Al Franken Says FCC Proposed Rules Are "The Opposite of Net Neutrality"

An anonymous reader writes "Senator Al Franken can be counted among the many who are at odds with the FCC's proposed net neutrality rules. From the article: 'Senator Al Franken has a pretty good idea of what the term "net neutrality" means—and that, he says, puts him head-and-shoulders above many of his colleagues in the U.S. Congress. "We literally have members of Congress—I've heard members of the House—say, 'We've had all this innovation on the Internet without net neutrality. Why do we need it now?'" he told TIME in an interview last week. "I want to say, 'Come on, just try to understand the idea. Or at least just don't give a speech if you don't know what you're saying. Please—it hurts my head."'"

Comments

ya

[Anonymous Coward]

ya - let the free market sort itself out, no intervention needed right? we didn't need rules back then, why do we need them now sonny. also, this would have been first post but they slowed my bits...

Re:ya

[bondsbw]

Actually this brings up an important distinction.

1) If your ISP advertises X Mbps, and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe that provides enough total bandwidth to keep up with demand, and you still get X Mbps to everything else, then I don't know that I have a problem with it.

2) If the ISP advertises X Mbps and suddenly Netflix is the only thing that gets X Mbps and everything else is slower, or specific services have slowed significantly compared with other ISPs, that is a huge problem.

I'm not sure if #1 is possible especially considering that what an ISP advertises is always "up to X Mbps" and they can always secretly throttle so long as it's not enough to cause a lot of complaints. So if we have to sacrifice #1 in order to maintain #2, so be it.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

"and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe"

You should have a problem with it.

Netflix's costs are higher than they should be.
ISPs should not be picking winners and losers.
As the ISP's customer, you are being defrauded.

It's extortion.
Netflix paid for their connection to the internet
The customer paid for their connection to the internet. The whole reason the customer pays for their connection is access to such sites.

Re:ya

[laird]

There are more variations.

If Netflix pays for their bandwidth to their ISP to serve their content, and you pay your ISP for your bandwidth to get to the internet (including Netflix), that's the deal. If your ISP slows down Netflix' content to try to get Netflix to pay for improved performance, that's wrong. If Netflix tries to get bandwidth for free, as they were trying to do with Comcast, that's wrong, too.

Re:ya

[Camael]

1) If your ISP advertises X Mbps, and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe that provides enough total bandwidth to keep up with demand, and you still get X Mbps to everything else, then I don't know that I have a problem with it.

You subscribe and pay to both your ISP and Netflix. You've therefore already paid your ISP to carry your bits from Netflix.
Your ISP makes a deal with Netflix, and they get money from Netflix.
Netflix raises its prices to pay your ISP.
You pay more to Netflix.

Netflix raises its price by £1 in the UK, €1 in Europe and $1 in the US

Your ISP is getting more money from you indirectly through Netflix.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

What variations?
Netflix was not a Comcast customer. ( they are now, because of extortion ).
The various Comcast customers are the Comcast customers. And they paid for access ( bandwidth ).
So, Netflix was not trying to get anything for free, they are providing a service on the web that is part of what makes it attractive for Comcast's customer's to pay them for *their* bandwidth ( to Netflix, among other destinations ). Netflix paid their ISP for their access to the internet.

Nothing more should be required.

Re:ya

[BradMajors]

Netflix also pays for the bandwidth its servers use.

ISPs want to be paid a three or perhaps four or more times for carrying Netflix bits to its customer.

Re:ya

[samkass]

Stop with the Netflix boogeyman. Netflix is 60% of prime-time traffic in the US-- there can thus mathematically be only one Netflix. Any law designed to solve any problem with Netflix will thus by definition not be relevant any other company. Netflix can't mathematically be on any single network and have even peering with any other network, which is the core of how all the little networks become "the Internet". Which is the basic problem-- there is no "the Internet", but maintaining the illusion of one requires certain agreements that we're all just making up as we go. Platitudes are unhelpful.

But Frankin is right, of course-- everyone debating the issues should at least understand them.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

There should not be a law to deal with Netflix.

I felt the same about it when it was google that was "using too much". I'd even feel that way if it was microsoft "using too much".

The principal is the same, regardless of the players.
ISPs and other internet participants should not be playing games to extort money.
If they are not making enough, they need to look to their customers and business model. I believe they make enough, they are just looking for more.

I understand that the internet is multiple participants and is not a firm, monolithic thing, but I disagree on the 'no "the internet"' concept.
It's about connection and bits being transported.

Re:ya

[Aighearach]

You've got a bait-and-switch there, grandpa. You're old enough to know about these internet tubes, so you must have forgotten your meds.

First you say, "If Netflix pays for their bandwidth to their ISP to serve their content" and then later you replace that with "f Netflix tries to get bandwidth for free, as they were trying to do with Comcast" but Comcast wasn't their ISP. They did pay their ISP for their bandwidth.

Re:ya

[AK Marc]

If your company isn't growing at 10% per year, stock will drop. 20% per year profit is great, but without growth, the stock price will drop. 0% per year with 20% gross revenue growth per year (and 0 profit growth) will probably trump actual returns for stock price.

It doesn't make sense, but that's how it works. So everyone kills for 10% growth per year, even if unsustainable and borderline illegal extortion.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you know what will happen.. that same thing it always does.. the ISP will advertise something like "40 MBps*" and in tiny writing "* only to the following websites netflick, google, youtube, etc"

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

Yeah, I get that. I disagree with applauding, approving or condoning it.

Re:ya

[mwvdlee]

Purely hypothetical, as a customer, would it be technically possible to pay the ISP more for an unrestricted connection?
If so, then what are the additional costs involved?

Restricting connections is about stealing from paying customers.
Net Neutrality is about preventing ISP's from stealing.

Re: ya

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in a data center than you can get a 10Gb/s link for a few hundred dollars a month. Your ISP chops that up thousands of ways and sells that small slice to each of its customers for a hundred dollars a month.

Re:ya

[laird]

You missed what was going on, then. What Netflix was trying to get for free was transit from Comcast. Specifically, Netflix wanted to bypass their ISP so they wouldn't have to pay for the transit, and instead run direct lines into Comcast's infrastructure, demanding that Comcast run the connections and transit the data for free. The transit that they were paying for was being delivered just fine the whole time. The only "fight" was that they demanded preferential treatment from Comcast. And it was particularly sleazy of Netflix' to call the transit "peering" because it clearly wasn't - peering is connecting between ISPs that have traffic between each other's customers, when balanced in both directions, so it's more efficient to deliver the traffic for free in both directions than to bill each other for the balanced traffic. But Netflix isn't an ISP, and their traffic isn't even remotely balanced - they push tons of traffic out into ISPs, and accept no traffic, so it's not balanced traffic between peers at all.

Re:ya

[SuricouRaven]

The real issue is the perverse incentive it creates. If the 'regular' traffic class is good enough for reliable streaming, there is no reason Netflix et all will pay the ISP for prioritisation - so in order to protect that revenue stream, the ISP needs to make sure that the non-priority performane is sufficiently poor. The obvious way to do this is by withholding vital network upgrades in order to create congestion.

Re:ya

[rtb61]

Careful, you are pushing a lie in distinction between push traffic and pull traffic. Netflix traffic is traffic it generates a request for, it pulls traffic. End user traffic is the traffic the end user requests, it pulls for. There is also push traffic, unrequested traffic this is called advertising, generally packaged with requested traffic.

Stop spreading the lie that content producer generate lots of traffic. Content producers connect a server to the internet, the server quitely sits there doing not much of anything and generating little or no traffic. What happens next it the end user, uses the bandwidth they have paid for to access that server via the internet and get it to send the requested data to them, the 'END USER" generated the traffic.

Stop fucking lying liar, the end user the person who requests the content, the person who activates the server at the other end to send content, is in control, it is pull traffic, all controlled by the user who paid for their bandwidth.Netflixes traffic is their business traffic, the data their staff generates when they send emails, or request information from other servers on the internet. Making a server accessible and allowing end user to control the flow of data from that server to the end user is "END USER TRAFFIC" to and from.

Re:ya

[SuricouRaven]

Comcast isn't actually 'restricting' the connection. They are simply providing a poor service by not upgrading their network. That creates the problem of poor performance, and they can then charge extra to fix it.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the day after netflix paid, their customers on comcast had better communication with netflix.
There wasn't even enough time for remote hands in a co location to physically move in a new box and switch some wires, let alone getting the telecom operator connect new lines.

Re:ya

[dgatwood]

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I know we often talk about peering meaning an equal amount of traffic, but that's largely historical baggage. The direction of traffic is essentially arbitrary when it comes to the cost of setting up a network. If you know you're going to have asymmetric data flow, you just use more channels in one direction than the other. AFAIK, such configurations are possible over most network links.

More to the point, it really doesn't matter which side is pushing and which side is pulling. Both parties benefit from a better experience for their customers, which in this particular case are the exact same people. And although both companies have a vested interest in ensuring that the customer experience is good, if anything, Comcast has the most to lose if it isn't (assuming the particular customer has any choice in ISPs whatsoever), because statistically speaking, most users blame the ISP first. :-)

Either way, when it comes to no-cost peering, what's actually important is not the traffic direction, but rather that both parties send approximately the same amount of traffic through the other one to another network—that is to say, that both parties get approximately the same benefit out of the link. In this case, both of those numbers would presumably be zero, because all of the traffic Netflix would push into Comcast's network would be destined for Comcast's customers, and thus would go across Comcast's network no matter what. And every byte Comcast sent across the link would be destined for Netflix's servers.

By that standard, assuming they configured the network to allow routing only to one another rather than through one another, then the relationship between Netflix and Comcast should have been a peering relationship. Anything else is extortion by Comcast, pure and simple. And if they didn't configure it that way, Comcast should probably be paying for the peering, because it seems much more likely that Comcast would benefit from routing traffic over Netflix's fat pipes than that Netflix would benefit from routing traffic over Comcast's clogged pipes. :-)

Re:ya

[mysidia]

Stop spreading the lie that content producer generate lots of traffic.

You are taking sides in a very old debate, and presenting your current opinion as fact, which it is not. This matter is a dispute to be settled by the parties coming to an agreement; it is not a lie that the content producer generates traffic. The receivers would not be 'receiving' such traffic, if the content provider was not choosing to serve that traffic.

The top eyeball network providers agree, that content producers push lots of traffic and don't push nearly as many bits, therefore the content producers should pay for the peering (Bear the cost of moving that data across the eyeball network).

The top content provider networks agree, that eyeball networks pull lots of traffic, therefore, the eyeball networks should pay for the peering (Bear the cost of pulling that traffic through the content provider network for delivery to the eyeball provider).

In any event.... these kinds of disputes have been going on for 20 years; this is old hat stuff. Netflix has exacerbated the situation with the extreme magnitude of their bandwidth demands.

You can be sure.... these disputes WILL be resolved, AND the end users will ultimately be paying the costs of building the additional infrastructure, no matter WHICH of the service providers they are using wins.

Re:ya

[dgatwood]

Either way, when it comes to no-cost peering, what's actually important is not the traffic direction, but rather that both parties send approximately the same amount of traffic through the other one to another network—that is to say, that both parties get approximately the same benefit out of the link.

Incidentally, this is why traditional ISPs like Comcast pay the backbone ISPs to carry their traffic, rather than being allowed to peer at no charge. They are essentially a leaf node in the graph, which means they benefit greatly from connecting to an upstream ISP, because such connections enable their customers to connect to the Internet. However, they don't provide any benefit to the upstream ISP, because the upstream ISP can't usefully route any traffic through Comcast to other ISPs.

The general rule is that backbone ISPs peer amongst themselves, but don't usually peer with traditional customer ISPs. Customer ISPs in the same region often peer with one other, because they're on the same level and can benefit from faster connectivity with one another and from having additional redundancy in their upstream connections. However, that peering only remains free so long as they route similar amounts of traffic over each other's upstream links. If the balance gets too skewed, they'll depeer each other.

Re:ya

[theshowmecanuck]

Never understood this. If the company still makes a profit, they can still pay dividends, yeah? The whole stock price chasing thing is fucking things up.

Re:ya

[arkhan_jg]

Netflix is paying level 3, a tier 1 provider for access. All the tier 1's interconnect with each other for free (by definition) - they're basically the backbone of the internet for global transit.

Customers pay a consumer ISP, like comcast, for access to the internet, i.e. access to the tier 1 network. So both ends are paying for their connection, all they need is for both networks to be connected in a datacentre somewhere - both ISPs pay for their own equipment, and when that link gets congested, they add more/faster interconnect ports, paid for by the customers that are paying for their side of the link. And that's how it works basically everywhere except the US now.

