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Netflix Could Be Classified As a 'Cybersecurity Threat' Under New CISPA Rules
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes "The cybersecurity bill making its way through the Senate right now is so broad that it could allow ISPs to classify Netflix as a "cyber threat," which would allow them to throttle the streaming service's delivery to customers. "A 'threat,' according to the bill, is anything that makes information unavailable or less available. So, high-bandwidth uses of some types of information make other types of information that go along the same pipe less available," Greg Nojeim, a lawyer with the Center for Democracy and Technology, said. "A company could, as a cybersecurity countermeasure, slow down Netflix in order to make other data going across its pipes more available to users.""
DRM also makes "information less available". Finally a bill that makes EME, HDCP and alike illegal!
Okay then, Google and the rest should be saying: we'll find a way to directly hook into the home as if this were the early days and we owned everything except the dirt we buried the cables in though sometimes we own that too. Silicon Valley needs to grow up and swing its weight. A tax protest from just a few major corporations would be costly, and if they encouraged their employees to join, the impact would be ten fold. It's time we got together and, as a people, told the government it is not taking another step without our damn permission.
CISPA was authored by corporations, for the purpose of reigning in "pirates" and the like. Every "rights holder" in the world will become partners with the government, and search out any of us who don't comply with every draconian rule they can think up.
CISPA is most definitely unconstitutional.
Freedom of speech implies freedom to listen. Since there are more listeners than speakers
the value of "listener" needs to be strongly considered in all of this.
Manipulation of bandwidth to listeners as a whole must be even handed.
If a content delivery company __Your_Cable_Company__ does not throttle
their content in the same way they throttle the likes of Netflix, HBO-Go, NBC,
etc. they are crossing a line I do not want crossed.
If they throttle content because of a phone call from a branch of the government
we have a larger problem!
There are technologies that can help. Much content from Netflix and others
has a large audience and is ideal for p2p caching and bandwidth boost in
the same way that bittorrent amplifies the bandwidth of a single seeding
site. My DOCSIS 3 modem is an eight down four up device and could host
a p2p caching service that amplifies the cross sectional bandwidth of my
cable service. Xfinity is already selling "spare bandwidth" as WiFi connectivity.
My digital TV recorder and decoder uses different channels
and different tricks to deliver on demand and live content. It is already one
of the most serious power consumers in the house and could be replaced by
a more power efficient unit that also has p2p caching abilities that utilize the
multi channel bandwidth of cable coax a couple fold locally and orders of
magnitude better in a community.
Sadly they are looking for a political power grabbing solution and not
at a more net neutral technical solution.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.