Slashdot Mirror
"The FCC Still Doesn't Know How the Internet Works" (eff.org)
An anonymous reader writes:
The EFF describes the FCC's official plan to kill net neutrality as "riddled with technical errors and factual inaccuracies," including, for example, a false distinction between "Internet access service" and "a distinct transmission service" which the EFF calls "utterly ridiculous and completely ungrounded from reality."
"Besides not understanding how Internet access works, the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer... As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." And in addition, "Like DNS, it treats caching as if it were some specialized service rather than an implementation detail and general-purpose computing technique."
"There are at least two possible explanations for all of these misunderstandings and technical errors. One is that, as we've suggested, the FCC doesn't understand how the Internet works. The second is that it doesn't care, because its real goal is simply to cobble together some technical justification for its plan to kill net neutrality. A linchpin of that plan is to reclassify broadband as an 'information service,' (rather than a 'telecommunications service,' or common carrier) and the FCC needs to offer some basis for it. So, we fear, it's making one up, and hoping no one will notice."
"We noticed," their editorial ends, urging Americans "to tell your lawmakers: Don't let the FCC sell the Internet out."
"Besides not understanding how Internet access works, the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer... As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." And in addition, "Like DNS, it treats caching as if it were some specialized service rather than an implementation detail and general-purpose computing technique."
"There are at least two possible explanations for all of these misunderstandings and technical errors. One is that, as we've suggested, the FCC doesn't understand how the Internet works. The second is that it doesn't care, because its real goal is simply to cobble together some technical justification for its plan to kill net neutrality. A linchpin of that plan is to reclassify broadband as an 'information service,' (rather than a 'telecommunications service,' or common carrier) and the FCC needs to offer some basis for it. So, we fear, it's making one up, and hoping no one will notice."
"We noticed," their editorial ends, urging Americans "to tell your lawmakers: Don't let the FCC sell the Internet out."
Honestly, what can we do? This is an unelected board with a majority that will change this no matter what we say. Congress has not taken up the issue in any way, and doesn't seem to have any intention of ever doing so, so what would be the purpose of writing to them? It just looks to me like Ajit Pai is going to force this measure through, no matter the science, business, societal, or ethical concerns.
In short, the current FCC doesn't give a damn about any of us.
Come on it's just a series of tubes, it's not that hard to figure out.
Don't blame the FCC, blame the 48% that voted to put a lunatic administration in charge. If you assign a wolf to protect the chickens, you don't blame the wolf for eating the chickens.
Not sure they're just idiots.
Oh, why not corrupt ? It also works, isn't it ?
Totof
Let's put an organisation which didn't understand how the internet works in charge of regulating the internet! What could go wrong?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You have to classify traffic to prevent congestion. Congestion will break the interwebz. As soon as you're classifying traffic, which is already happening, you have no neutrality If you want a simple example of how neutrality breaks shared and limited resources, remove quotas from your file system or schedulers from CPU resource management.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rf...
Please don't be a moron. Proper network traffic management is perfectly ok under NN. Networks have to have traffic controls, you just can't have a network without it. ISPs already tried to put this forth as a reason for no NN. Where NN comes in is what traffic management ISPs are allowed to do. Doing it for network health and usability is perfectly ok. Giving some customers preferential treatment? No.
Learn the difference, stop spreading misinformation.
So, they didn't know this back in 2015 either, when the "Net Neutrality" was enacted?
Or, maybe, the government should not be telling, how owners of the wires deal with their customers at all? What a novel thought...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The question is however, who gets to be allowed to do what and should the middlemen be allowed to do much of anything and if so, why? It isn't their packets to manage.
We should have mesh networking by now.
It seems unlikely that they don't actually understand it. The problem here is an active attempt to do harm rather than just the usual incompetence. So the fact that they are publishing stuff that is wrong on this many levels just means that they are taking a lead from their masters and recognizing that they can say what they like regardless of any concept of reality.
Equally the general public will find it unlikely that they don't actually know so the EFF campaign might not be very effective as lobbying.
But if you take away their misinformation, they'll have nothing left! Then how will they defend the poor helpless megacorps just trying to make an extra million bucks?? Don't forget the trickle down benefits of that; the CEO might use $1-2 of that extra million to tip their yacht attendant before parking the bonus in an offshore tax haven.