Because Comcast, along with the other big US consumer ISPs are saying to netflix - a customer of another ISP altogether - 'nice traffic, shame if something happened to it.' And charging extra for a 'fast' path to their network. They've deliberately let the interconnect to level 3 become congested, and are refusing to upgrade it, affecting netflix and all other services that comcast customers request from level 3's network. Netflix offers to host their CDN cache servers inside comcast's network, so it does't have to all go via the level 3 interconnect, comcast refuse.

So basically comcast are singling out netflix, as a competitor to their own video services, and demanding money with menaces. Successfully.

Comcast's argument that more traffic comes in from level 3 than goes out - well duh, they're a retail ISP, and they provide much faster download connections than upload, and put restrictions on what services customers can put on that upload. Of course they're largely going to be seeing more traffic come in than go out. Netflix said they could change their client so as much traffic went up as came down, and comcast said that wouldn't make a difference, thus blowing that argument out of the water.

Given the natural and legally provisioned regional monopolies the cable companies in the US have got themselves, they've got their own customers over a barrel. They can let the interconnects go to shit, and the customers are stuck with it.

5 of the 6 permanently congested links to level 3's network are in the US. It's absolutely obvious that with the FCC unwilling to exert its existing regulatory authority, and congress' refusal to step in as it would be 'government regulating the internet', you have a textbook example of oligopoly abuse. Free markets cannot exist when monopolists abuse their market controlling power, and netflix is just the start. Enforcing regulation against monopolists abusing their position is the only practical, effective answer, and it's high time the FCC used its power to do just that.

Apply common carrier status to regional monopoly cable companies, and the sooner the better.

Re:ya

[Whip]

So, um, you do realize that there's not actually a technical differentiation between an ISP and anyone else peering with someone on the Internet, yes? None. A peer is a peer is a peer. There's a lot of companies that don't "pay an ISP for their bandwidth" because they're peering directly with all the big (and plenty of small) network players. The idea that a small handful of companies are "internet service providers" and everyone else must buy from them has never been an accurate representation of how the Internet actually works. And *I* most certainly *do* know the details.

Do you also realize that even if Netflix doesn't have "an ISP," that they still have to transit their own traffic to whatever peering points they use, right? That's far from free. The only reason Netflix would pay "their ISP" to start with would be to move Netflix's traffic from wherever Netflix originates it, to one of their peering points where they peer with Comcast. Not having "an ISP" do that for them doesn't negate the need. The data just doesn't magically appear at a peering point somewhere.

Also, do you realize that it's quite possible that Netflix would actually peer with Comcast in places that were actually *good* for Comcast? Netflix, in general, seems to want to offload their data onto end user's ISP's networks as close to those users as possible, since that's how their users get the best quality service. Doing so means that transiting Netflix's traffic is actually *cheaper* for Comcast, because they don't have to haul it as far across their network to deliver it.

(This is why Netflix actually offers, to major ISPs, *free* servers that the ISP can put on their network in whatever locations they like, which will originate a large portion of Netflix's traffic. This means that the ISPs could put the sources of that traffic in the places that are cheapest and best for the ISP, at virtually no cost to them, and save them lots of money in the process (since they wouldn't have to transit the traffic from wherever they peer at. Hell, shove one of those in the same buildings that terminate all your customers in a major metro area, and you practically eliminate Netflix as a source of traffic on that ISP's backbone in that area...)

Now, I realize you're just trolling, but I'm posting just in case someone out there doesn't realize that and tries to take you seriously.

Re:ya

[mishehu]

Just because "top eyeball network providers agree" doesn't mean it's fact either. This isn't the old PSTN where carriers got paid to terminate a call from another carrier destined for your own subscribers. That model worked because that was very much so a push-model (caller on other provider calls you, you didn't send the first ring to get that entity to connect to your). The Internet in general doesn't work that way, sorry to break it to you. It is, by and in large, a pull model.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

"and the ISP makes a deal with Netflix to put in a separate exclusive pipe"

You should have a problem with it.

Netflix's costs are higher than they should be.

I really don't. The problem I have is with the lack of competition.
It isn't a problem if Netflix and an ISP has a deal as long as I can choose another ISP if they can provide a better deal. The problem is that we are nowhere close to the number of ISP needed for competition to occur. (No, a handful isn't enough, you need something close to twenty or more for competition to happen.)

Re:ya

[mwvdlee]

Traffic doesn't flow through individual physical cables per website.
The only way to implement "Net discrimination" is by throttling it using software.

Re:ya

[pepsikid]

Really? REALLY?

So, Netflix pays to have a direct line installed to Comcast, thus circumventing Comcast's backbone provider, and saving Comcast the expense of paying for all that video bandwidth. The bill is picked up by Netflix. For some refuckulous reason, Comcast wants to CHARGE Netflix for this direct-peering arrangement, and when Netflix goes "dude... whut?" Comcast starts bawling about being "forced" to provide Netflix with "free bandwidth"? Hahahhhhahahahahaa.....

See, when I walk down the street to drop a note off at my neighbor's house, I am NOT "cheating" USPS and "forcing" them to provide me with a "free" delivery. I've gone and done the damn thing myself, at my own expense, if any.

What's happened here is that Netflix found that Comcast's backbone providers could not be trusted to move data reliably and equitably. Then they went and determined that it would also be damned cheaper to just run their own line to Comcast's network as well. This contributes to a multi-pathed Internet which circumvents the grievously centralized Internet that we have now, studded with gate-keepers who do nothing but impose obstacles and demand money to overcome them. The Powers That Be cannot have this. Although the peering benefits Comcast in this case, it sets a precedent which could cost them profit in the future. By failing to rise up and sabotage this aspect of network neutrality, Comcast would receive the scowls of their monopolist peers.

Re:ya

[AK Marc]

Buy AAPL 15 years ago. Buy GOOG at IPO. That's what people are chasing. The financials for Facebook have always been weak. But it started strong, until it dropped as the numbers didn't ever improve.

Re:ya

[Arker]

No.

Netflix was already paying for transit. Comcast was already being paid by their customers as well. Comcast said 'hey that's a lot of traffic on the interconnect.' Netflix offered to (as they have done with many other ISPs) install cache servers on Comcast's network, which would have improved the service for Comcast customers without requiring Comcast to upgrade their infrastructure (which Comcast really should have done years ago anyway but why would they spend money on it when they can apparently use it as an excuse to extort more payments instead?)

That's not asking for free bandwidth, that's making a very generous offer to help an ISP conserve bandwidth. Bandwidth, we should note, that the ISP already contracted with its customers to provide. Netflix is not a party to that and has no obligation to help at all, but obviously they do have an interest in making their own users happy, which is what they were after.

If as an ISP you do not like their offer then fine, dont take them up on it. You still need to provide the bandwidth you have already sold, just like if they had made no offer. But trying to spin that as a shakedown for free bandwidth? Are you freaking kidding me?

That's not just propaganda it's horrible propaganda, anyone that understands what you are talking about is going to laugh in your face.

Re:ya

[tragedy]

I think I finally understand what you're trying to say here, although I'm not sure you understand it. I think you're talking about how Netflix, in response to Comcast's complaints that Netflix was using their network as it is meant to be used, proposed local cachiing at various physical locations, connected to Comcasts network(s). And, since that would greatly diminish the supposed horrible network load that Comcast was complaining about, Netflix didn't think they owed Comcast anything to address Comcast's complaints. But that was just a proposed solution. They didn't send out an army of linemine to forcibly wire themselves into Comcast networks the way your posts seem to imply.

Re:ya

[mysidia]

The Internet in general doesn't work that way, sorry to break it to you. It is, by and in large, a pull model

As far as the Tier1 NSPs are concerned... Layers 4 through 7 don't exist, so they just ignore them. Their job (as far as management is concerned) is not to make a higher level "internet application" such as HTTP work, the network providers are only concerned about transporting Layer 3 IP payloads, and maximizing the number of dollars they get per bit of Layer 3 IP payload they transfer; the providers are not going to attach any "higher level logic" structure to their negotiation about the transportation of such and such packet, unless it is to their economic benefit to do so.

If the up/down traffic ratio to any peer is unbalanced, they are going to use that as an argument to reject free peering, and require their peer pay monthly data fees for additional ports to be installed.

In theory, that's how things seem to be going.

Re:ya

[SuricouRaven]

Yes, because they prioritized Netflix traffic. But if they'd properly upgraded their network, then Netflix would have worked without needing to be prioritized - and Comcast couldn't have charged them extra.

Re: ya

[Anonymous Coward]

So you saying that your activity of using Netflix, is causing your ISP to slow down. And rather than upgrade their service to provide you with the connection you contracted for they should blame Netflix and charge them.

What if it were reversed and they charged you to allow you to connect to Netflix, and you had to pay Netflix as well? Because that is basically what they are doing. Double charging for the same connection. If comcast couldn't handle the load they should have never offered it in the first place. Netflix isn't the one using the bandwidth, is the Comcast costumers that also use Netflix that are using the bandwidth. Netflix doesn't just randomly use Comcast's service when no one is connected. Comcast just noticed that Netflix was a good service and making money, and they wanted a piece of it.

The only way we can prevent this is to stop using Comcast. I will never be one of their costumers now because I don't endorse this behavior. If you don't like I suggest you look for amenities as well.

Re: ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix never demanded any bandwidth. It was Comcast users that did. If you think otherwise then you have no idea how the Internet works.

If you think that this is alright then you oew my isp $20 for the right to read my posts. After all you didn't pay my isp to use their bandwidth. If you have a faster connection please increase the amount accordingly.

Re: ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I get it. If you ship a package through my service I'm allowed to charge you send the package recipiant for your package.

I need to start a shipping service for comcast users. I can get paid twice and still keep my costs competitive.

Re:ya

[Chas]

How the hell was Netflix "trying to get bandwidth for free"?

They were PAYING their provider for their bandwidth utilization.

All they were doing was fulfilling requests THAT ORIGINATED WITHIN COMCAST'S NETWORK for content.

Comcast advertises unlimited internet.

Comcast is getting by with DELIBERATELY under-provisioned peering points. That's a limit.

Comcast used the peering points that Netflix data comes through to squeeze them for a bribe.

Comcast was deliberately degrading the performance of a given content provider (who is a threat to their cable TV business model). Which means their internet is not "unlimited". It means they're dictating to their customers what they can and cannot watch. Even if it's only at the level of "mild discouragement".

Basically Comcast is operating in bad faith with their customers, their peering partners and content providers, in an effort to chill innovation in the streaming, on-demand video market and sway customers away to their own lock-in solutions.

This is one of the main reasons why the TWC deal should be taken out back and shot with a bazooka.

Re:ya

[Chas]

The thing is, it IS fact. Netflix doesn't control the end-user's computer.
It doesn't bring up a browser and click it's own links.
Netflix doesn't generate the traffic requests for their content.

The end-user does. And the end user is ALREADY paying Comcast to fullfill their requests for internet traffic. No ifs, ands or buts.

Re:ya

[Chas]

Put in "at this time" and you're more correct.

Though it still completely ignores the fact that certain providers can fall out of favor, fall to the wayside and die if something significantly better comes along.

It also ignores the fact that 60% is NOT 100%. As such, there's still room in the ecosystem for multiple providers with a significant percentage of the market and significant revenues (Amazon, Google, Hulu, etc).

Re:ya

[porksauce]

This is the best explanation I've read of the issue, thanks! Clear, concise, and DERP-free!

Re:ya

[Wookact]

If I paid someone to walk to the store and buy me a DVD, he does not get to charge the store for the service, does he? No, I already paid him. End. Of. Story.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

Unrestricted where? From the ISP to the customer? Or from the ISP to the sites the customer wants to visit?

Re:ya

[Curunir_wolf]

Actually, the day after netflix paid, their customers on comcast had better communication with netflix. There wasn't even enough time for remote hands in a co location to physically move in a new box and switch some wires, let alone getting the telecom operator connect new lines.

Right. Which they accomplished by degrading everybody else's traffic. Great for people watching Netflix, not so good for Comcast's customers that were using the Internet for anything else, because now they are waiting even longer because those connections are now waiting in line behind all those Netflix packets.

This is proof positive that Internet services exist outside of any free market. In a free market, consumers are in charge, and they decide what is produced by aggregate demand. Now, instead, the producers are in charge, and decide what consumers will get, disregarding any consumer demands. That's a Communist model.

Re:ya

[UnknowingFool]

You missed what was going on, then. What Netflix was trying to get for free was transit from Comcast. Specifically, Netflix wanted to bypass their ISP so they wouldn't have to pay for the transit, and instead run direct lines into Comcast's infrastructure, demanding that Comcast run the connections and transit the data for free.

