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Apple Is Blocking an App That Detects Net Neutrality Violations (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: Apple isn't allowing a new app developed by a university professor that detects when your internet is being throttled by ISPs from being listed on the app store. The company claimed the app contained "objectionable content" and "has no direct benefits to the user."
The reporter, who tested the app through the beta channel, writes: The app is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. According to the app, my Verizon LTE service streamed YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps. UPDATE: Slashdot reader sl3xd has made us aware of an update to the story. "After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store," reports Motherboard. "According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved." "The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told Motherboard in an email.
The reporter, who tested the app through the beta channel, writes: The app is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. According to the app, my Verizon LTE service streamed YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps. UPDATE: Slashdot reader sl3xd has made us aware of an update to the story. "After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store," reports Motherboard. "According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved." "The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told Motherboard in an email.
Never in short supply at Apple.
Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
Streaming video providers will usually send you the maximum video quality that your connection can support. If 25mbps is available, they could be sending you full HD or even 4K at a high bitrate so the quality is really good. This isn't really of much benefit on a small mobile screen, so you're tearing through your data plan for no real reason.
AT&T calls this feature "streamsaver" and it's on by default; you have to turn it off if you don't want it. There's probably no shenanigans at work here, just trying to prevent customers complaining that watching one Netflix movie used their entire data plan.
Don't expect one company's walled garden to allow tools to help you detect other company's walled gardens. These walled gardens are becoming more like the hedge maze at the Overlook Hotel.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Silly developer, Apple has no interest in enabling people to climb or even notice garden walls!
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
Your well-reasoned and thoughtful contribution offends my angry narrative, sir!
I have unlimited data and an MHL-HDMI interface so I can play videos on a large TV using my phone, you insensitive clod.
Cell providers are being jerks and violating net neutrality. If a user wants to limit bandwidth, the streaming app should give them controls to do so, that's not the bailiwick of the cell provider, quite the opposite. Regardless of the FCC's recent actions regarding net neutrality, Verizon is still bound by the open access terms under which it obtained new LTE bands, which prohibits them from limiting or restricting applications (that would include Netflix, etc.).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And get more latency and slowdown either due to the VPN software itself or the limits at the VPN provider.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Read the fucking article, you worthless idiot.
What that app does is to connect the author's OWN server and send back the SAME data in the SAME way all the time. The only difference from one test to another is that it changes changes in the metadata to fool DPI into thinking it's dealing with video from this or that service.
Just because Youtube is not using all the available bandwidth does not mean it is being throttled by the ISP. I also imagine that YouTube itself has some bandwidth management built in to prevent one customer from negatively affecting the rest.
Yes, but the app is downloading all video from the researchers university servers directly and through a vpn tunnel. He's simulating various providers by replaying sample data and metadata:
For example, when an encrypted connection is established between Netflix’s servers and T-Mobile’s servers (known as a TLS handshake), certain plaintext information is exchanged (host names and server names). In Netflix’s case, one of these servers is called “nflxvideo.net.”
What he found is that by changing the metadata of the video’s header—but not the video itself—it could be downloaded at much higher speeds. If he changed the metadata of other types of data (photos, for instance) to have the Netflix metadata, that data would be throttled by the telecom company when it was downloaded.
“We realized that they’re looking for certain text in the network traffic, and if we changed that text—replaced nflxvideo.net with northeasternvideo.com—when we send that traffic over the network, it doesn’t get throttled,” Choffnes said. “This means it’s keyword related and not server or even content related.”
http://david.choffnes.com/pubs/imc095-molavi-kakhkiA.pdf
"seems to indicate ISP throttling, but can happen for many reasons."
And therein lies the chicken and egg problem. Unless you have the data about download rates and latency you can't even begin to find out WHY your speeds are slower to certain services. And to some extent that shouldn't be on the customer to even care about. The ISPs are advertising certain download speeds and with services from large providers that can afford adequate infrastructure to meet demand there really should be no excuses for regularly not meeting demand for those services. The ISPs and content providers are presumably already getting paid by their customers and the ISPs will know which services are popular so they should both have an incentive to work it out. If the market is healthy and working for people then there is no reason that ISPs and content providers can't invest time and money in making the overall service better.
