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Australia To Pass Bill Providing Backdoors Into Encrypted Devices, Communications (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The Australian government has scheduled its "not-a-backdoor" crypto-busting bill to land in parliament in the spring session, and we still don't know what will be in it. The legislation is included in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's schedule of proposed laws to be debated from today (13 August) all the way into December. All we know, however, is what's already on the public record: a speech by Minister for Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Angus Taylor in June, and the following from the digest of bills for the spring session: "Implement measures to address the impact of encrypted communications and devices on national security and law enforcement investigations. The bill provides a framework for agencies to work with the private sector so that law enforcement can adapt to the increasingly complex online environment. The bill requires both domestic and foreign companies supplying services to Australia to provide greater assistance to agencies."
Apart from the dodgy technological sophistry involved, this belief somewhat contradicts what Angus Taylor said in June (our only contemporary reference to what the government has in mind). "We need access to digital networks and devices, and to the data on them, when there are reasonable grounds to do so," he said (emphasis added). If this accurately reflects the purpose of the legislation, then the Australian government wants access to the networks, not just the devices. It wants a break-in that will work on networks, if law enforcement demands it, and that takes us back to the "government wants a backdoor" problem. And it remains clear that the government's magical thinking remains in place: having no idea how to achieve the impossible, it wants the industry to cover for it under the guise of "greater assistance to agencies."
Apart from the dodgy technological sophistry involved, this belief somewhat contradicts what Angus Taylor said in June (our only contemporary reference to what the government has in mind). "We need access to digital networks and devices, and to the data on them, when there are reasonable grounds to do so," he said (emphasis added). If this accurately reflects the purpose of the legislation, then the Australian government wants access to the networks, not just the devices. It wants a break-in that will work on networks, if law enforcement demands it, and that takes us back to the "government wants a backdoor" problem. And it remains clear that the government's magical thinking remains in place: having no idea how to achieve the impossible, it wants the industry to cover for it under the guise of "greater assistance to agencies."
This really, really, REALLY doesn't matter. The cat is out of the bag. If Australians won't rise up against their tyrannous government, they can have SKUs with all of our protections ripped out. But there will be many dead men turning over in their graves before the US succumbs to such a law. We've seen this encroachment before, and it has never passed.
Companies may have to comply, but people can tell the government where to go. There will be scripts that will setup VPNs, crypto social networks, encrypted devices with no backdoor. The analogy of this is drinking, underage people can not go to bars or buy, but they can always find a way around the law. Only if Australia wants to have the same distinction as China will they even come close to preventing crypto.
If someone wants this done, it will happen the same way the repeal of neutrality did, they will just keep bringing up a bill for it until the public begins to grow tired of calling their representatives, and then just magically find a reason to ignore the mountain of public comments.
They can pass all the legislation they want, it will NOT change reality. 'Backdooring' encryption of ANY kind RUINS it. Proper encryption CANNOT be broken easily, if it can then it's garbage.
Sorry I mean, AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAahahahahahahahhahaAHAHHAHA!!!hah haha heh. Oh fuck they're serious.... AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Somebody living in the country that voted into law the so-called "Patriot Act" talks about what kind of encroachment on liberties won't pass in the US?
That's the funniest thing I've read all week. Also the saddest.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
This has nothing to do with Australia's government being tyrannical, it's Australia's government signaling to their ignorant base:
"The internet is scary and mean, and terrorists live there, but we can make you safe."
There is no way this type of legislation does anything at all, and they know it, but that's not the point.
It's an age-old political tool "Something needs to be done, look! We're doing something".
*This product is not available in Australia.
This story says 'Australia to pass bill'. No, the bill is scheduled for debate and the government will hope to pass a bill, but they have a weak majority. It's likely to be contentious, I would not bet on it passing at all.