What the hell is free transmit? And what do you mean bypass their ISP? These descriptions are so inaccurate as to be false. Netflix has built an infrastructure to connect to the Internet using companies like Level 3 Communications. They didn't build a direct pipeline for every single one of their customers (consumers), and thus they have to rely on ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, etc. to be the last link between the Internet and the consumer. This is the way the Internet is supposed to work.

What was happening was that the consumer was using a lot of bandwidth to get video streaming from Netflix; however, for most broadband connections, this was well within the guidelines set for their customers for usage. Comcast was throttling the connection between Netflix and the consumer unless Netflix paid for more bandwidth as they felt they were using a lot of bandwidth. Unfortunately, that is not how the Internet is supposed to work.

If I were to use an analogy think of a shipping service. All the major carriers, UPS, FedEx, and USPS contract 3rd parties to deliver to the customer in some cases like the holiday season. The 3rd parties have agreements with the major carriers about how much they will be paid. I would bet during the holiday season that Amazon would be the #1 source of packages. What Comcast did is the equivalent of a 3rd party shipping service asking for more money from Amazon because they were not making as much money as they thought they should have under their agreements with FedEx, etc. Or the shipping service would slow down shipments. *wink, wink*. The problem with this is that any issues that the 3rd party is their own issue with the major carrier, not with Amazon. It should surprise no one that the situation occurs. Same thing with Comcast. They wanted more money to do something they agreed to do.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

"free transit" Are you referring to the caching equipment Netflix offered to stand up on Comcast's premises?

I'm not sure what preferential treatment Netflix was demanding. To what do you refer?

I thought peering was connecting to one another.
I think you mean settlement free peering, where there is no money being transferred from one entity to another for this service.
And if "balanced traffic" was the criteria, then all Netflix would have to do is to have their client transfer enough bits to balance things outbound.
That would truly suck
But I can see how, if you accept the criteria for settlement free peering as being exactly and only "balanced traffic" that Netflix would be wrong.
I dont agree with that criteria, and to me it looks like Comcast holding access ( requested by their customers ) to Netflix hostage.

Re:ya

[nanoflower]

How is it sleazy when what Netflix was wanting to do is make it easier for Comcast customers to get what they desired. Netflix wasn't sending any data on their own. They only send down the video streams when a customer (in this case only Comcast customers) request data.

What Netflix really wanted to do was set up a server farm inside Comcast's network to supply Comcast customers the video streams they wanted. It only makes business sense because Comcast is so large. That way Netflix could send down new movies/shows once to Comcast over the crowded Internet lines and then have the Comcast customers get their videos from the servers on Comcast's network.

The problem happens that the link between Cogent and Comcast is always flooded because Comcast wants Cogent to pay for peering. Netflix uses Cogent to connect with the Internet so all of their traffic to Comcast customers (that they requested) was going through the congested Cogent Comcast links. Ideally Comcast would upgrade the links when they become congested because the congestion happens due to Comcast customers requesting more data from Cogent customers but Comcast saw this as a way to get paid from twice from both ends of the connection so they didn't upgrade the Cogent network connections and it worked. Netflix is paying them and Comcast customers

Re:ya

[Richy_T]

I agree. How soon can we get this free market thing in place?

Re:ya

[Aighearach]

Perhaps you didn't know the details, so I'll forgive the snide comment. What Netflix tried to do with Comcast was to bypass Netflix' ISP and try to run direct lines. That'd be OK, but they tried to force Comcast to route all of Netflix content for free. That's a sleazy move by Netflix.

Funny that you said that about details, and then followed it with... heh. I dunno if you were lying about your level of knowledge, or are just lying about what happened. I'll assume then that there was no intentional mal intent, but I'll advise you for the future that throwing out claims of Truth from a position of ignorance is itself an act of mal intent.

That is what they were proposing as a work-around when Comcast was blaming the problem on Netfix's ISP. That is NOT what the actual dispute was over, which was Comcast playing games so that their own customers had poor access to the Netflix service.

Re:ya

[Richy_T]

I believe dividends get taxed more than capital gains. Hence government f*cks things up again.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ba...

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

my ISP already does this, and has for a while, but they have zero competition and are oversubscribed (my words) also know as (their words) a high usage area.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

You said "that creates the problem of poor performance, and they can then charge extra to fix it", emphasis mine.

I then said that based on how quickly things got resolved, they didn't actually fix anything.

But it's clear now that I simply had a different understanding of what you meant by "fix".

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

If your company isn't growing at 10% per year, stock will drop.

There is a slight upward trend to PE ratios over time (i.e., it is very easy for the stock to go UP, with non-growth or negative growth, the market is to eager to trade on the hope of unrealized profits). Arguably, they don't change much. So a lack of "growth" per se can only drop a stock if growth was "baked in" to the stock price already. If growth was NOT "baked in", then what the fuck are you complaining about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S_and_P_500_pe_ratio_to_mid2012.png

Seriously, learn about the subject on which you are commenting, don't just spout BS you read from some other BS poster.

Your post suggest a fundamental disconnect between earnings and stock price. That happens - on occasion (on rare occasion to many players, on many occasions to rare players) - but it is not the norm. I.e., you are talking shit.

Re:ya

[AK Marc]

Then the problem is that everyone bakes in "hope" to every stock. When earning expectations are announced, flat earnings are "rewarded" with a price drop. When results are released, flat earnings are "rewarded" with a price drop. 10% growth is expected, or people holding under-performing stocks sell them for stocks making the magic number, causing irrational drops in price for "good performers" and rises in poor performers.

Perhaps it's you that needs to understand what you are talking about. The quantitative traders are greatly outnumbered.

Re:ya

[mysidia]

If I paid someone to walk to the store and buy me a DVD, he does not get to charge the store for the service, does he?

Not only /can/ he, but he'd be dumb if he didn't. He's going to avail himself of any negotiation or coupon to attempt to get a discount he can, in order to reduce the amount out of his pocket that he pays for a DVD, in order that the amount you paid him minus his cost for the DVD, will be maximal.

It's a superficial example, and not at all like your relationship with your ISP.

Re:ya

[mysidia]

The thing is, it IS fact. Netflix doesn't control the end-user's computer. It doesn't bring up a browser and click it's own links. Netflix doesn't generate the traffic requests for their content.

Netflix chooses what links to offer. It's whatever links Netflix chooses to offer that are being requested. If Netflix were offering less content, there would be a lower volume of requests.

Users are clicking links in response to Netflix's offer; which is driven by Netflix.

The end-user does. And the end user is ALREADY paying Comcast to fullfill their requests for internet traffic.

And Cogent/Comcast is fulfilling their requests for internet traffic, just not in a manner that is satisfactory to Netflix, due to the existence of some latency and packet loss --- which is incompatible with video streaming, but just fine for website browsing.

The Comcast subscribers are paying for internet data, with no guarantee that every site in the world will have sufficiently uncongested links to deliver crystal clean HD rate streaming video and audio.

Re:ya

[laird]

No, by "free transit" I mean that Netflix didn't want to pay their ISP (Cogent) for the bandwidth, instead they wanted to bypass Congent and run data lines directly to Comcast and have Comcast deliver the data for free. Note that Comcast wasn't throttling Netflix, the "throttle" was that Netflix used a cheap, low quality ISP (Cogent) that delivered low quality bandwidth (i.e. Netflix caused the problems for their customers). Instead of paying for higher quality bandwidth, or Netflix tried to push Comcast to give them the delivery bandwidth for free, by calling it "peering".

Of course, Netflix delivering video to its customers isn't "peering".

Peering is for transit exchanges between consumer ISPs. That is, if (for example) Comcast and Verizon have customers communicating with each other in roughly balanced volumes, then Comcast and Verizon could agree to exchange the data for free instead of wasting time charging each other bills back and forth for that data. And that works because the traffic is balanced, so it gets the data delivered without wasting overhead of metering and billing each other.

But Netflix doesn't accept any traffic to deliver to consumers, they are a content provider that's pushing data (in huge quantities) onto consumer ISPs networks for them to deliver. So in their proposed "peering" relationship is entirely one-sided. And since they'd be the ones receiving all of the benefit of getting their data delivered, they pay for it. Like every other web site on the planet, Netflix has to pay for the bandwidth that they consume running their service.

Re:ya

[laird]

Actually, Netflix uses Cogent, a well known low-cost, unreliable bandwidth provider, not Level 3, a well-known, high-cost, high quality bandwidth provider. (As least, the routes I've seen) And Comcast didn't throttle Netflix. What actually happened was that Netflix decided that they didn't even want to pay Congent's low rates for bad bandwidth, they went to Comcast and proposed running direct lines, bypassing Congent, and they wanted Comcast to provide the ports and delivery for free.

Note that the bandwidth that Netflix was delivering through Cogent was being delivered just fine (as much as Congent is capable of delivering bandwidth). Comcast didn't interfere with Netflix at all, Netflix basically hosed their own deliveries in order to pressure Comcast to provide dedicated private links for free.

And no, this isn't the same as the caching servers that Netflix runs (and which Comcast has run for years).

Re:ya

[laird]

I think you're confused about the direction of transit. And you really shouldn't call me a liar just because you're confused about how networking is paid for. The direction of transit has nothing to do with who sends the request for data. The direction of transit is the direction of the flow of data volume, which (by a wide margin) flows from the content providers to consumers. Bandwidth providers, such as Netflix' provider (Cogent) receive data from content providers and delivers it out to consumer ISPs. Consumer ISPs, like Comcast, receive data from content providers and delivers it to consumers. The content providers pay their bandwidth providers, and consumers pay their ISPs, and that's how the internet gets paid for.

What Netflix tried to do was to bypass their bandwidth providers and run private links to Comcast, and then demanded that Comcast provide the transit for free.

Note that every web site on the internet pays for the bandwidth to deliver its content to anyone who browses the site. There's nothing magic about Netflix that they should be able to push their cost of doing business onto everyone else.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

I am truly curious. In all my reading on this subject, I have yet to run across Netflix not wanting to pay Cogent.
From all I have heard, Netflix was fine with paying Cogent, and that Comcast was refusing to update their connection to Cogent to keep up with the levels of traffic, causing problems for Comcast customers that use Netflix.

Where are you getting this information?

Netflix is not an ISP, why would they be accepting traffic to deliver to anyone?

Re:ya

[rioki]

But in your scenario, isn't "provided for free" the cheaper alternative? Netflix did not require Comcast to lay miles of cable, they did not need to they already used Cogent for these facilities. As I am reading it Neflix would have brought "the bits" to Comcast's "doorstep", using Level 3, which Netflix already payed. The result would that the large amount of bandwidth that normally would flow out to Cogent would now flow out to Netflix directly. This would require a neglectable amount of extra hardware and significantly less paid bandwidth to Cogent. I think you are one of the few that sees a problem here.

Re:ya

[laird]

The problem with Cogent is that Cogent is a badly behaved bandwidth provider - they have very low prices because they don't like to pay for transit, they rely on peering arrangements which they then violate (by pushing data into the other network, when peering is supposed to be balanced traffic) and getting cut off. And many, many ISPs have cut off Cogent due to their consistently violating peering agreements, which is why Congent is such a cheap bandwidth provider - they have to charge low prices to get people to use their service that is constantly at risk of being shut off. This causes their customers to have bad service, or no service, which is why Netflix has having trouble delivering video through Cogent. The problem isn't Comcast, the problem is Netflix' use of a sleazy bandwidth provider.

But instead of switching to a better quality bandwidth provider, what Netflix was doing was running private data lines from their data centers into Comcast, bypassing Congent (which is fine), and demanding that Comcast give them the ports and transit for free (which is not fine). What Netflix should do is pay for transit from a bandwidth provider that hasn't abused all of the ISPS to the point where they get cut off. But Netflix doesn't want to pay for the bandwidth that they're consuming, so they're making threats and issuing press releases instead. Sleazy.

Re:ya

[Wookact]

If he charges the retailer then the retailer raises the rates accordingly and passes the costs back to you so you end up paying twice. Perhaps in a true free market environment this would fly as you could find someone who did not rip you off that way, but in an environment where there is no other option, this is an abuse. To say this is not only fair but encouraged to try to charge your clients twice is silly.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

How does Cogent violate peering agreements?
And why would Comcast allow Cogents shenanigans to affect their customers ( in terms of bandwidth thru their interconnects )?

Re:ya

[laird]

"How did Cogent violate peering agreements?"

Peering agreements are between peers, with balanced traffic. Cogent doesn't run balanced links to the "peers", they push tons of traffic into the "peer" networks, and accept a trivial amount of traffic back (basically just requests). And Netflix' proposed "peering" with Comcast is even more one-sided.

That's transit, not peering, and they should be paying for it.

