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Taking The Profit Out Of Killing 'Net Neutrality' (cringely.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the surfing-on-SDNs dept.

Robert Cringely has a plan to ensure that internet providers will never profit from the end of net neutrality: We are being depended upon to act like sheep -- Internet browsing sheep, if such exist -- and without a plan that's exactly what we'll be. The key to my plan is that this is a rare instance where consumers are not alone. There are just as many or more huge companies that would prefer to keep Net Neutrality as those that oppose it... Those companies in favor of Net Neutrality obviously include the big streamers like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and a bunch of others. They also includes nearly every big Internet concern including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. Those are some pretty big friends to have on your side -- our side...

So I suggest we all join ZeroTier (ZT), a thriving networking startup operating in Irvine, California. There are other companies like it but I just think ZeroTier is presently the best. ZeroTier is a very sophisticated Virtual Private Network (VPN) company that has created a Software Defined Network that goes beyond what normal VPNs are capable of. To your computer or almost any other networked device (even your smart phone), ZT looks like an Ethernet port, whether your device has Ethernet or not. Through that virtual Ethernet port you connect to a virtual IPv6 Local Area Network that's as big as the Internet itself, though the only users on this overlay network are ZT members.

The trick is to get all those big companies that are pro-Net Neutrality to join ZT. The most it will cost even Netflix is $750 per month, which is probably less than the company spends on salad bars in their Los Gatos HQ. Embracing ZT doesn't mean rejecting the regular Internet. Netflix can still be reached the old fashion way. I just want them to add a presence on ZT, too... What the ISPs won't like about this plan is that ZT traffic can't be read to determine what rules or pricing to apply. They could throttle it all down, but throttling that much traffic isn't really practical.

10 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Here's the link... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...to ZT that was so thoughtfully removed in the summary.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    1. Re:Here's the link... by Xyrus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're posting this crap on a tech site, and they expect people to actually buy into it?

      This is advertising bullshit. There is nothing about ZT that would prevent ISPs from throttling the shit out of it, or banning the traffic altogether. That's assuming that ZT would even have the capacity to deal with the traffic in the first place, which they don't.

      It doesn't matter what kind of gateway you're running. ISPs can throttle/block any point of entry they want without net neutrality. If you run over their lines, they can bend you over and no amount of of garbage like this will help.

      --
      ~X~
  2. Lol... by TFlan91 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Running away from walled gardens to another walled garden is not a solution to the net neutrality problem and certainly doesn't "take the profit out" of it. It just moves that profit to another company. /vertisement.

  3. see PRC dude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This approach (tunneling traffic to avoid the ISP slow lane) is too simple for a reason- it is trivial for the carriers, or anyone with simple flow data, to detect tunneled/VPN traffic and then route it prejudicially (even if the carrier cannot read the encrypted payload). Itâ(TM)s what PRC and other totalitarian regimes have been doing for years : penalizing tunneled traffic by default.

  4. And then they completely refuse packets by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ..from Zero Tier, because it "promotes cyberattacks." What do you do then?

  5. Not practical? by TFAFalcon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why woudn't throttling this be practical? If the ISPs are free to throttle everything else, and they don't mind their customers suffering, why would they stop at a VPN, especially a VPN that is meant to stop throttling. In fact they can throttle it much more than any other type of content, since it just means that the users will stop using it and switch back to accessing their content directly.

  6. HAHAHAHAHA wtf is this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, lets solve this buy paying ZT a ransom instead of AT&T or Verizon.
    No, I don't think so. This is just a (very) thinly veiled ad for yet another company trying to make a profit off providing access to services people are already paying for.

  7. Several practical issues by MtHuurne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What the ISPs won't like about this plan is that ZT traffic can't be read to determine what rules or pricing to apply. They could throttle it all down, but throttling that much traffic isn't really practical.

    If they can throttle popular destinations like NetFlix, or protocols like BitTorrent, why wouldn't throttling a VPN be practical?

    Once all the video companies are on ZT, followed by social media and search, (don’t forget gaming!), that’s probably 80 percent of all Internet bandwidth.

    For fast-paced games, low latency is very important and any kind of additional layer will add latency.

  8. How did this blatent ad get on slashdot by cullenfluffyjennings · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is not information here, no news, nothing funny just a blatant add for a company with a really expensive and really dubious sounding VPN. I view slashdot as my source of all news that is not fake. What went wrong here. @cowboy_neil - we need answers.

  9. Re:Right... by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So everyone in the country should send their traffic through a single VPN? How does that scale to 300m citizens, and what will stop the VPN company from throttling webpages that don't pay their internet baksheesh?

    300 million citizens? Give me a break. 250 million of those citizens can't even fucking spell VPN, and they certainly don't give a shit about Net Neutrality.

    These are the same citizens who will happily shell out an extra $10 per month for the "premium" internet tier just to feed their social media addiction. Those against Net Neutrality know this.

    The masses proved long ago that ignorance is bliss. Don't expect them to start caring anytime soon.