Then Why the hell let them REGULATE The thing?!?
Life as we know it will end once Net Neutrality is repealed.
The only rational response is for everybody to march through the streets naked then douse themselves with gasoline and strike a match. This will also have the side benefit of reducing their carbon footprints to zero.
I think people wail about lack of competition of ISP fairly constantly.
Obama did not make undoing the Bush presidency his own undertaking, in fact he kept a lot of Bush era policies that needed to stay in place. You're a moron.
the FCC also has a troublingly limited knowledge of how the Domain Name System (DNS) works -- even though hundreds of engineers tried to explain it to them this past summer
Well obviously this was "Mansplaining" and therefore invalid.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why don't you sign up for an account Ajit?
First thing I thought of when I read the summary. "As the FCC would have it, an Internet user actively expects their ISP to provide DNS to them." Yes, they do. They can get DNS elsewhere, but almost everybody expects to get DNS from their ISP and most aren't aware there are other options.
Actually, it's due to the nature of infrastructure, including the legal rights of the property owners whose land the cables are installed on.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Not that people need to be reminded of this, but a huge part of this administration is irresponsible and dangerous ignorance or pure maliciousness to the benefit of few, which has not changed anything so far quite unfortunately.
I hope the EFF, ACLU and the lawsuits that are coming against the FCC results in something. Unfortunately though, the justice system isn't showing many signs that it's all that much different from the administration too.
Did anyone else read the article and find that the examples citing the fcc not understanding the internet were pretty weak? Take the first example:
The FCC Still Doesnâ(TM)t Understand That Using the Internet Means Having Your ISP Transmit Packets For You
The article cites the following statements taken from the fcc document
End users do not expect to receive (or pay for) two distinct servicesâ"both Internet access service and a distinct transmission service, for example.â
Certainly what the fcc is saying is true, that users expect to pay a single access fee for internet access. So how does this relate exactly to the articleâ(TM)s claim that the fcc doesnâ(TM)t understand using the internet means having your ISP transmit packets for you? Maybe I am missing something but it seems if the article is not in sync with what the fcc is trying to say and why the fcc chose to use this hypothetical counter example.
Those that have no idea how the internet works want to dictate how it should work.
Hopefully it's also going to end as usual: Nobody gives a shit about their "regulations" and thing continue to run like they did.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
HUSH!
Don't listen to him, lawmakers. It's just like you think it is, to block something from being accessed, just tell your ISPs to blackhole the DNS name. That's going to disallow all internet to the bad, bad content you hate, yes indeed. I swear.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could we just replace that idiot with the water cooler in the hall. Not just because it's more humane, but simply because it knows more about, well, everything.
Fire that guy. Or fire a gun at him, your choice. But get rid of him now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is it really THAT hard to register an account to shill?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
they know full well how it works. They're doing it on purpose because their corporate overlords demand it. But hey, the submitter is a jackass that fell for the head fake
Found the shill.
Next time, at least register an account.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, networks do NOT need traffic controls. Fixed fucking pipeline without oversubscribing like a lying fuck is what we need.
You are the moron who has obviously never administered a network of any large scale.
Man, the stupid is strong with this one. Look, oversubscribing bandwidth is a perfectly acceptable thing to be doing. When one calculates the needs of 1000's of users, 95% of those users are not going to be using anything near what the pipe is capable of. This is where traffic and congestion controls come in. A small number of people using lots of bandwidth can coexist just fine with a lot of low-bandwidth users. This is simple shit, you are the stupid one. Oversubscribing isn't a problem, it's how ISP's make money. I have no problem with it. It's just smart business. Most of the users won't use the capacity.
Now please, go spread your stupid elsewhere. Grow some braincells and get an education before you post about something you obviously know nothing about.
The companies dominating the Internet have been censoring the right since at least 2015.
I hope to see you killed in the street, and soon.
With that last sentence you are on the border of incitement. I certainly hope that any civilised country draws the line at incitement, and this has nothing to do with left, right, up, down, black, white, purple, or yellow. Encouraging people to be killed should be just as illegal on the internet as in other media.