That's why Cogent keeps getting cut off: Level3, Spring, Comcast, Verizon. France Telecom, ... there's a long history of Cogent making agreements and then pushing them aggressively until the other party cuts them off. And then issuing press releases blaming the other party for "violating net neutrality" or whatever. If you google for "cogent cut off for violating peering agreements" you'll get over 400,000 hits, because Congent's business model is to be cheaper than any other transit provider, and they can only do that by cheating and pushing their cost of business onto their "peers".

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

You are assuming that peers means exactly and only balanced traffic.
Aside from "that is the way it has always been", what arguments are there for this kind of arrangement?

I don't agree with the idea that Netflix *must* pay.
Comcast customers are paying Comcast for access to "the internet", which includes Netflix.
Comcast customers are the ones requesting Netflix content.
Netflix is making broadband internet more attractive, which means more Comcast customers.

I've done some reading, and it looks like Cogent isn't a model citizen.
I'm not sure how that changes the basics of the discussion.

Re:ya

[laird]

If your network is pushing traffic into someone else's network for them to deliver you pay for that, because that's how their network infrastructure gets paid for.

If two networks push traffic to each other in equal quantities, which is typically between "peer" consumer ISPs, because users email each other, etc., then it's cheaper if you run the link for free than if you meter and bill each other.

If you're running a content site, pushing content out to the internet to deliver, and accepting nothing back but the occasional HTTP GET, then you have to pay for the transit to get your data to consumers. All web sites pay for their bandwidth, either explicitly or as a part of a site hosting package. And that's now the infrastructure of the internet is paid for. There's no reason that Netflix would be an exception, other than their desire to get massive volumes of transit for free.

The reason that Cogent's bad behavior is relevant is that they sign peering agreements with consumer ISP's, with the condition that the actual traffic be balanced between Cogent and the consumer ISP. Then they use that "peering" arrangement to push traffic onto the ISPs network, and instead of also receiving traffic back to deliver to other ISPs, they pushed out far more than they receive, so they're far from balanced traffic between peers. A few months of that, and the consumer ISP cuts Cogent off, forcing them to pay for the transit that they're consuming, or to balance their traffic. They've been doing this for many years, and been cut off by Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, France Telecom, ... pretty much every major ISP has had trouble with Cogent.

What happened here is that Cogent tried this trick with Comcast, and this time they tried to use their customer, Netflix, to force Comcast to let them get away with violating their peering agreement.

Re:ya

[Duhavid]

Comcast's network needs to be paid for by Comcast's customers. They are the ones requesting and paying for the traffic.

Re:ya

[laird]

The internet consists of many networks, only some of which are consumer ISPs. Web sites pay their transit providers to connect the sites to the internet. Consumers pay their ISPs to connect them to the internet. The transit providers, consumer ISPs, and other networks, all pay each other based on transit delivered. That's now the internet gets paid for.

In this particular case, Netflix wants to push a bunch of transit into Comcast's network, which usually they would have to pay for, just like any web site pays their transit providers (or CDN, which pays transit providers). But Netflix thinks that they're in a position to force Comcast to give them transit for free, and of course Comcast disagrees. And as far as I can tell, Netflix' performance on Comcast is sucking because they aren't buying enough transit from Congent (their transit provider) to service their customers. And they're trying to blame Comcast for this, even though the problem is caused by Netflix. Presumably they're trying to make their customers angry, but direct blame at Comcast, in order to pressure Comcast to give them free transit.

And who knows, it might work. But it's a sleazy tactic.

When Al Franken...

[houstonbofh]

When Al Franken sounds the most rational, things have gotten WAY out of hand...

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

From the article: 'Senator Al Franken has a pretty good idea of what the term "net neutrality" means...

If Senator Al Franken has "a pretty good idea" about this it would be among his first. (I wonder if he made a post anywhere about it?)

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

If all our senators at least gave as much thought to issues as he does, we'd be in a much, much better place.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate. It drives people like you crazy he's in there, doing good works, is loved and appreciated, and is there to stay.

Re:When Al Franken...

[wiredlogic]

How else are people going to listen to his remote satellite uplink?

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure, just like just about everything else you have posted about, you are utterly and inexcusably wrong

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate.

Really? Then you'll be interested in the items below. I assume you'll agree with him since you describe him as " one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate."

The NSA Has at Least 1 Liberal Friend Left: Sen. Al Franken

It's pretty lonely to be the National Security Agency right now. The revelation of a massive data-collection program has left many progressive senators criticizing the agency, from Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. But one of the other most liberal senators in Congress is so far speaking out in NSA's support: Al Franken.

Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, knew about the data-mining. Or at least that's what he told Minnesota's WCCO on Tuesday. "I can assure you, this is not about spying on the American people," Franken said. The senator also believes the data collection has saved American lives:

I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us, and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism. There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know.

Franken defends NSA surveillance

The Minnesota lawmaker told the St. Paul CBS affiliate that he "was very well aware of" the classified government programs that gathered personal data on telephone and Internet users.

“I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism,” Franken said, adding that "this is not about spying on the American people." Franken also defended the program as striking the right balance between national security and the right to privacy, echoing recent assurances from the White House.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

The senator also said it was appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who has claimed responsibility for the leak.

Well, who can argue with Al Franken since he is "...one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate"?

Unfortunately Al Franken owes his election to vote fraud.

Felons for Franken - Illegal felon voters may have handed Democrats 60-vote majority.

Did illegal felon voters determine the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election? The day after the election, GOP Senator Norm Coleman had a 725 vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312 vote victory.

The outcome wound up having a significant impact, giving Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Mr. Franken's vote proved crucial in the passage of ObamaCare last December in the Senate. The next month Democrats lost their 60-vote Senate majority with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Ever since Mr. Franken was declared the victor, the conservative watchdog group Minnesota Majority has combed through records comparing lists of those who voted with criminal rap sheets. It found that at least 341 convicted felons voted in Minneapolis's

Re:When Al Franken...

[alen]

franken gets his bribes from hollywood and lawyers
he's only saying what he's told to

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

If all our senators at least gave as much thought to issues as he does, we'd be in a much, much better place.

Al Franken thinks that the "place" for America is under NSA surveillance. Is that the place you were thinking of?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

Al Franken is often wrong and not especially thoughtful or informed on the issues. He is a pretty reliable "progressive" vote and hence the confusion.

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

It looks like our moderation tonight is "progressive," just not fair or honest.

Re:When Al Franken...

[arth1]

Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate.

Indeed he is, and given his level of sheer stupidity and making his mind up before he has facts, that says a lot about the rest of the Senate, and the People who voted them in.

There are days when I think the Senate would be better off if it consisted of random people from the unemployment lines.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it looks like you wedged your original reply in at the top of the page despite not being a response to the parent post. You deserve whatever moderation you get.

Re:When Al Franken...

[fustakrakich]

He also defends the NSA and SOPA. He looks like a regular politician to me

Re:When Al Franken...

[microbox]

Haha, sounds like you need to read: why politics makes us stupid.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Cyberax]

To be fair, he also introduced a bill to make NSA more transparent.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I agree with him on the transparency part and publicizing the secret court findings. I also agree with him on not reauthorizing the Patriot Act, though for different reasons.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

I hope he's right. I fear he is not. Declassifying the FISA court findings would certainly help inform my position.

>Al Franken is often wrong and not especially thoughtful or informed on the issues.

Have an example?

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

Hmmm, might you already be a victim of that?

Re:When Al Franken...

[dryeo]

How can a modern representative democratic country have segregation where whole classes of people can not vote? It's not the early 19th century anymore. And how do you know that those disenfranchised citizens didn't vote for other then Franken?

Re:When Al Franken...

[houstonbofh]

Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate.

Indeed he is, and given his level of sheer stupidity and making his mind up before he has facts, that says a lot about the rest of the Senate, and the People who voted them in.

This was my point in the root post. I guess the point was lost on the moderators, however.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. That is idiotic. Those votes could have just as easily gone to the republicans.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww, much butthurt I sense in this one.

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

It's pretty simple. Pretty much everyone that is a citizen and hasn't committed a felony gets to vote if they want to (which is generally a subset of eligible voters anyway). In some states the right to vote can be restored. The restriction is based on criminal behavior not class, race, sex, age, or other factors. I doubt that many felons were going to vote for Franken's opponent - a former chief prosecutor. There may have also been some indication of the felon's leanings for voting based on the voter registration - Democrat or Republican.

Re:When Al Franken...

[strack]

I see what you did there. That article was cleverly worded to imply that the convicted felons voted illegally, when in fact in the state of Minnesota, voting rights are restored to felons after they have served their probation.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, who can argue with Al Franken since he is "...one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate"?

Well, the statement was "in the Senate". So, basically, everything bad you say about Franken is damning of everyone else in the Senate, which fits. And, btw, that was more or less the gist of the whole original comment--the Senate is so out of touch with reality in IT that Al Franken is the most knowledge person there.

Having said that, yea, I can see the outrage about trusting him implicitly. But then I don't agree with you or the people you back, so I really wouldn't value your positive or negative opinion of anyone in the Senate, anyways. Give me the actual facts, though, and I can come up with my own opinion which is likely very different than yours. But as opinions are like assholes and everyone has them, we can clearly see how a representative democracy fails when it comes to relying upon opinions alone. Which is why ideology tends to suck because ideology focus on opinion.

Progressives suck. Conservatives suck. Liberals suck. Libertarians suck. Christians wouldn't suck if they actually followed what Jesus said. Muslims only tend to not suck when they *don't* follow literally what the Quran says (and most don't for the same reason most Christians don't--they care too much about what their society says, good or bad, and follow their own personal beliefs (which is why enshrining religion into law sucks because it codifies some other assholes opinion under threat of imprisonment or death)). Etc.

But, you were saying..?

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

Until their right to vote is restored it would be illegal for them to vote.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Aighearach]

I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but you appear to have drank spoiled koolaid.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like our moderation tonight is "progressive," just not fair or honest.

Or maybe you are spamming that link and people who bothered to read it are down voting it as deceptive?

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

But I guess haters gotta hate, or whatever slang you want to use.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Aighearach]

Have an example?

What, you expect people who complain about other people not being informed to care so much about being informed that they would be informed and also attempt to appear so?! Wow, that's a high bar!

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

The restriction is based on criminal behavior

The restriction is based on the government applying it to people. Yeah, there's a law in there somewhere, but those laws are not applied fairly, nor always accurately, and while it may of yet be relatively minor, it's very easy for the government to keep making laws that target certain groups and make them felons.

In general, the result is just that the poor and oppressed are less influential in government because poverty and oppression are the cause of most crimes. It makes for a funny cyclical process where the poor cannot vote for their interests, so policies that would help the poor don't get passed, so the poor get poorer, so you get the idea.

Re:When Al Franken...

[dryeo]

Criminal behaviour is often based on class, race, sex, age and other factors. A black person is way more likely to be stopped, and if caught doing something illegal such as having a small amount of a banned substance, much more likely to be charged, convicted and have a worse sentence handed down then a well off white person. Amongst other things this makes them politically impotent as in unable to vote to change a law that was originally enacted for racist and economical reasons rather then hurting other people.
What's to say that the felons didn't vote for the libertarian or green candidate or even write themselves in?
Though I would agree that if people who shouldn't have voted, did vote and there was enough of them to swing the election then the election should be declared null by a judge and a bye-election held. Unluckily the American system seems pretty rigid when it comes to elections and their timing so I don't know if bye-elections are allowed.

Re:When Al Franken...

[SuricouRaven]

Because the criminal justice system isn't about just protecting the public, and it's barely about rehabilitation at all. It's about vengence. It's there to satisfy peoples' natural desire to see those who break the rules of society made to suffer. The appearance of civilisation says it is no longer acceptable to openly torture criminals (Though few will object to some accidential torture), but arbitary punishments are still ok.

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

By the way, I see what you did there. Your post was cleverly worded to imply that a vote by a convicted felon is legal when it isn't until their voting rights are restored at the end of their sentence. You aren't really stating that you know that those felons were voting legally, are you? Their names, voting registration, and sentencing status would be public record.

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

Or maybe you are spamming that link and people who bothered to read it are down voting it as deceptive?

No, that's not it. The early moderation in the story was modding up any fluffy pro-Franken comment and modding down anything that questioned that. And the link isn't deceptive, your post is. Either that or you should go back and read that story at the link from the top since you left out meaningful parts of it in a way that distorts the meaning of the story. I'm sure it was unintentional. And I hope you stop spamming your comment.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

left out meaningful parts of it in a way that distorts the meaning of the story

wonder where he got that idea? maybe from your cropping of a few choice quotes, some of them twice(?) regarding something largely unrelated to net neutrality.