Secondly, there's the implication of a encryption backdoor. This is lifted from the TFA which is an opinion piece. So far the only real source is a political speech made by Angus Taylor (minister for law enforcement and cyber security) in June. The Register (TFA) implies encryption backdoor, despite the minister's own words ("This Government is committed to no 'backdoors' ... We simply don’t need to weaken encryption in order to get what we need.").
That said, the TFA is right to be concerned because elsewhere Taylor says "We need access to digital networks and devices, and to the data on them", which does imply an attack on encryption. Now, I'm no fan of our current government, or regressive right-wing government in general, but I have to say, the speech demonstrates a fair bit more understanding than previous efforts in Australia, the UK and recently the US, aimed squarely at encryption. There's only one group arguing for golden keys, and that's the spooks. If a government listens to spooks *and* industry, they usually come to understand why it's not practical. Angus comes out and says industry has moved towards encryption, and that's good, that tech giants oppose weakening encryption, and that's not what they government wants to do. He spends more time talking about that, than the clumsily worded line that implies he's lying in all the other bits.
I find myself in the unlikely position of defending the government in this narrow sense because miscategorising their position makes it harder to present a reasoned opposition when it is needed.
The Register has, I think, the right of the real goal here. To ensure that end devices are breakable. Of course they dog whistle about phones shipping with 'root kits', but before we all get hysterical... this is what law enforcement already does. When they nab crooks, they break into their phones. I suppose if I was an American I'd be worried because it's pretty clear the US gov will want to systematically break into everyone's phone when they enter the country... but most of the industrialised world isn't there yet. We all worry about law enforcement overreach, we all know breaking or weakening encryption is impractical, regardless of what any one nation state desires (barring nuclear options available to systems like China's GFW).
There are, however, probably some reasonable cases when you want law enforcement to be able to break into stuff. I don't know where the line is, I guess we'll be worrying about this for decades but it'd be nice if it wasn't categorised as a binary proposition. We get enough of that in politics.
That's amazing, I've got the same combination on my luggage!
Took a huge battle. Both Labor and Liberals (conservatives) were for it. But in the end the huge backlash won.
That said, Labor will agree with any government moves on security. Tough on terror. Labor will have the worst aspects watered down, but will not disagree.
You see, they have been invited to top secret security briefings in top secret rooms in which top secret people gravely discuss vague threats. Works every time.
There has been steady increase in the power of security forces at the expense of our rights with no real justification as to why they are suddenly necessary. I do not see this as being any different.
Australia: "Please work with us to create this software."
Company Programmers: "No."
Australia: "Well then, you won't be able to sell your products here."
Companies: "Okay. Bye."
Australia: "Wait..."
[End Of Line]
>"and that takes us back to the "government wants a backdoor" "
And if there are back doors, they *will* be found and used by everyone. Your government, private industries, malware, other governments, terrorists, everyone. Period.
Most Americans have no idea what "network neutrality" even is, and they certainly don't care about it as much as you do since you've decided that it is the type species for neutrality. When you say "neutrality," most Americans think of WWII, and those countries that were pretending to be "neutral" while helping to launder stolen gold.
And Americans know darn well we don't want to be one of the wish-washy European countries. The only reason they got to keep any of that money is that the Americans defeated the Germans before the Germans ran out of enemies in Europe. Another couple years, and the "neutral" countries would have been gobbled up as well.
But the American people do know what a government backdoor to a security system is. It is just like in one of the action-adventure heist movies, where some thief pays off the security consultant and now they're controlling the cameras that are supposed to be protecting your vault full of gold. Easy to understand. Plus, what would Fat King George have done with that power? Yeah, exactly! We can understand that shit, easy. What would Fat King George do to us without network neutrality? Nothing, the government isn't really even involved in the networking. Maybe the companies will suck, but companies do that sometimes. See how different these things are from the American perspective?
I'm a techie, I'm pro-2A, I hate this backdoor thing - and I opposed net neutrality. I guess that makes me magical?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
As a fellow techie, I'm really curious as to why do you oppose net neutrality. Do you want providers to start selectively prioritizing traffic that benefits their financial interests? I'm wondering how you think the public benefits from that, because it WILL happen without net neutrality. It's only a matter of time.
