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

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

[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

[poetmatt]

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

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?

[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?

[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.

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?

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

[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

[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.

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.

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....

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.

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: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: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"

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: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: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.

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...

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.

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

[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

[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

[symbolset]

They bought an overbuilt network in a yard sale.

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: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.

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?

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[jdogalt]

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

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...).