Re:When Al Franken...

[AK Marc]

It's simpler than all that. Why do people root for the Cowboys over the Redskins? It's tribal, not rational or logical.

Re:When Al Franken...

[cold fjord]

That's funny. From the story he picked out the portion on the Patriot Act and ignored the main aspect of the story which was Franken's defense of the NSA while claiming that it "doesn't seem like something Franken would do." If there was deception it was entirely his. Besides that, if people want to make broad statements about the wonderfulness of Franken like, "Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate" it seems reasonable that statement is open to question. Or are you under the mistaken belief that we can only join in on heaping praise on Franken and may not question him? Do you prefer choir practice to debate?

I'm pretty certain that statements like, "Al Franken is one of the most intelligent, ethical, fair, and progressive-minded people in the Senate" aren't really related to net neutrality either, are they?

I think you have some more mining to do idea-wise.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was referring to your first comment, which appears to be responding to the article directly, rather than the parent post. But good work sensationalizing and bitching until you get what you want.

Can you agree with Al's position on net neutrality and still disagree with his position on the NSA? Of course not, if he's not a member of your party, he's the enemy.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have to do any "mining" to come up with my ideas. But you can keep scouring the net for one or two things the man has said which might possibly upset the /. crowd and report back here with your findings.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Registered Coward v2]

Did illegal felon voters determine the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election? The day after the election, GOP Senator Norm Coleman had a 725 vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312 vote victory.

The outcome wound up having a significant impact, giving Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Mr. Franken's vote proved crucial in the passage of ObamaCare last December in the Senate. The next month Democrats lost their 60-vote Senate majority with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Ever since Mr. Franken was declared the victor, the conservative watchdog group Minnesota Majority has combed through records comparing lists of those who voted with criminal rap sheets. It found that at least 341 convicted felons voted in Minneapolis's Hennepin County, the state's largest, and another 52 voted illegally in St. Paul's Ramsey County, the state's second largest. Dan McGrath, head of Minnesota Majority, says that only conclusive matches were included in the group's totals. The number of felons voting in those two counties alone exceeds Mr. Franken's victory margin.

The assumption implicit in that is that felons are also Democratic voters; however without a conclusive way to prove how they voted you could also conclude (as wrongly as MM does) Franken's margin would have been larger had Republican's not gotten felons to vote for their guy. Ina edition, unless they verified that each felon had not had their voting rights restored you have no way ensuring their basic numbers are correct.

Of course, when you want to spin a story facts, logic, and truth are secondary to getting your story out.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, hyperbola much.
People can have good ideas and bad ideas in the same body. Despite the fact most people will disagree with everything you say, you occasionally say something interesting. And the universe doesn't implode or anything.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, too easily broken once you have the power.

Just make one of those things illegal, class race sex age etc.

Or if you don't want to be so brazen, treat the groups you don't want voting with harsher penalties for doing the same thing that your friendly voters do.
Why do you think Blacks and poor people are so overrepresented in jails despite the fact they don't break any more laws than rich white people?

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, he also introduced a bill to make NSA more transparent.

You want to talk about fair? There's little the NSA does these days that's even legal, let alone fair. Franken hasn't done jack shit with this and you know it, so try not to make yourself look like more of an idiot by claiming he has. The transparency comment was stupid enough, as if an intelligence agency would agree to such a thing. Even if the voters told them to, there's no way to prove it anyway.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck did this get a 5? Seriously, fuck you, mods.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the intelligence of AI Franken is only artificial?

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your circle reasoning is so small that it can be called point reasoning.

Re:When Al Franken...

[microbox]

We are all victims... that's the point. There is a way to side-step these types of cognitive biases, which is a life-long obsession of mine. There are certain red flags which the mind tries to stop itself from paying attention to. I could go on at length about that; however, the linked material raises several red flags. Just something to think about.

Re:When Al Franken...

[rgbscan]

This whole "felons voting" thing is sort of bogus. You make it sound like inmates are finding a way to vote. In the State of MN, once you have been released from jail. Finished probation, and otherwise "paid your debt to society", you have to go in front of a judge and ask for your voting rights to be restored. Many people are unaware of this. If YOU got out of jail and did your time and were a normal citizen, wouldn't you just assume you would be able to vote? This whole schedule a court date, possibly hire a lawyer, and "restore your voting rights" thing isn't well known, and many people who have been out of jail FOR YEARS, do what every American is supposed to do and show up at the polls and cast a ballot. There is legislation under review to automatically restore voting rights upon completion of your sentence - which is much more reasonable. A fundamental right, like voting, shouldn't be held behind lock and key and access to the courts after someone has paid their debt to society.

So yes, some released felons didn't follow the process and by law the votes should be thrown out, but you are making the mistake of assuming every single incorrectly voting felon voted for Franken. If you attribute and assign those votes according to the percentages for and against that voted in the general election, which is much more reasonable than your blanket assumption, then Franken still wins.

Re:When Al Franken...

[ganjadude]

looks like the NSA has dirt on franken, This really is out of character for him

Re:When Al Franken...

[houstonbofh]

Of, this thread is modfest heaven! I think I have over 20 mod points on my post.

Re:When Al Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something that I don't understand about conservatives: it seems like they have such a binary view of people. A person is either good or bad. I keep hearing from Republicans things like 'how do you like Obama NOW?' after he does something unpopular. My position is that it's possible to disagree with a politician on one issue without automatically deciding that they are now complete garbage. I'm not happy with some things that Obama has done, but I am happy with others, and I certainly believe that we're better off than we would have been with McCain/Palin or Romney/Ryan.

So, yeah, I disagree with Franken on the NSA. I agree with him on every other high-profile position that I've heard of him taking, so I'm generally in favor of the guy.

As for felon votes: there's no reason to believe that they were all votes for Franken. Even without those votes, he might have won. We don't know. We certainly cannot say for certain that he 'owes his election to vote fraud'.

Secret!

[WalksOnDirt]

Way to go, Al. The stupidity of your colleagues was supposed to be a secret!

Re:Secret!

[cold fjord]

And it still is! The whole US population, Europe, and the rest of the intertubes are keeping it a secret from this man:

Mr. Alphonse Di Rossi
1352 8th Avenue South #510B
Sarasota FL 34231

As long as he doesn't find out it is still a secret.

Mums the word. ;)

Good for Al Franken

[thermopile]

From Stuart Smalley to drawing all 50 states from memory on a blank sheet of paper, Al Franken continues to earn my respect. Would that more politicians were as astute as he is.

Good for him.

Re:Good for Al Franken

[cold fjord]

Al Franken would regain what respect I had for him if he went back to doing comedy on TV and in the movies for audiences instead of doing it in the Senate on the American people. "Astute" is not the word that comes to mind when I think of Franken.

Re:Good for Al Franken

[arth1]

He's a bought fool, but better than most of them.
I'd rather have a chipmunk than a snake representing me.

Re:Good for Al Franken

[cold fjord]

I think Franken is more like a toad, combining the less appealing aspects of the chipmunk and snake. Plus it pees on your hand if you pick it up.

Congress

[Travis Mansbridge]

Those congresspeople are well paid (lobbied) to hold those confusing, illogical views and spout whatever uneducated claims they can to defend them.

Re:Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that those congresspeople were also put into office by a public that still thinks that they know better as they still keep voting for the same two parties and wondering why things just don't get better.
 
This problem didn't just pop out of the ether. It's the product of laziness on the part of those who can even be bothered with voting anymore.

Re:Congress

[Travis Mansbridge]

It's not only the public's fault that we are mired in a two-party system. It seems the one thing the RNC and DNC can agree on is that no other party should even stand a chance.

Al Franken

[Rick Zeman]

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

Re:Al Franken

[alen]

really?

check out open secrets. he's been bought by lawyers and hollywood

Re:Al Franken

[s.petry]

Depends on the topic. For the most part Al is just one of the few good ones, but on occasion I scratch my head. He voted on some extension to the Patriot act, but then later voted against them.

Re:Al Franken

[cold fjord]

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

But he is a strong defender of the NSA. Are we still here to praise him? Or can we criticize him without being mod bombed?

Re:Al Franken

[fustakrakich]

He is owned by Time Warner, among others and is probably why we see him defending things like SOPA. And in regards to our privacy, he's busy defending the NSA. I am certain that the industries that support him expect a return on their investments.

Re:Al Franken

[cold fjord]

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

Re:Al Franken

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a strong defender of the NSA. Don't mind playing the other side when you need to get your karma back up?

Re:Al Franken

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

Re:Al Franken

[Anonymous Coward]

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

But he is a strong defender of the NSA. Are we still here to praise him? Or can we criticize him without being mod bombed?

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

Re:Al Franken

[Aighearach]

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

Re:Al Franken

[Anonymous Coward]

A person can be the best of a group without being flawless.

Is 538 the highest number? No, but the rest are fucking corrupt morons, not unlike yourself.

Re:Al Franken

[cold fjord]

... it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

Yes, I did read it, and better than you apparently. You seem to have skipped some things there. Lets add a bit more, shall we?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

The Minnesota lawmaker told the St. Paul CBS affiliate that he "was very well aware of" the classified government programs that gathered personal data on telephone and Internet users.

“I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism,” Franken said, adding that "this is not about spying on the American people."

Franken also defended the program as striking the right balance between national security and the right to privacy, echoing recent assurances from the White House.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

The senator also said it was appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who has claimed responsibility for the leak.

It seems you may not really understand Franken's position as well as you think.

Re:Al Franken

[cold fjord]

... it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

You seem to have skipped some things there. (Was it an "accident"?) Lets add a bit more, shall we?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

The Minnesota lawmaker told the St. Paul CBS affiliate that he "was very well aware of" the classified government programs that gathered personal data on telephone and Internet users.

“I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism,” Franken said, adding that "this is not about spying on the American people."

Franken also defended the program as striking the right balance between national security and the right to privacy, echoing recent assurances from the White House.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

The senator also said it was appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who has claimed responsibility for the leak.

It seems you may not really understand Franken's position as well as you think. Or do you actually understand it, and want to confuse people so they don't realize what Franken has actually been up to?

Re:Al Franken

[will_die]

look up frozen pizza as a vegetable.

Re:Al Franken

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

But how is that any better? The effect is the same.

Re:Al Franken

[c]

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

I'm a bit surprised the comedy lobby hasn't gone after him. If he goes too far in bringing common sense to politics, people like Jon Stewart will be out of a job. Late Night will only be able to do a "Top 8" count. Writers will be forced to actually *think*.

What if I think Franken is a moron?

[redelm]

If I happen to think Al Franken is a moron on the basis of past actions, does that mean I have to agree with the FCC? Ouch! Easier to re-examine Franken!

Re:What if I think Franken is a moron?

[swillden]

If I happen to think Al Franken is a moron on the basis of past actions, does that mean I have to agree with the FCC? Ouch! Easier to re-examine Franken!

Or... you could just realize that it's possible for someone to agree with you on some topics and disagree with you on others. And it's even possible for someone who is not a moron to disagree with you. Personally, I disagree with Al Franken in far more areas than I agree with him, but I'm in complete agreement on this one.

Re:What if I think Franken is a moron?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's even possible for someone who is not a moron to disagree with you.

No, it's not, moron!

Re:What if I think Franken is a moron?

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Hell I hate the guy and I don't think he's a moron. I mean you have to be pretty smart to come up with some of the stuff he does where everything he says is correct yet the overall picture is paints is just false.(Go ahead, read his section in "The Truth" on Eric Shinseki but first read up what actually happened on factcheck.org. He doesn't write anything that isn't true but you can see how he gets people to jump to the wrong answer, it's masterful dishonesty.) I've even started calling what he does as "Telling a Franken."

Re:What if I think Franken is a moron?

[Nemyst]

This is how politics is supposed to work, too, but partisan politics have corrupted this. You should be able to associate with the politicians that are doing what YOU want on a case by case basis. Senator X is pushing for a healthcare reform you like, you support him. Senator Y is pushing for net neutrality, support him. And so on. The parties shouldn't matter as much as they do, they should just act as approximate indicators of tendencies (so a right wing party wouldn't be expected to enact many left wing policies, for instance). Right now, though, instead of being able to cherry pick the politicians on each case you have a stance on, you need to take not just the politician, but their entire party whole and suck it up. Such a system cannot possibly represent you faithfully.

Re:What if I think Franken is a moron?

[swillden]

That's a natural consequence of our plurality-rules voting system, unfortunately.

Gilded Internet

[rtconner]

I do like the term "Gilded Internet" that I heard somewhere once. Net Neutrality lobbyists need to recognize the power of catchphrases and terminology in swaying public opinion.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes All is hard core liberal, but I agree we NEED net nutrality . carriers should not be inspecting the packets.