The ISP's were considered to be "common carriers" like telephone companies. Telecom companies could charge different prices for residential/business telephone lines. They could charge for value added features like caller ID, voicemail, three-way dialing, as well as international, national, local and emergency calls, but they could not bill you according to what you were talking about or who you were talking to for a particular distance.
ISP's can charge you for particular data rates (although with ADSL/DSL that varies according to how far you are from the telephone exchange. With fibre-optic cable networks, the signals travel at a fixed bit rate, but you get a maximum data transfer rate based on your pricing option).
The fear is that they'll start trying to charge you value-added features such as bundles of websites (video, social, messaging, photographs) or even levels of video compression.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
"Preferential treatment" is defined by the CiR in contract with the ISP. "Traffic management" necessarily implies no neutrality.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
What CiR are you paying for? How does your Tier 1 provider shape and police your traffic before it hits their backbone?
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
This false distinction between “Internet access service” and “a distinct transmission service” is utterly ridiculous and completely ungrounded from reality. As the FCC would have it, there is some sort of “transmission” that is separate from the Internet that ISPs provide access to.
As usual I feel behind the curve in trying to understand where these guys are coming from.
Back in the day, when the "Internet" and AOL was the same thing to many people and you accessed it through a dial-up modem, there was definitely a distinction between packet transmission and ISP provided services. I remember trying to get USENET access through my dad's system where AOL was the "ISP." Everything in their app worked fine and you could do some "Internety" things but on the Windows side there didn't seem to be anything like a protocol stack that was recognizable to anyone used to using *nix type systems. Maybe I just didn't know what I was doing but I couldn't even get a PING from the command line shell to my home system which had a public IP address.
Wouldn't the FCC's position make sense if this was still the way we were doing things? Maybe the top people there think it is.
The FCC can't overrule the will of congress, and in fact their prior attempt (prior to the one being discussed) was struck down by the supreme court.
I assume that you're talking about the "third way" approach, in which the FCC tried to impose network neutrality while designating ISPs as "information services" rather than "telecommunications services." The court struck that down because the FCC didn't have the authority to regulate information services in this way - in fact I don't think that "information service" is a real thing, it's just a term that they made up as a half-assed compromise - but they did have the authority to regulate telecommunications services. So, the court said, all that the FCC needed to do was change this designation, then they could apply network neutrality without issue. Both of these powers, determining what what category a service falls under, and regulating telecommunications services, are powers granted to the FCC by congress.
I don't know what you mean by "visceral argument." You seem to agree with me that our current Republican government is responsible for selling us out, you just don't seem to think that that this is a problem. You also make reference to an explicit instruction by congress not to regulate the internet - I'm not familiar with this instruction, but it is certain that it either doesn't say what you're implying or that it's one of multiple instructions that the FCC has received on this issue (I'm sure that they have had many, and I doubt that they all agree).
It's worthless.
They just need to know who's giving them their money.
At his point, that's the people who run the telco and cable companies.
What, you still think that the higher-ups in the Federal Government actually care about We The People? Have you been hiding under a rock for the last several Presidential administrations?
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
You went on for quite a while talking about something completely different than the GP, who clearly meant selling bandwidth they can't actually provide without regard to the underlying techniques used to guarantee it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You should learn about QoS and ... well pretty much everything else. Also, 911 specifically doesn't rely on VOIP, because that would be stupid, but NOBODY is claiming they can't give E911 service a priority.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Management is the huge wrench that is thrown in the gears of Net Neutrality. Get rid of management and let the Engineers run it.
Were you asleep the last 6 years of the Obama administration? The republicans were the obstructionist "Party of NO." Getting congress to do literally ANYTHING was futile.
Doing it for network health and usability is perfectly ok. Giving some customers preferential treatment? No.
The practical problem is that those two different motivations can result in the same (perceived) results to the end user. And then they call the FCC and bitch. And then there's an investigation. And then the ISP sure better have created logs for every step taken "for network health and usability" (along with why they took each of those steps) to try to make sure the investigation only results in a time-sinking royal pain in the ass rather than a fine. And everyone's monthly rates go up (again) because of the extra layer of administrative bureaucracy that has to exist to manage all that.
