nor my SSH activity to my home when I need it. I'm sure if I asked them or if I had bajillions of monthly visitors, it'd be a different story.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[jnork]

I find it interesting to note that your entire argument centers around, not running servers, but abusing bandwidth. One does not necessarily lead to the other, and the latter can be done without doing the former. (And your example doesn't even involve running a server, but instead involves running a client.)

If they want to avoid subscribers abusing bandwidth, then they should say so, instead of prohibiting one kind of thing that could possibly be used to abuse bandwidth, but is often useful without being abusive.

Classic case of medicating the symptoms instead of looking for a cure.

Business wants captive markets

[bbsalem]

And to be able to raise the cost to users once they are captured. If they (ISPs, Google, Micro$soft) can control the platform, they can extort more $ from you. The answer is to not let them, or with help from the government, control the platform. up to and including using UUCP in place of Internet Protocols :-) to prevent closed captive markets.

I am BizNew, Destroyer of Business Plans!

No problem

[Trogre]

It's very simple. If you're offering an Internet connection and you don't allow servers, you don't get my business. No problem.

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[garbut]

posting to undo mod misclick

Re:Bogus headline, flamebait. Shame, EFF.

[symbolset]

I am an ass sometimes. Usually not, but in this instance, yes.