Not the Opposite of Reality

[SuperKendall]

What the FCC is doing is the opposite of what people on the internet thought Net Neutrality is.

But anyone who knew better was warning you what the FCC is doing now is what Net Neutrality being implemented actually was or would be.

Yes, this is a told you so. And I will keep telling you all so until you realize asking the government to help you with something is like asking the man in the old windowless van to watch your kids for an hour while you go get a tan.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[suutar]

I agree this is not much of a surprise. I gotta ask, though. If not the government, exactly who has enough power to get the telecom industry to actually behave?

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[felrom]

All of their customers.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Qzukk]

All of their customers

going to their local governments and demanding an end to the franchise agreements that have locked them into a crappy duopoly (at best).

Finished That For You.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Kasar]

Many of which are stuck with a government-mandated monopoly for cable.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[retchdog]

So true. But "small government" means to only allow the corporations to the negotiations.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[TubeSteak]

I gotta ask, though. If not the government, exactly who has enough power to get the telecom industry to actually behave?

The FCC is nakedly captured by telecom industry interests.
That leaves the SEC, the IRS, or the FBI.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[SuperKendall]

If the content providers and telcos have approximately equal power (which they do), over time they will behave because they have to work together.

Any time you bring in a singular more powerful force that always has the effect of INCREASING inequality, not improving it.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Aighearach]

I agree this is not much of a surprise. I gotta ask, though. If not the government, exactly who has enough power to get the telecom industry to actually behave?

I think a Martian invasion is our last, best hope for that one.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Aighearach]

Uhm, I'm not sure which Adam Smith you read, but my Capitalist Bible (Wealth of Nations) says that unless the government regulates them to ensure a level playing field, including for new players, then they will collude and the most established players will loot the customers and any smaller competition.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

If the content providers and telcos have approximately equal power (which they do), over time they will behave because they have to work together.

Any time you bring in a singular more powerful force that always has the effect of INCREASING inequality, not improving it.

You mean content providers like NBC Comcast, right? The "singularly powerful entity" which has been brought in, yes?

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

That leaves the SEC, the IRS, or the FBI.

That's so cute that you think the FCC is and those three aren't. Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the NSA?

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[LaissezFaire]

Most proponents of net neutrality can't describe what they think the regulatory regime will look like, besides some "everything is awesome" descriptions. The thought that the implementation would come out the opposite to what they wanted was unthinkable to them. In other words, they'd never seen government regulation.

Re:Not the Opposite of Reality

[Jaysyn]

All of their customers

going to their local governments and demanding an end to the franchise agreements that have locked them into a crappy duopoly (at best).

Finished That For You.

This actually happened years ago where I live. The problem is you just get one monopoly replaced with another (in all honestly, just slightly better & much more expensive) monopoly. We will never really have choice & competition until the "last mile" is regulated as a public utility.

Just imagine the hoopla...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine the hoopla and media sound bites if there were a Republican in the White House while the FCC was doing this.

Yup, the FCC isn't run by the White House but if a Republican were in the White House all the fingers would be pointing there.

Re:Just imagine the hoopla...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is a huge difference in intent. If a Republican was doing this same thing, we would know they were intentionally trying to screw us over. Because so many progressives support this, we know they intend to do the right thing.

Re:Just imagine the hoopla...

[Aighearach]

Just imagine the hoopla and media sound bites if there were a Republican in the White House while the FCC was doing this.

No, it wouldn't even make the front 10 pages of the newspaper, becaues those would all be about the new invasion of Beckybeckystanistan.

Thinking is hard

[opscure]

When our elected officials are called upon to vote or decide upon an issue, it is assumed that they are well informed on said issue; however, it is difficult to understand the ins and outs of a field they barely comprehend. It's my hope that one day there people that can make decisions for the good of the populous that are informed.

Mobile Uplink Unit

[nadaou]

a bit off-topic, but it's worth noting that Senator Franken has a long history as leader on the forefront of new communications and broadcast technology.

some of his reports from his earlier journalism days are very informative, one might even say daring:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Al+Franken%27s+Mobile+Uplink+Unit+

Re:Mobile Uplink Unit

[93 Escort Wagon]

I heard he invented the Internet!

Re:Mobile Uplink Unit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what he claimed but everyone knew he was lying.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[Squiddie]

I agree. The whole competition thing is bullshit. I wanted to change providers, and I just now realized that there isn't a single competing carrier where I live. I'm stuck with what I have. How the fuck am I supposed to vote with my wallet this way? Not have internet?

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[retchdog]

Yes.

Ha

[sunking2]

If you look at the way things are moderated on here you'd think Slashdot were owned by MSNBC

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[MikeRT]

It's becase everyone here knows that Verizon, Comcast, etc. have not invested te resources needed to ensure that your 50mpbs plan is actually providing 50mbps reliably. There's always an asterick and that leads to a note that says "well, you'll get 50mbps provided the rest of your neighborhood isn't trying to hit the pipe hard at the same time." You want neutrality and speed? Pay up. When the average consumer is willing to pay the cost of delivering Netflix to them without hosting their content on the ISPs' networks, you won't see the ISPs fighting over net neutrality. Heck you might even see Verizon sell off the TV side because their Internet side would be the cash cow at that point...

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[Vaphell]

There's always an asterick and that leads to a note that says "well, you'll get 50mbps provided the rest of your neighborhood isn't trying to hit the pipe hard at the same time."

there is nothing wrong with it in principle. Even excellent road systems get congested during rush hours, even the best cellular networks shit their pants on the new year's eve at 23:59, even the best delivery companies experience massive delays around Xmas. The reason is that having huge capacity that goes mostly unused most of the time is expensive, you pay huge maintenance costs yet there is not much going on on the revenue side.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[Anonymous Coward]

> your 50mpbs plan

I can't tell if you're trying to be funny or sarcastic. I live in downtown Seattle, and the fastest connection I can get is less than 1 Mbps. If a 50 Mbps connection delivered even 10% of the max, it's still an excellent connection. It would still be two to five times faster than the home connections I've seen here in Seattle.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[laird]

This is correct.

To elaborate a bit, reserved bandwidth is not the same as shared bandwidth.

The bandwidth that companies buy is reserved bandwidth, which is guaranteed capacity allocated to you and nobody else. That kind of bandwidth is expensive - let's say $10/Mbps (it's more in small quantities, less in large quantities, but let's make the math easy). So if you want 100 Mbps guaranteed, it'll cost you $1000/month. plus circuit fees, etc. In return for that money, you "own" the bandwidth, it's guaranteed available when you need it, and there's a Service Level Agreement with penalties if it's not there. And the cost is buy because to satisfy 100 customers, the ISP has to build 10,000 Mbps of capacity and keep it available, with redundancy.

The bandwidth that consumers buy is shared bandwidth, which is a capacity shared by everyone in the network. So if you get "up to 100 Mbps" you should expect to get 100 Mbps most of the time, but there are no guarantees. But you pay perhaps $100/month for that bandwidth (depending on your ISP, certainly less than $1,000). The way the ISP can sell shared bandwidth more cheaply is that they have a user behavioral model that tells them that if they have 100 customers that their total usage on average will peak at 1,000 Mbps, because not everyone will be home, online, and using max bandwidth. So they only have to build 1,000 Mbps of capacity, and because there are no SLAs, they don't need the redundancy that committed bandwidth would have.

So they're spending 1/10th as much to provision the "same bandwidth" for consumers as businesses, because it's not the same bandwidth. And that means that you can't expect committed bandwidth (SLA's, guaranteed capacity) if you didn't pay for it - if you pay cheap prices, you get what you pay for.

And that's not a bad thing. For most consumers, paying 1/10th as much for bandwidth is a great deal, and the bandwidth is almost always there when they want it. And if the internet connection is down for a few hours, it's an inconvenience, but they'll survive. But for businesses that rely on being reliably online (or they're out of businesses) paying 10x as much is worth it for the guarantees.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[John.Banister]

Perhaps a municipal broadband ballot initiative is in order.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[TubeSteak]

Even excellent road systems get congested during rush hours, even the best cellular networks shit their pants on the new year's eve at 23:59, even the best delivery companies experience massive delays around Xmas. The reason is that having huge capacity that goes mostly unused most of the time is expensive, you pay huge maintenance costs yet there is not much going on on the revenue side.

massive delays: check
mostly unused: check
huge maintenance costs: check
not much going on on the revenue side: check

Are you sure you weren't also describing Congress?

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[Anonymous Coward]

there is nothing wrong with it in principle. ... The reason is that having huge capacity that goes mostly unused most of the time is expensive, ... there is not much going on on the revenue side.

Huh, I just checked my bill and I still pay while I'm not using the network. If your revenue side is not receiving the money I'm sending, you might want to unplug it and plug it back in again. If that doesn't work, I can elevate your request to "Fuck you! Give me the fucking capacity you promised!"

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[Aighearach]

There's always an asterick and that leads to a note that says "well, you'll get 50mbps provided the rest of your neighborhood isn't trying to hit the pipe hard at the same time."

Sorry buddy, but you should really re-read your fine print because that isn't the hedge at all. Worse, it really says "up to 50mbps." That is actually your hard cap, NOT a speed they are promising even under perfect conditions with no other load. They never promise you could actually get that speed. Just that you can't get more than that speed. Except that they don't promise that you can't get more, either. A totally useless metric, for all parties, but it is the one they're selling their account tiers based on.

Other parts do hedge even more.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[firex726]

As I recall, WA is actually one of the states with laws that disallow municipal internet service.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[vivian]

The problem with this math is that if as per your example, there is a total fixed capacity of100Mbit, @$1000 per month, and that is shared between 10 customers as 'up to 100Mbit,' then by definition, they can not all get 100Mbit 'most of the time' - infact, they can each only get 100mbit 10% of the time, and nothing at other times, or something similar. Statistically, they will each on average get 10Mbit , (possibly up to 100Mbit, but sometimes mabey only 1 Mbit) so it should be marketed as something like 100Mbit/10 to indicate it's 100 Mbit maximum speed, shared between 10 customers.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[John.Banister]

We used to have laws that kept Safeway from selling liquor, also. They were changed via ballot initiative.

Re:We know why true net neutrality cannot happen

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not going to happen. The people around here just aren't into technology. Yes, we have the Wal-Mart of the Internet here, but that's it. If people here cared about the Internet like they do alcohol, you'd be able to buy decent bandwidth.

we need to hold Obama responsible

[fightinfilipino]

he promised strong Net Neutrality on his platform, and yet his Administration appoints the CableCo foxes to live in the FCC hen house.

sign this to demand Net Neutrality and to remove Tom Wheeler and other lobbyists out of the FCC!

Re:we need to hold Obama responsible

[Aighearach]

You should probably pare down your petition to asking for just one thing. Asking for a bunch of things, some of them poorly worded, means that even if I think I probably agree with what you meant, I'm not going to agree with the entire package as stated. And that will probably always be the case when you have more than 1 thing on a petition.

Re:we need to hold Obama responsible

[StormReaver]

You have a better chance of a wish for a flock of pink Unicorns to be granted than you have of a White House petition having any desireable effect. White House petitions exist solely as a feel good measure; nothing else.

If you want a better alternative, stop voting for Democrats and Republicans. While not a silver bullet (how apt a metaphor), it has a much better chance of evoking change. Vote for someone who usually wouldn't stand a chance against the RepubliCraps, and stop wasting your vote. Neither major party is the lesser of two evils.

WRONG

[bussdriver]

Franken drew the map from memory BEFORE he was in office and during the campaign for office. He has served ONE term. He never spent tax payer money learning to draw the map.

Given how politicians are sold like products and put on an act to get elected, it makes him no different than anybody else--- EXCEPT he is not a lawyer which automatically makes him better.

Re:WRONG

[nadaou]

Here's him doing it on the campaign trail in '88:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's him doing it on the campaign trail in '88:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Yes, and here's Bill Clinton playing the sax...

Oh, and look, old Ronnie Reagan dressed up in the movies as a cowboy...

What's next, I suppose we should bring up Obama's elite pot smoking skills from his youth? I'm sure today's generation would be impressed.

How the fuck anyone feels any of this bullshit is even remotely related to politics or matters is beyond me. The man knows geography and perhaps took a few illustration classes as a kid. If the voting masses are impressed by that bullshit, then Justin Beiber will be winning the next election. Congratulations. The presidency resume has been reduced to a monkey on a leash performing tricks.

Re:WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, my apologies I didn't watch the video close enough. I had seen him do it after he was elected and assumed the video was from that setting. My main point wasn't about the tax payers funding it, it was that it is just a memorization exercise that he has rehearsed. Which is really unfortunate because I would rather see an emphasis on critical thinking skills. I agree with your lawyer point, the reason there are so many lawyer in politics is because the exact same skillsets apply....good presentation skills and memorization.