Yes and no, we might only have 25 million people here, but the average disposable income (while dropping, due to stupid govt fiscal management) is still pretty darn high.
We might only buy a fraction of the US or the UK but per population we're probably up there a fair bit.
Plus of course the "Aussie rape tax" as we call it. Why charge a reasonable price, when you know we have money? Scam the fuck out of us, seemingly, we don't care.
We pay well well above what most countries do for software and hardware.
There's a distinction between being forced to provide money for military (to draw a hasty analogy) and being forced to quarter troops at your home. The former might be distasteful and objectionable, but ultimately not protected against in our system of laws. The latter is distasteful, objectionable, and prohibited by our supreme law of the land.
If they try to prohibit secure end-to-end encryption here (because that's what this amounts to), you can bet somebody will make a (successful) First-Amendment-based argument.
As an American, I think I know who I'm supposed to be afraid of and that justifies government intrusion. It doesn't mean I believe it, but at least it seems plausible -- we've been bombing and killing plenty of people, so really any group fills in.
How about Australians? I know there have been 1-2 incidents with Muslims, but is it that big a fear thing there? Or is a secret cabal of Chinese? Some kind of panic over a wave of Indonesians? Some kind of organized crime thing?
It just seems odd that there would be all that much to be paranoid about in Australia that the government could get away with the same kinds of BS that they do here. I thought maybe besides not enough rain or no shrimps for the barbie there wouldn't be much to be worried about.
Wow, a post that's so off it's not even wrong.
A quick recap. Australia isn't asking for anything special. The USA is a "lot further along. 'Every' device manager? Out of the world's top ten phone makers, one is American, the majority are Chinese. And you think Australia will ask them to do something China isn't? Finally, the 'small' market of Australia is loosely equivalent to Canada, or all of Scandinavian countries combined. A market of tens of millions of relatively high end devices. Not a lot of scope for a principled stand by a mobe maker.
Mangled URL was supposed to be.
There may well be a day when a slimebag(s) finds the backdoor and compromises consumer data. The Australian gov't would then have egg on its face.
But, lawmakers tend to think short-term, perhaps because constituents mostly only reward them for the short-term. The "tough on crime" angle seems to win votes more often than the side-effects of "tough on crime" lose votes. The second requires the attention span to understand nuance, while the first has a direct guttural feel to voters, along the lines of "burn the witches!"
Table-ized A.I.
The reason why is that while the gov can mandate being a middle man in encrypted channels between international ISPs as well as data going through international pipes - they can't prevent you from encrypting your data before it reaches the ISP. So we'll just end up adding an additional encryption layer on top of whatever layer they want to be able to inspect.
Not even going to bother arguing about the fact that if the government is a middleman, there is no doubt that hackers and corrupt officials will be able to take advantage of such a system to destroy any hope of legitimate private communications. If the gov goes foward with this measure, Australia can enjoy having a smaller presence in the global economy as well as the information economy.
It looks to be mostly about getting IPSs to help the government conduct man-in-the-middle attacks rather than backdoors (initially).
There is better coverage of it at itnews;
https://www.itnews.com.au/news...
Three types of notices;
1. Request for Voluntary assistance
2. Technical assistance (within their current capability, eg handover known keys)
3. Technical capability notice (build/provide new capability)
The third type is obviously most dangerous, especially the following can-of-worms;
- Substituting, or facilitating the substitution of, a service
- Removing one or more forms of electronic protection that are, or were applied by, or on behalf of, the provider
- Facilitating or assisting access to whatever law enforcement wants: a facility, device, service and any software used in conjunction with those things
And ISPs have to wear some of the cost, and do their work;
- Assisting with the testing, modification, development or maintenance of a technology or capability
- Notifying particular kinds of changes to, or developments affecting, eligible activities of the provider
They gave up their right to own firearms. Now give up access to their equipment? Keep going. I'm sure there are other things the Australians can give up. Give it all up. Give up your free speech.