With all the wailing in this thread about non-technical people in the FCC making technically-driven decisions, that's exactly what was happening on a daily basis on the enforcement side. And that's one of the many reasons why letting the government second-guess and micromanage ISPs' business and operational decisions is a fundamentally bad idea.
I agree that it would be better for the internet to be regulated by an organization that understands the internet.
But I don't think an unregulated internet is going to go very well. Verizon and other ISPs don't have any incentive to provide a free and open internet. Quite the opposite, they have every incentive to lock that shit down as tightly as possible and then charge you through the teeth for each per-service key.
There's no competition in many areas, and in the majority of jurisdictions where there is "competition," its not meaningful. So the only checks on the power of the ISPs is a regulatory body.
Oh and of course Pai's suggestion that the internet should be regulated by the FTC instead.. what a joke. If you don't think the FCC (who is at least tasked with regulating general communications) isn't up to the task, the FTC (who doesn't have much of anything to do with any technology) isn't exactly a step up in that regard.
Why are any of those who are 'in charge' in that position? I think it's been established that it's not 'because democracy.'
Requiem for the American Dream
I wouldn't say clearly. Not the way I understood it, given the "fixed pipeline" and "no over subscribing".
that their prior attempt was struck down by the supreme court.
Struck down because the Internet was misclassified as to the type of service it was. They re-classified it in order to grant the FCC the authority. Did you just wake up from a decade-long slumber?
Wishful thinking is not incitement.
Bush era screwed up so badly that the rest of the world now suffers from influx of refugees. Clinton era decisions are the cause for the crash in '08. Obama was a mediocre president that lacked power to clean up the crap from both earlier administrations and therefore we got Trump who by the rest of the world is seen as a clown.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
No, I think he'd be like me and think: "Holy shit, did Republicans just grow a spine and/or conscience?!" Note: I am a former Republican who left the party because they completely fucking sold out to big corporations and the batshit crazy 'evangelical Christians' who are anything but evangelical or Christian.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
The difference here is type of service compared to who's providing the service.
So QoS can be fine. Prioritizing VoIP over a videostream is acceptable but prioritizing two different VoIP streams differently aren't.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Once again you show that you know nothing about net neutrality.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
No, that isn't the real fear. The real fear is that they start controlling the information. Which candidates you get news about. What reviews you see. What products you can buy and what sites you can buy them from.
Without NN, corporations are free to censor anything and everything they want. There are no first amendment protections. Which is why authoritarians like the Trump administration and the current crop of neo-fascists want this pushed through so quickly. Having corporations censor and filter information is a wonderful end around the first amendment. "Tell me Mr. Andersen, what good is a web site if no one can see it?" And with virtual monopoly status people have no choice or say in the matter, other than not having internet access at all, which is pretty much impractical these days as everything is online.
~X~
It's only censorship if it's teh gubmint doing it. If it's Gawd-fearin' good ol' boys it's fine.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The Internet worked well for decades without net neutrality.
94% of US census blocks have more than one residential fixed provider, 75% have three or more providers. Many rural areas also have various forms of wireless. If you need good Internet service, don't move to a backwards, remote part of the country. It's not the job of the federal government to ensure that every part of the country has all the infrastructure you deem necessary. Heck, nearly 10% of US households have no sewer service; are you going to legislate access to sewage treatment next?
And a lot of the local monopolies are due to government regulations in the first place; the way to fix that is to eliminate those regulations. Many of those exist at the local level, so if residents of Hicksville want more Internet competition, it's for them to change their laws restricting it.
Furthermore, net neutrality decreases competition in the ISP market because it leaves price as the only differentiating factor, and that's winner-take-all.
And make no mistake about it: the primary effect of net neutrality will be to perpetuate the monopolies Google, Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube are creating, because their business models crucially depend on it.
The entire net neutrality debate is absurd. It's the kind of ignorant, self-serving stupidity wealthy techies come up with again and again and that uses the poor and the underserved as little pawns in political games. The people arguing for net neturality couldn't care less about households with only one ISP; what they care about is the big corporations they work for and being able to binge on streaming video while making others pay for it.
If the FCC doesn't know how the internet works, then why are you so enthusiastic about making them regulate it in the first place, Slashdot?