Re:WRONG

[retchdog]

Well, familiarity with the geography of the USA is at least tangentially related to governance.

Re:WRONG

[Richy_T]

I dunno. I could see that it might just be something that he remembered. It shouldn't be that hard, especially if someone had even done it once for a project or maybe collected those state-shaped fridge magnets.

I guess the main thing is that it's a lot more impressive than most politicians who don't read bills or know much of anything or, like one local politician here, couldn't name the three branches of government (I actually like the dude but seriously?).

I'm no fan of Franken or his policy beliefs but it would be nice if our politicians at least had a clue.

What is truly scary

[Anonymous Coward]

is just how out of touch the folks running the show really are with well. . . just about everything.

Consider what generation most of Congress represents and you cannot help but wonder how they can possibly make an informed decision on any modern day issues concerning technology at all.

I'm not trying to use age as the variable here, but seriously, would you ask your grandparents to weigh in on issues like net neutrality, network security, computer crimes, why our high speed internet is anything but for many in this country, and why competition in the service provider arena is a big deal.

How is it, the most clueless are allowed to write the rules concerning things they barely comprehend ? How can we possibly benefit from such a system in the longrun ?

Re:What is truly scary

[Aighearach]

Just because we shouldn't assume mal intent where there might only be plain idiocy, that does not mean that anything awful or dangerous is automatically mistaken. It could be that they're not even clueless.

Final Surge Needed for Net Neutrality Petition

[Bob9113]

We need one more big surge of traffic, ideally starting Monday or Tuesday morning at around 10 AM Eastern, to get the Net Neutrality petition to 100k votes on time. I've been tracking the vote rate and it runs fastest on Tuesday, during the work day. We will get the most traction if as many people as possible promote the petition on their social network channels starting early this week. Please consider raising the issue and the petition on your social network channels to help generate the final surge in traffic we need to hit 100k signatures. The petition may not have as much legal authority as we would like, but at least it is a potent rhetorical device for Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, the two FCC commissioners who are already raising opposition to allowing a fast lane.

Parent is a Troll

[bussdriver]

I lived in MN during his election and I even listened occasionally to his radio show. He was nothing like Rush Limbaugh and at least he bothered to look for facts instead of make them up on the spot. I didn't listen long enough to his show to find fault and it wasn't entertaining; but I read his book which was the most funny thing I've ever read (and why I knew who he was, I never heard of him otherwise.) I wouldn't blame the failure of that radio station on Franken; that is baseless, he quit the show to run for office. One could make equally baseless claims that Franken was keeping that radio station alive.

He didn't steal the election. I was a volunteer. I WAS THERE. No cheating. They video taped and disputed every single stupid thing no matter how pointless (for example, somebody who marked and wrote in the same person.) The GOP propaganda machine lied about the whole thing and their disrespect for the legal system got them into hot water with the judges -- the majority of which were REPUBLICAN judges!!! They let it drag out a year with no chance to win solely to stall because they are so partisan. Plus creating outrage is a good way to raise money-- for both parties, but in this situation 1 side was being quite unethical. Every ridiculous situation was fought in court with a republican majority of judges and they lost most of it (hey, I didn't say the democrat lawyers were perfect... they ARE lawyers...) It's pretty bad when the Republican judge makes comments about how sleazy the Republican lawyers are.

The debate in the senate is mostly BS. I spent years watching CSPAN in the background. We are so bad now it doesn't matter what is said because filibusters have DoS the senate. It's the fall of rome all over again; just waiting for the death count to rise (maybe the "accidents" will just turn into out right murders.)

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, felons should be able to vote, anyways. The fact that they aren't is immoral, anti-democratic bullshit.

Voting is a right, and they're still people, even if they did make some dumb mistake when they were young.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

It is illegal for felons to vote in many states, including Minnesota at the time. (Really? You couldn't figure that out?)

you piece of NSA excusing shit?

Pardon me, were you speaking about Al Franken?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

It appears to be the case that intelligent commentary is as rare as fair moderation on this topic.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

The law is the law when it comes to voting. You can lose the right to vote by committing a felony just like you can lose your freedom. It may not sit well with you, but there it is. Do you want a society that respects the rule of law or not?

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want a society that respects the rule of law or not?

Like when slavery was legal? All those people helping "free" other people's property... for shame.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[arth1]

The law is the law when it comes to voting. You can lose the right to vote by committing a felony just like you can lose your freedom. It may not sit well with you, but there it is. Do you want a society that respects the rule of law or not?

Most Western countries allow felons to vote. It's considered an inalienable right.
And those countries appear to have more respect for the law than here in the US, where the ratio of imprisoned to free men is higher than most any other country.

What people have here in the US isn't respect for the law. These days, it's fear of it. That doesn't seem to work too well.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that argument is that felons shouldn't have had their right to vote illegally taken away in the first place. Yes, felons greatly voted for Franken over the GOP, but that is expected because it is the GOP that is fighting to take away their rights and treat them as subhuman. Of course they're going to vote for the person that supports them.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

Yes, that is the sort of moderation I was speaking of.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

You are confused on a couple of points. First, it wouldn't be illegal to take a way the right to vote of a convicted felon since it is the legislature doing it by passing a law. Second, losing the right to vote doesn't make someone subhuman.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Aighearach]

In Oregon a felon's right to vote is restored when they have completed their sentences and post-release supervision. Gun rights can be restored by applying with the local Sherrif's Office. (usually granted)

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

The law is the law when it comes to voting. You can lose the right to vote by committing a felony just like you can lose your freedom. It may not sit well with you, but there it is. Do you want a society that respects the rule of law or not?

Respect for the rule of unjust law doesn't help the society at all. So, no, I don't want a society that JUST respects the rule of law.

I want jury nullification, civil protest, and constant refusal to be denied basic rights, most definitely including the right to vote.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

You can vote if you're a felon in Minnesota. You just have to have served your setence/probation/parole.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU have a fucking nasty record of being an NSA cheerleader and a piece of trash. Your posting history is a sewer of crap

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

You probably intend to be offensive with your post, but mainly I find it pathetic on your part. Maybe you should seek help, like some counseling for rage and depression.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure the loss of the right to vote is a real deterrent.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Travis Mansbridge]

This is America. We don't know who voted for whom.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[cold fjord]

It really does bother some people. But if you don't think it is a deterrent, then why complain if people lose it since they apparently don't value it?

Re:Parent is a Troll

[AK Marc]

It's illegal to stop blacks from voting because they are black. But it's "legal" to convict a black person for a felony when a white person would have been given a warning, and then take away their vote for the rest of their lives.

And people wonder why the conviction rate is so much higher for a black committing the same crime as a white person.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise value isn't binary don't you. You can value things more or less than other things without either of them being zero.

So much of your thinking is binary though so maybe you genuinely didn't know?

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Felons voting?! These irredeemable reprobates would use their vote to reduce the power of the police state. Anarchy is sure to follow.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Curunir_wolf]

Voting is a right, and they're still people, even if they did make some dumb mistake when they were young.

That's how the rule of law works: You have rights, they are guaranteed by law. But when you violate others' rights (felonious crimes), your rights are taken away.

Re:Parent is a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

So all an incumbent has to do is jail a few of his most-ardent opposition to prevent them from voting? PERFECT

Re:Parent is a Troll

[bussdriver]

"Rule of law" is authoritarian Pavlovian mind control, quite Orwellian actually...

Society makes the laws. It is ruled by itself not by laws.

Law is created by representatives of THE PEOPLE. THE PEOPLE rule and that is how it is supposed to work, the laws merely reflect the current will of THE PEOPLE. "We the people" isn't just an empty phrase... or didn't used to be. Laws come and go.

Unfortunately, our society is too foolish to defend our fundamental human rights because of dehumanization of some minority group causes them to lose touch with the reality that those minority groups ARE STILL HUMAN no matter how you feel about them. Any blow against them is a blow against humanity. The right to vote is unalienable and we've denied it to millions unjustifiably (in other words we've alienated those rights.) The excons I've known were more politically capable than the average citizen. Someday, could all the competent voters will be felons? (with the NSA's help you probably have felonies on record already, only need 1 of the 10,000+ crimes... some obscure thing like marrying between races can probably be found... remember "rule of law" applies to unenforced old laws too.)

I'm a conservative

[DoofusOfDeath]

In just about every category of politics, I lean more conservative than Slashdot's median. But I respect Al Franken than perhaps any other Congressman out there. Not because I agree with all of his positions, but because he seems to act with real integrity in striving to help the American people.

Re:I'm a conservative

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the same as you. There are positions I do not care for that he holds. But there are many I like. Just the same with many Republicans and Democrats.

What I can not stand is the party line votes. This makes it *perfectly* obvious no one bothered to read the bill. They look to the party leaders to actually decide how to vote meaning 3-4 people sway what goes on. When I regularly see party split line votes it shows no one is doing their job. Neither side. Which is just my point we are Americans. Why do you care about the party and your lobbyists more than if it is good for your country. They are all a sad uncompromising pathetic lot.

If someone says it is one party or the other causing this. I dont really care. At this point BOTH parties are making a mess of it. The tea party started out as a good idea. But got co-opted by a group of rich bullies that want to push their agenda. Pretty much any real grass roots org will end up the same way. As money talks.

Its a good point

[spire3661]

The problem here is we didn't make them utilities 15 years ago for EXACTLY this reason. We were afraid of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Its not a completely Luddite-type statement.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[bondsbw]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Now I know on which side to stand

[jebblue]

Whatever Franken is for, I'm against, finally I know which side of the issue to take, thanks Al.

Re:Now I know on which side to stand

[Aighearach]

Good job, now you've got Al Franken doing your thinking for you! It is a small step, but you're making progress.

Re: Trolls

[conureman]

I am curious about the troll quotient in the responses to this submission. Could someone do a quantitative analysis to dispel my suspicions of Astroturfing?
I think some professionals are attempting to hijack the thread.

I support anti-neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes no sense for me to provide the same bandwidth to webpages of random joes as it does to major companies willing to pay me more. Sorry, gotta go where the money calls.

Don't care for the man

[p51d007]

Never really have, his politics is way to left for me, but, NET NEUTRALITY must be upheld or the web will end up censored like everything else in the world.

Re:Don't care for the man

[GrahamCox]

way to[sic] left for me

Which means that by the standards of most of the rest of the world, he's probably a little to the right of centre. I can't understand you Americans - what's exactly so terrible about a little bit of social justice and equality? That's all the left stand for. You've been so brainwashed by years of anti-communist propaganda that anything that even slightly whiffs of "the left" is automatically, viscerally rejected without any real thought. For whatever the left's faults might be, the right's are far, far worse. We've now had thirty-odd years of right-wing government across most of the developed western world, and where has it got us? The rich have got richer and the poor are poorer, and no-one is any happier. What a great system! How about considering a few mild alternatives, or at the very least some moderation?

Re:Don't care for the man

[John.Banister]

Just out of curiosity, what would you think of net neutrality, except for instances where more than 250 Meg in one hour come from ip's registered to the same legal entity to ip's registered/assigned to the same other legal entity. (trying to think of a formal way to confine non-neutrality to bandwidth hogging video entertainment)

Re: Don't care for the man

[Anonymous Coward]

So, to exactly the field where the cable company has the most reason to want to be able to suppress the competition?

Re:Don't care for the man

[msauve]

What's wrong with diversity? Why do you argue that the US should be like the EU? If every country is the same, then there's no choice. I myself prefer the concepts of personal freedom and liberty over social welfare. But, I recognize that others feel the opposite. So I won't try to change your country's politics (what my country does in that respect, I do not support), you stay out of ours. OK?

Re:Don't care for the man

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand you Americans - what's exactly so terrible about a little bit of social justice and equality? That's all the left stand for in the rest of the world.

FTFY. Politicians from the left or right here in the USA don't actually care about social justice or equality. Most intelligent people I know here (in Minnesota) would actually rather have the social justice/equality model that seems to work in western Europe, but effecting change is going to be slow when most of the population lacks basic critical thinking skills and education.

It's also cultural in the USA: ranging from the settlement at Jamestown in the early 1600s (Captain John Smith's "if you don't work, you don't eat" proclamation, even if he was a terror instead of a hero as older history textbooks in the USA paint him out to be - http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/smith.cfm), through the pioneering spirit that propelled people to settle west of the Mississippi River, through World War 2, that sense of rugged individualism, providing for self and family only, and pursuit of the "American Dream" pervades society, even today.

Re:Don't care for the man

[jp_831]

You should be the first to be socially equalized, with 91 percent of everything you have seized immediately and redistributed.