get it's nasty anti-consumer "tough on crime" bills like this through? In America we use racism to drive an undercurrent of fear, but I didn't think Australia had very much of that. Why would they put up with it? Or is it just relying on rural voters who either don't understand or don't care?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Even if you don't consider the subsidies, the problem with the "It's their own infrastructure, they should be able to do what they want" is that in many areas, 1) the local ISP is a monopoly and there's no other options, and 2) Internet access has become fairly essential for modern life.
If Comcast is a monopoly in an area and decides to start up a mapping service to compete with Google Maps, and they start prioritizing their own service over Google Maps, or worse, deliberately degrading Google Maps traffic, the people who live in that area and only have Comcast as an option are fucked.
The Internet has become so essential to modern life that we need to protect it from companies that would otherwise gatekeep access to it. Let the companies charge what they feel is right for data, but ALL sources of that data should be at the same price per GB with no special treatment.
I'm not the one you asked, but I can answer for me. You asked why a techie opposed the Wheeler rules, and I can answer that.
I'm definitely a nerd / techie - name in the kernel changelog and all that.
One techie thing I've done is spend hundreds of hours learning how to configure large networks. I've studied literally thousands of pages, and I'm still nowhere near an expert. Just one of my low-level certs, CCNA routing and switching, is about 1300 pages of material. CCNA Security was a bit less. CCNA is an entry-level cert. If I wanted to study a few thousand pages more, I could go for a CCNP, and another few hundred hours of study could get me a CCIE. In ten or twenty years I could get mutiple CCIE certs in different areas of carrier network configuration and operations. It's THAT complicated.
Again, I'm not an expert by any means. My ~1500 pages of reading is only enough for me to realize how much I don't know. There are multiple levels of certifications higher than mine.
I see no reason to believe that Wheeler ever read the first chapter of the first book. The regulations that were in effect for 18 months or so, and the proposals I have read, don't evidence any knowledge of networking. As one might expect, the rules as written utterly fail to make any sense when you try to apply them to very large networks.
The IDEALS of network nuetrality include some good things to ASPIRE to. Ideals like "fairness" and "openess".
But now go try to sit down and write detailed rules of exactly how "fairness" has to be implemented within an operating system kernel, or any complex system you aren't an expert in. Rules that have the force of law - it MOST be done just this way, anything else is unfair. It can't be done even by someone who is a world-renowned expert on the topic. Neither Congresscritters nor Wheeler are experts in configuring the various queues, and the rules for shaping and policing those queues, inside a Cisco router. I'd bet money Wheeler doesn't even know what the term "traffic policing" MEANS, nor shaping. They are incompetent to legislate how it must be done. Even if they were experts, you just can't write laws that define exactly how "fairness" is done, or "openness".
Even if you COULD, Cisco and others come out with new features and capabilities every year. What would the network neutrality laws require me to do in my configuration of the Tonsay Routing Protocol? That's going to be awfully difficult to write such detailed rules for since the protocol doesn't yet exist, but new protocols are being created all the time.
There do exist some laws like "unfair competition" and "restraint of trade" that could be applied to the kinds of things NN proponents are afraid of. Courts look at specific, actual cases and use some defined principles to determine if specific actions or policies are unfair.
My experience indicates that may be a better approach. The FCC, or preferably the FTC, could announce policy PRINCIPLES, telling companies "if you do these sorts of things, we'll likely throw the book at you, if instead you do these other types of things to be fair and open, that's what we want to see and we'll give you some latitude in how you implement fair policies". Then let the courts apply established principles to decide if *specific* policies are unfair in specific situations, rather than Wheeler trying to play network admin.
