Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
"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.
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....
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.
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.)
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.
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?"
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
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?
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"
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.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Dude, couldn't you just like, you know, check that on Bing?
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.
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?
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...
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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.
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.
"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?
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.
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.