Technically I agree though, unless the data is being centrally collected and analyzed to spot patterns and then used by consumer groups to ask the ISPs and content providers what the issue is then it could also just be a temporary issue that is more understandable.
Would be best if the FTC could do this kind of analysis systematically and see if ISPs are really providing the services and speeds they are advertising and apply some pressure to improve service up to those advertised standards. If it is a one time slow down due to a particularly popular cat video then that is one thing, but if customers are never getting advertised download speeds from some popular services then that means the ISPs and service providers need to up the peering bandwidth and provide for peering closer to the customers to reduce latency.
But as an individual (unlike just feeling like an app is slow) you could at least with some hard numbers, perhaps taken multiple times at different times of day, then go to your ISP and ask what the problem was accessing certain services and then yourself go to the FTC to file a complaint for false advertising and the BBB and the state consumer protection agency to get it all on record that companies aren't providing the advertised services.
The Android version is available on the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/...
Yes, we all realize that AT&T only has our best interest in mind. They are known for their selfless generosity and concern for customers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"has no direct benefits to the user."
Except knowledge, and we wouldn't want that.
As for the other comment, yes speed depends on more than just network speed, but if the guy next to me on Verizon streams Netflix at 4 Mbps and I stream on Sprint at 20 Mbps then we can safely theorize that Verizon is throttling him. We don't know for sure, but we can build a case.
Without that knowledge we have nothing to go on.
I refuse to sign
Found the idiot that utterly failed to read the fucking article.
Protip: The throttling is happening by keywords in the metadata, not the content or provider itself. There, saved you the read since you seem too fucking lazy to do it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
We should all be able to go the speed limit at all times, everywhere. Who are these insensitive clods who are violating the speed limit laws?
Of course what the good professor is actually measuring is bandwidth and the carriers are only a part of that. Netflix may only be streaming at 4 mbps. Does the video play? Maybe they only provide that much bandwidth since you are only paying them $10 a month. People act like there is an unlimited amount of bandwidth but there are numerous bottlenecks between you and your favorite web site.
Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
In other words: to coerce you to accept excessively a high per-Gigabyte cost and avoid what they view as "wasteful fidelity" they will tamper with your traffic to reduce your consumption.
"Save your overly restrictive data plan" is really REALLY not a good reason for throttling.
This isn't really of much benefit on a small mobile screen, so you're tearing through your data plan for no real reason.
You can very well be mirroring that mobile screen to something larger where you will feel that it matters.
AT&T calls this feature "streamsaver" and it's on by default; you have to turn it off if you don't want it. There's probably no shenanigans at work here, just trying to prevent customers complaining that watching one Netflix movie used their entire data plan.
I remember when the retina display iPads came out, folks were, as you say, burning through their monthly data plan after one or two movies over cellular.
Ken
That looks like information that would be essential to the summery. The first thing I thought was : "Obviously YouTube will be slower. No need for them to be fast as and deliver the whole content to you in 3 seconds if you only watch 3 seconds and go to the next video."
The summery and this give a total different view and therefore perception on the situation. Also a nice example how "Fake News" works and here they are even telling the truth.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I believe by default they do the throttling, you can shut it off by sending a specific text message to a specific number.
The feature is called BingeOn, and it can be enabled on a per-line basis for every phone on the account. The default is enabled.
It can be configured by the account owner on the TMobile web site, so the text/app toggles might not work for everyone.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
TFA says that this app doesn't measure a video coming to you; it connects to the speed tests which each of the major video services now have and tries them. So you are absolutely correct, and your statement is also completely irrelevant. This measures peak performance to these sites, and if peak performance varies widely, well, look for the commonalities between the poorly performing sites. It all of them are direct video competitors with your ISP, I think we know what's going on.
Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
It's still a net neutrality violation thought. Or perhaps I should say it was.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So your contention is that the author is lying about how his own app works? How else could reading and understanding what the article says prove someone's gullibility?
How come data plans in the US are so shitty? I pay about $18/month for unlimited data, unlimited SMS and 300 minutes of talk time. 4G and all that.