A completely separate issue is that under our system of Constitutional government, Congress makes the law. Congress specifically chose NOT to give the FCC authority to promulgate NN regulations, preferring that be handled under existing law. That may have been bad or it may have been good, but that was the decision Congress made. The executive branch doesn't have the authority to make law. They can only implement the laws passed by Congress, and where Congress tells them what needs to be done, agencies can decide on the details of HOW they will implement the law passed by Congress. Wheeler is not Congress. He was not elected Dictat
But there will be many dead men turning over in their graves before the US succumbs to such a law.
The US does not need laws to spy on its people. The NSA director committed perjury in front of congress, denying the surveillance program, and nothing happened.
And given the weak public reaction to the Snowden revelations, few people care.
Somewhat neotenous, perhaps, like many tech types I've met, but not magical.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
The draft bill is now available from the Home Affairs website. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/consultations/assistance-and-access-bill-2018 contains seem details and factsheets; the draft bill is here: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/consultations/Documents/the-assistance-access-bill-2018.pdf
Contains some provisions saying that the requests can't require a company to 'weaken' a cryptosystem or not-fix a flaw in the cryptosystem; that's presumably where the "no backdoors" thing comes in.
Not clear to me if the requests can compel a company to push a version of the software that intercepts data at the endpoint from a specific user though. Because otherwise I'm not really sure what they expect to get out of this. They can use it to have a company decrypt stuff they've encrypted and send it over (facebook messages? gmail contents?), but I don't think they could use it to get at Whatsapp messages, for example.
Also increases the penalties for not unlocking your phone for police, which is concerning.
"the laws of mathematics come second to the law of the land"
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
That's letting perfect be the enemy of good. Wheeler should have been left until a better standard could have been written to replace it with, rather than just tearing up the "we all know what this is Supposed to be telling us to do, so we'll do what it's Supposed to say" law. But then it's Really hard to get legislation through unless you've got deep pockets.
I'm sure the Chinese will provide you with such devices.
"See! We have them all backdoored already!"
Expect a bunch of people to have their lives ruined via this shit though.
Banking? Compromised.
Online spending? Compromised.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
... yet.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
> That's letting perfect be the enemy of good
That's certainly an important thing to think about! I'm glad you mentioned it. The thing is, the rules were not good.
One draft (not the final draft) was so outrageously stupid it made it illegal to refuse connections from well-known spammers generating millions of spams per day each. The final draft was slightly less stupid. Slightly.
I guarantee no national network was actually in compliance, because you can't run a carrier network, or probably even a mom and pop ISP, and actually comply. You'd be stuck with token ring or something, that level of technology, because that's about as deep as Wheeler understands.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if DOCIS (cable modems) were technically illegal, or IP. It's 2AM and I have to be up in a few hours, so no I'm not going to find and quote the subsection that accidentally makes IP illegal, but there's a pretty good chance it does. :)
Again, I'm all for the ideals that most people associate with the term network neutrality. I just don't think Washington is going to be able to legistlate it in detail, rather than letting the courts make some determinations based on more general rules. The technologies are too complex and change too fast. Even if you somehow magically legistlated configuration lines that work well in all situations currently, 5G, TLS1.3, and HTTP 2 are going to kick your ass next month.
Monopolies like the local ISPs can only exist if they were subsidized, have a captive market, or are losing money. If they are making money, then no. You (or one of the millions of other people out there) can offer competition in terms of better value / more open approach. Monopolies exist because of government regulation, not despite it.
You (or one of the millions of other people out there) can offer competition in terms of better value / more open approach.
The reason this doesn't happen is because it's a shitty business plan. It's unfathomably expensive to start a broadband ISP. But hey, you've got money to burn and no clue how it could be better invested in something else, so you go ahead and do it. Now, you've launched your ISP, but you're only going to get customers if you undercut your competition. Turns out Big Ol' Crusty Cable Co. is sitting on a much bigger pile of cash then you are, and they're perfectly happy to go nuclear in the price war you started.