Like what, Patriot Act extensions, Guantanamo Bay and murdering people with drones?
If the board of a bank is incompetent, not even communists would say that means all banks are incompetently run. They'd say that bank needs a new board. The problem with the FCC isn't that it's a government organization. The problem is that it has been stacked with corporate hacks appointed by both parties.
Which means - stay with me here - the solution isn't to get rid of the FCC, the solution is to stop nominating hacks like Pai to be on it.
Yeah, you've posted that 27 times now and it makes you look just as stupid as it did the last 26 times.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The Internet worked well for decades without net neutrality.
Which decades were those?
The internet worked well without having a debate about net neutrality because it was just the way things were by default until technologies like deep packet inspection came around, allowing ISPs to discriminate based on packet content.
Put it this way. If you're out in the desert driving your 4x4 wherever the hell you feel like, and then someone comes along and paves a road and starts fining you for not driving on it, even though the rest of the desert is still wide open. And its a toll road to boot. That's kind of the car analogy for net neutrality. Your freedom to drive anywhere vs the ISP's "freedom" to charge you through the teeth to do something you could previously do for free, just because they now can.
94% of US census blocks have more than one residential fixed provider
Which is why I included the word "meaningful." If there are two providers and they're both doing the exact same shit -- whether actively colluding or just because they can -- its effectively the same as no competition.
Now you could claim that implies that unfettered internet access is simply worth more than we're currently paying for it. And maybe that's fair (though I doubt it given the continual record profits these companies are bringing in.. but lets assume its fair.) But that brings up the whole point of the conversation -- is the internet important enough to people and to society as a whole that we should ensure everyone has access at a reasonable price, even if that price is under market value? I would definitely say yes myself but if you want to argue that record profits aren't enough for the ISPs then fine but try to include that in your argument rather than some vague notion of corporate "freedom" or whining about competition that obviously wasn't solving the problem. If it did, we wouldn't have to talk about this issue in the first place! Remember that Tom Wheeler also started as a corporate shill, and he still thought it was worthwhile to implement NN regulations.
are you going to legislate access to sewage treatment next?
Sewage treatment usually is legislated. Its extremely unlikely that you'll get a permit for a septic tank if you have public sewer access in most places.
And even if we ignore that, you would need to tell me how to set up a fully functional internet in my back yard that's not connected to a commercial ISP as easily as I can install a septic tank. Then I'll agree with you that NN regulations are no longer necessary.
a lot of the local monopolies are due to government regulations in the first place
Yes.
the way to fix that is to eliminate those regulations.
Agreed. What does that have to do with federal net neutrality rules?
if residents of Hicksville want more Internet competition, it's for them to change their laws restricting it.
Which many have tried to do, and the incumbents take them to court, and frequently the incumbents win based on the "we can afford more lawyers than you" argument. And even when they win, the have to allocate even more right-of-ways for their new lines, try to find and hire people that know what they're doing to set it up (and you can be sure the incumbent will conveniently be going on a hiring spree for technical people in that area at exactly the same time. I'm not saying it can't be done, but the incumbents have so far been as much of a roadblock as they possibly can in pretty much every town that's tried to setup municipal broadband.
it leaves price as the only differentiating factor, and that's winner-take-all.
Price, bandwidth availability, customer service, service areas.. probably others. Even if you ignore all of those, I would still prefer competition to be base
I'd say that common users don't know what IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are, have no idea what DNS does, and either their equipment is preloaded or they're told to enter these characters into their setup screen. It doesn't matter to them whether these odd number-and-period combinations are IP addresses for their ISP or another service.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Actually, most of them are probably configured via DHCP from the ISP, which serves them up a DNS server address along with the rest of their network configuration.
Very likely. Sometimes I've had to add DNS servers, sometimes not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I realize you're hyperbolising, but this needs to be explicit: Politicians don't care that you can access "bad content." They merely want to make it sufficiently inconvenient such that most voters do not see it. You can repost your exposé all over the darknet, and your MP won't care. But the moment they worry you'll set it before a journalist or the man on the Clapham omnibus, you might want to find a solicitor.
Fine by me.
We let the unwashed masses in once. They brought corporations and the feds along.
We will not make that mistake again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.