Re:Don't care for the man

[Anonymous Coward]

It's you. You're exactly the type of mindless knee-jerking anti-leftist bigot GrahamCox was skewering.

Re:Don't care for the man

[Anonymous Coward]

Left and Right are relative terms. Applying them to the planet outside of the US is a bullshit move. We, in the US, don't want to be like France, Germany, or Africa. We are not a third or second-world country. Extreme Right and Extreme Left policies are both bad for us, in the end, because they end up meeting around the bend.

You talk about equality, but I wonder what country that you're from. One that probably didn't know the definition of the word until the US taught it to you.

And if you want to talk propaganda, I live in a conservative state, and out of the last 500 references made to "Conservative" or "Right Wing" in the news or media, at least 495 have been negative. You hear so much vehement hatred and scorn for Fox News, but what about MSNBC or CNN? The networks that brought us such gems as "Thomas Jefferson would be against Guns if he were Alive Today" and outright REFUSED to run stories on Leland Yee.

We've got our flaws, but stop thinking that adopting your shitty country's standards is going to improve things here rather than cause us to sink to your level. WE DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE YOU. YOU ARE SEEN AS A STEP DOWN. I think you can appreciate the concept of another country telling you what you should be is bullshit.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[John.Banister]

Satellite? They'd probably make your local provider look like a bargain, though.

Wow. You belong in a glass display case

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought all the hyper-gullible young-uns who fell for the Obama machine's propaganda gimicks had awakened by now (after FIVE YEARS of empirical evidence) but apparently at least one of you still exists.... get thee to a museum, quickly!. We need to preserve at least one of you as a warning to future generations of exactly what mouth-breathing, drooling, vacant gullibility looks like and the sort of disasterous results it can lead to.

The white house petitions you idiots fell (and apparently continue to fall) for are as substantial and productive as Obama's economic policies. They are a gimmick; there is NOTHING that obligates the Obama people to do anything in response. If you all "sign" one in low numbers, the administration does nothing and smiles knowing you all "feel" like you've had some input and will keep supporting them even as they ignore you. If you all "sign" one in high enough numbers and if it's a policy they support anyway, then they do it (uninfluenced by the petition) and they know you all are more supportive having deluded yourselves into thinking you had a role and they were "responsive". If you all "sign" one in high enough numbers but the administration does not want to do it, they don't do it and they tell you they could not (for some reason that may have nothing to do with why they did not) but they know you'll be happy you had "input" and you might even be more supportive of them as co-victims if they can offer-up some "bad guy" (like the Koch brothers, Fox news, Glenn Beck, etc) as the excuse (even if the advertized "bad guy" had no power to block the action).

In NO situation, does the administration change its behavior in response to one of these petitions. These online "petitions" were nothing more than a voter outreach, voter data gathering and "social media" tool for team Obama in the age of dumbed-down Gen-Y and millenial voters...they were part of a highly-successful political campaign, but they are not actual methods for citizens to influence government. Heck, when they got too annoyed by you and your "petitions", they even arbitrarily changed the threshold number (to make it easier to ignore you) making it twenty times harder to reach, while ignoring petitions that had resched the threshold and they propagandized THAT action as a "good thing" (which their sycophant followers gladly and gullibly swallowed...). Like Facebook, team Obama convinces you that their gata gathering program is actually something done "for free" for your benefit...

Re:Wow. You belong in a glass display case

[Bob9113]

And I cannot believe that there are lickspittles like you, who try to disenfranchise others from taking every public stand available to them. Your shameless service to your masters may get you a favorable scrap from the table today, but you will never have a seat. You will die in the same place you are today, grovelling at their feet, whimpering about your impotence.

Re: Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir! You wound me to the quick. I am but a humble amateur troll, trolling for the pure love of the craft. This outrage will not stand. Pistols at dawn!

Protect IP

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when Franken was preaching in full support of Protect IP?

The FCC and FTC but NOT via "net neutrality"

[Anonymous Coward]

Franken is a tool and a vile little reptile... but like a broken clock, he occasionally points in the right direction.... like he did here in part of the article. The solution is NOT "net neutrality" laws that would introduce federal rules into how packets of data flow through the "intertubes" (rules that would be written by ignorant senators like the late Ted Stevens, and lobbyists, and unaccountable staffers and bureaucrats...) but rather, as Franken stumbles into in the interview, addressing the REAL PROBLEM: telco monopolies. The REAL problems we all have with the accessibility to, performance of, and prices for "high-speed" internet access ALL stem from the fact that the federal government has allowed so many companies to merge into mega-corporations with no competitors (where market forces like competition do not exist) and so many local governments have inked deals with these businesses that grant them favored or exclusive access to the trapped customers.

This is a general problem of big government, NOT this particular industry. The feds similarly allowed Boeing (builder of the Delta rocket) and Lockheed-Martin (builder of the Atlas rocket) to form a joint company ("United Launch Alliance" aka ULA) with all sorts of promises that this would be a "good thing". BEFORE that merger, everybody agreed we needed both companies and both launch vehicles for "competition" (and the safety of redundancy) but when they were allowed to merge later (just as Franken points out in the article that two telcos who previously called themselves competitors now claim not to be as they propose a merger into a monopoly) they claimed no harm would follow since they were not actually competitors. Ever since the merger, ULA's prices for launch vehicles have been rising at an alarming rate (basic economics: no competition == rising prices and/or worse service). Oh, and right now ULA is in the process of introducing lots of common parts into those two rockets (having driven prices WAY up, they now claim that this new "commonality" will help bring costs down a bit) .... but of course that only eliminates the primary justification for having the two launchers in the first place (dissimilar redundancy). Along comes Elon Musk (SpaceX) with a new rocket and (of course... WHO couldn't see this coming?) the big established monopoly (ULA) and their buddies in the big government (in this case the USAF) lock-in a big "block buy" contract for YEARS of future launch vehicles before the upstart can clear all the regulatory hurdles to "prove he is good enough" to carry important payloads (hurdles NEITHER Boeing nor LockMart had to clear before THEY got to haul payloads for the Air Force...)

Again: The problem is NOT lack of new goct regulations, the problem is MONOPOLIES!

Could I have some of the drugs you are taking?

[Anonymous Coward]

They appear FAR superior to the rose-colored specs I was using to see the best in everything. Putting the words "fair" and "ethical" into the same sentence with "Al Franken" is like putting "John Wayne Gasy" and "humanitarian" in the same sentence. The man is one of the most despicable and dishonest people to ever walk into congress, and THAT's saying something, given that people like Nixon once served there...

Typical "Progressive"

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of having a cogent argument, you lob an expletive or two and run away...

You can always tell who is losing an argument: the loser is the one who yells loudest and swears the most... he's the one who lacks a reasoned argument and the facts to back it up.

Bob9113, you're off your meds

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not try to disenfranchise anybody nor take anything away from anybody, as you have accused me of.... unless you're upset that I might have deprived somebody of some gullibility or ignorance. I have no "master" and like.... WOW.... you want to talk about my DEATH???? Wow. Just..... WOW

You must be a completely brainwashed obamabot to get THAT offended by my simple illumination of the FACT that White House petitions were a CAMPAIGN and PR GIMMICK of the Obama political people and that people who advance them and sign them are not actually having any impact. This is not even a partisan thing... they'd be just as much of a joke and a gimmick if Romney or McCain had won and implemented them. Gimmicks like this allow the supporter of a politician to sit at home banging away on his keyboard and think he is "involved" when he could, instead, get involved in a REAL political campaign (like in California where people can work to get initiatives on the ballot that can actually become LAW).

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[mysidia]

I'm stuck with what I have. How the fuck am I supposed to vote with my wallet this way?

It's called /move house/, unfortunately.

Re: Trolls

[Concerned Onlooker]

"I think some professionals are attempting to hijack the thread."

I certainly hope that's the case. It would be a shame if he was being an idiot on his free time.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[Travis Mansbridge]

You'd probably run into this problem in many parts of the country. Hell, Comcast tried using the fact that they don't cover most of the area covered by Time Warner as justification for their merger, when this ought to reveal how noncompetitive they have always been.

Re: When Al Franken...hard core liberal

[Anonymous Coward]

Start your own ISP.

I guess it's hard, but it's not impossible.

This is what capitalism is supposed to be all about. Use your right of free enterprise to add some competition to the market.

Put up or shut up.

AI Franken

[TomMajor]

First thought it was "Frankenstein Artificial Intelligence" :)

Quiz

[StripedCow]

Senator Al Franken has a pretty good idea of what the term "net neutrality" means

We should subject our congressmen to quizzes more often. Let them explain their understanding of the problem to the press. I'd love to see them stuttering.

Re:Quiz

[Anonymous Coward]

Will never happen, you would have to live in some kind of democratic utopia with a free press to boot to have that level of access to politicians.

Or you could just move to one of the many countries that already works like this...

Laws or not?

[crimson tsunami]

So a law is a law when it comes to being able to vote.
But when the law says he won the election you changed your mind? Now the law is wrong? which one is it?

Alternative to Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

The alternative to Al Franken was Norm Coleman, who supported the Bush II administration in all aspects of their mission. It's likely that Mr. Coleman would have supported NSA spying with out regard to how it affected the citizens of the USA. Recall that Norm Coleman changed parties (Democrat to Republican) only after being elected to office. Could you trust a man that lied about his platform when running for office to be any more honest while in office?

I could say many more things about Norm Coleman. I dislike him and I don't trust him. I would rather have Al Franken than another Bush lapdog in the Senate representing Minnesota.

As people like to tell those of use who think G.W. Bush stole Florida, get over it.

Re:Alternative to Franken...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I, too, prefer an Obama lapdog in the senate.

He is right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now we have corporations that are taking advantage of the situation, and that is bad. But even worse, would be the government thinking they have authority over things, and you should have no doubt, the FCC will use it as leverage over the ISPs.

This will result in a Partnership between government and private corporations. Yet more fascism, and an attempt by them to seize control over communications.

A new term to describe this:

[VGPowerlord]

So, I'm surprised no one has come up with this term yet to describe the vision of the FCC: Net Neuterality.

I'm sure it has Bob Barker's support.

Load

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is one of load. Rather than let everyone suffer the same for the internet being overloaded at times, they want to let preferred customers get the high bandwidth. It like reserving a high speed lane on the highway, and only high paying customers get to use it. Of course, is not just a matter of congestion, it's a matter of profit. Once net neutrality is restricted, or ended, they can charge more for the net. That's really what it comes down too. This is one area where government can maintain an even playing field, so that innovation continues on the net.

Here's Orrin Hatch's (R-Utah) response

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some intense doublespeak below, but... TL;DR: Orrin Hatch is against net neutrality; wants less government oversight of Internet providers because reasons.

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Dear Mr.....:

                        Thank you for writing me and sharing your comments about net neutrality. Your comments are important to me as I continue to work on this issue, and I appreciate the opportunity to explain why I generally oppose the FCC’s net neutrality rules.

                        In my view, the courts have been correct in repeatedly striking down FCC attempts to advance its net neutrality agenda. Yet the FCC continues to overstep its statutory authority by seeking alternative legal justifications to impose the same burdensome regulations. I agree with Judge Silberman’s opinion striking down the FCC’s latest net neutrality rules warning that these continued attempts to broadly interpret the FCC’s authority under Section 706 of the Communications Act will “virtually free the Commission from its congressional tether.” This "tether" is part of the important Congressional oversight that is essential to constitutional separation of powers.

                        Net neutrality may sound like fairness but it is actually the opposite. Bandwidth is finite—like the finite number of lanes on a highway—and network providers must innovate in order to accommodate the burgeoning traffic. As they invest billions of private dollars in new and improved networks, they should rightly expect to set prices and manage those networks as they see fit. Despite network providers’ investment in building a state-of-the-art broadband network from scratch, content providers can create profits for themselves by using this network toll-free while at the same time creating bottlenecks that that the network providers have to fix with costly infrastructure upgrades and improvements.

                        Limiting the ability of the FCC to regulate the Internet is actually good for the future prosperity of the Internet because it incentivizes network providers to make these upgrades and improvements. The Internet’s tremendous growth has been made possible not through increased government involvement, but from opening the Internet to commerce and innovation. Rather than adding additional regulation, we should incentivize development of additional capacity, thus benefitting consumers and our economy.

Thank you, again, for contacting me with your comments. If you would like to have regular updates on my work in the U.S. Senate, I encourage you to subscribe to my E-newsletter, visit my Facebook page, and follow me on Twitter.

Your Senator,

Orrin G. Hatch
United States Senator

Franken was a clever comedian, not a Senator

[marcgvky]

Just goes to prove that the American electorate is STUUUUUUUPIIIIIIID.