Meanwhile, in an alternate reality, alternate you decided starting a broadband ISP was a dumb idea, and instead launched a restaurant chain where each table has its own integrated webcam so people can share their dining experience in realtime on social media. Turns out Millennials literally eat up this combination of food and narcissism, and your restaurant is a resounding success.
End result (this reality): The consumers in the market(s) you attempted to launch your soon-to-be-failed ISP in get to enjoy some cheap rates. Temporarily. You lose lots of money and start hating life.
End result (alternate reality): You start shopping for Teslas to give as Christmas gifts.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
But now go try to sit down and write detailed rules of exactly how "fairness" has to be implemented within an operating system kernel
That's now how it would work. The law would simply state that accepting any form of payment to prioritise certain traffic is illegal, and that prioritising any particular service or web site is illegal. The precise definition of "service" or "website" isn't too important, a jury will make that determination if it comes to it.
It's not a technical issue, it's a business issue.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
begins to grow tired of calling their representatives
If this is required, maybe you have a crappy representative.
The Australian government has passed a law banning the tides coming into effect on 1st September. A government official has announced that the new law will allow Australias to head to the beach at any time of the day this summer and be assured that there will be enough sand left to lie on.
Before telling me what Wheeler's NN rules say, read them. Especially, read them and think about how you would comply with each point while operating:
A small "mom and pop" ISP providing service to schools, day cares, Mormon families, and others who want a family-friendly service.
OnStar
Also, how do you think web sites / web servers get connected to the internet?
If Comcast is a monopoly in an area and decides to start up a mapping service to compete with Google Maps, and they start prioritizing their own service over Google Maps, or worse, deliberately degrading Google Maps traffic, the people who live in that area and only have Comcast as an option are fucked.
Since we're playing what-if's. If the residents of that area are unhappy with the choice they can petition their local government to step in.
How about we play reality. And reality is that net neutrality was being abused by content providers. It's just as bad if Comcast starts prioritizing their own traffic, but if neutrality rules are in place and comcast forcibly tries to prioritize their traffic what penalties must they pay? None. That is what happened with NetFlix in 2012.
I look at how the first 30 years of the Internet went - without any "net neutrality" - and believe it will continue that way. We didn't have "net neutrality" until 2015, it's hard to believe we were so suppressed and oppressed and controlled back then. I believe adding more regulations will simply stifle the entire thing. Regulation is the heart of the Fascist economic model - where the Government literally controls everything via regulation and undue influence. The goal should be to remove barriers of entry, rather than codify and enforce them.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You asked why a techie opposed the Wheeler rules,
Noooooo, he asked why a techie would oppose network neutrality.
The nets have been neutral LONG before Wheeler ran the FCC. "Market forces" kept them that way when there was a bunch of competition, but the market has consolidated and the telecoms keep trying to break NN and the backlash keeps getting less and less meaningful. (ESPN360 or ESPN3 is a blatant violation, but people have started picking and choosing which battles to fight). With no competition, the standard alternative is regulation. There are TONS of ways to fuck up regulating the Internet and enforcing network neutrality. I liked Wheeler's Title II classification. (But it's at the whim of the FCC head... so that sucks)
The IDEALS of network nuetrality include some good things to ASPIRE to. Ideals like "fairness" and "openess".
That's not ideal for laws, but yeah, I agree in that's best in this case. I just have zero faith the lawyers and congressmen have any idea how this all works (like you said, it's hard even for the pros). So broad language is best. And the 1934 communications act establishing common carrier status works wonderfully.
What "Wheeler rules" do you have issue with, exactly?
Congress specifically chose NOT to give the FCC authority to promulgate NN regulations,
Uh.... what? The FCC regulations communcation, specifically telephones. BACK IN 1934! You'd have to be a dense fuck to no think that extends to the Internet and the airwaves.
preferring that be handled under existing law.
....Existing law for network neutrality? WHAT existing law for network neutrality?