I wonder if there is a real problem with available bandwidth that necessitates high prices to discourage use, or if they are just using that as an excuse to fleece you.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
s/thought/though/g
That's what rushing to post before the food arrives gets you.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Payload 1) 50MB from the university server
Payload 2) Same, but with metadata changed so the header will loudly mention strings like nflxvideo.net in plain sight
Since your post was remarkably pretentious, instead of choosing option A and assuming innocent ignorance of TFA, I'm going to skip ahead to option B and assume malice, you fucking bullshit-spreading shill.
They're welcome to pull fiber to the campsite I boondock on in my solar powered camper. Or, a separate cable Internet connection to my hotel room when I travel so I get enough bandwidth to stream video. But, they haven't offered to do so.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And get more latency and slowdown either due to the VPN software itself or the limits at the VPN provider.
I ping 30ms across my VPN, I'm pretty happy with that.
How's that walled garden working out for you Apple fanbois? Pretty cool, huh, blocking a simple network health monitor App because it's "objectionable content." Who knew Truth was objectionable content?
There are good technical reasons why encouraging people to stream 6Gb video streams on modern cellular systems is not a good idea. I'm inclined though to suggest that if someone wants more than 1.5Mbps for continuous, non-bursty, bandwidth, the cellular companies should find a way to provide it, but charge that minority that needs it accordingly.
I suspect that most people, faced with a choice between $60/month wired, $60/cellular but with some applications reasonably throttled, and $200/mobile unthrottled, will prefer the two former choices. But sure, they should provide you with the $200 (probably more, just a ballpark figure) option.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Maybe the guy tied himself up on the edge of the cliff when his gun accidentally discharged, causing him to fall over backward onto a knife. :-)
In this case though, we know that the data came from the Professors OWN server.
Read that carefully:
The Professor streamed ALL the files from the same place. He spoofed the metadata to make it appear to come from the various services, but his own computer actually provided the bits.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
OK, after reading the article I see that the app is not accessing data from the other companies, just mimicking that data...
However this is wrong (speaking about traffic shaping):
Such âoeprioritizationâ or data discrimination violates one of the core tenets of net neutrality,
That is totally false. It is only when you are discriminated by origin, not type, that you are violating network neutrality. Can all of the technical users on Slashdot agree that traffic shaping is useful and valid for all networks?
Why DOES it make any sense for streaming video to be fed to you way faster than it takes to actually play? All it would do is advance the buffer faster, but probably at the expense of other traffic that was more immediate, like web page data, or for a cellular network means other users of a tower have reduced bandwidth.
I still disagree that this app is showing the user anything useful, because most people cannot understand the nuances of traffic shaping, and when it helps or hurts them....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The VPN will let you see if there's throttling going on. If Netflix streams better through the VPN, then you carrier is throttling Netflix (and possibly more).
What he found is that by changing the metadata of the video's header -- but not the video itself -- it could be downloaded at much higher speeds. If he changed the metadata of other types of data (photos, for instance) to have the Netflix metadata, that data would be throttled by the telecom company when it was downloaded.
It's called "Binge On", and it is an open program run by T-Mobile to allow users to get zero-rated streaming data by allowing the speeds to be throttled for any participating source. Netflix participates. If you have Netflix metadata, T-Mobile will treat it like Netflix data and zero-rate it. If you change the data source to someone who doesn't participate, you'll get it at full speed -- and every byte counts.
Binge On is not a big dark secret.
"This means itâ(TM)s keyword related and not server or even content related."
Congratulations, he's just cracked the way that T-Mobile detects Binge On data. He hasn't proven a net neutrality violation.
What I'm wondering about, why is nobody concerned that his app is spying on user activity and sending data about what you are doing back to him? Because he promises that it is all "anonymized"? Really?
After all that's been said, there's an update:
Update: After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store. According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved.
"The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told us in an email.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Actually if you're paying a high per-gigabyte cost its actually in their interest *not* to throttle you, as then you'll be paying for more gigabytes...
Having streaming video throttled by default is a good thing, providing there is an option to turn the throttling off. Cellphone screens are relatively small, so unless the quality is extremely low or your eyesight especially good you'll not notice. Also cellphones run on batteries, consuming more bandwidth to download larger higher quality video which then requires more resources to decode is only going to reduce your battery life.
If providers are throttling by default, but giving you the option to disable the throttling then i'd call that an ideal situation.
Radio spectrum is a finite resource, if there is more demand than supply then prices will be increased to bring the two in line as there's no way to increase the supply.
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