What could happen legitimately would be that Congress could pass a law defining what public policy is generally - what NN means, legally.
I've no faith in congress to even do that. What would most likely happen is they'd ask their "friends" in the industry to write some policy for them, which they'd bring to the floor. ...Assuming the campaign money keeps flowing. And even those who honestly wanted to try and fix shit... jesus, I just don't think they know enough or have enough people around them that know enough not to be drowned out by a cacophony of lobbyist bullshit.
So I do largely support the ideals, the goals of network nuetrality
Boom. Done. Arguing about the details of implementation is fine. Expected. Good even. Something I expect from the people who know their shit (And I think you probably know more about networking than I do). But I've yet to hear of anyone who opposes network neutrality other than
1) Those who run telecoms
2) Those whom the telecoms have bribed.
3) Those who confuse NN with regulation enforcing NN. (political "frameing" campaigns are a motherfucking bitch and a half)
> The nets have been neutral LONG before Wheeler ran the FCC. "Market forces" kept them that way
Good point. Early on, companies like AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy tried selling non-neutral services, featuring their partners. Purchasers, the market, chose neutral services instead.
My GOD! So in the original Apranet, MIT refused to forward emails from Lincoln towards the Pentagon unless they used the oxford comma!?
Network neutrality is an underlying principle of how the of how the Internet works. We all assume that once you're on the Internet you can go to any IP address, and website, from any nation, use any protocol, and theres's just the one Internet rather than separate Prodigy-net, Disney-net, China-net. *cough cough* ok that last one is a little rough. But anyway, in non-dystopian societies, the Internet is and always has been unrestricted, open and NEUTRAL. Anyone who tried anything else was laughed at. Prodigy's thing withered, and of course they offered a real Internet connection, because they were an ISP.
With market consolidation, the telecoms have a history of attempting to break NN. So people started talking about network neutrality legislation to enforce it.
The goal should be to remove barriers of entry, rather than codify and enforce them.
If Mr. MoneyBags Google couldn't make a go of it, I think the barriers are HUGE. Telecoms simply drop the price wherever google comes to town (and rasie it elsewhere). They sue them for access to telephone poles. And they've all but stopped their expansion. They never got past their test cases.
Would you support busting up the top 5 telecom companies? Take Sherman's trust-busting hammer to these oligarchs who refuse to compete with each other?
If you've qualms about how to enforce network neutrality, hey, I get that. I really do. There's a TON of ways congress could fuck it up.
But I've yet to meet anyone who is against network neutrality.
Your rantings aside - how was your Internet experience from, say, 2000 to 2015? How did it appreciably change in 2015? How has it changed this year? If the answers - legitimate, honest answers - are "good, not any I could detect, not any I could detect", then we're simply putting regulations where none are needed - and ceding FURTHER control of the Internet to the Government.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It is time to replace all your leaders. Time to replace your government. All of them.
This sig intentionally left blank.
And now we can all see that the market is fucked and the top telecoms are openly admitting they will not compete in each other's territory.
Without competition, there is no free market. With no choices, there are monopolies. Without these things capitalism doesn't work.
how was your Internet experience from, say, 2000 to 2015?
A series of outrages as the blatent bullshit various telecoms tried to pull.
Paying out the ass for something other developed nations have higher quality at cheaper rates.
In the midwest, we've got exactly one choice for broadband in any given area and it was fuck-you levels of service. The term "Up to" was thrown around a lot. Because "who are you going to switch to? 56Kbps phone line modem? Spotty sat service?"
How did it appreciably change in 2015?
I know that if they fuck with my pipes like they've tried in the past I can get with the EFF and we can sue their pants off for violating the 1934 telecomunications act.
Regulation is needed where a lack of competition breaks down capitalism.
Would you support busting up the top 5 telecom companies?
On that note, check out the New York City map. It's ridiculous. Three providers in five blocks, each with a franchise for that particular block.