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Will BitTorrent's Paid 'Fast Lane' Violate 'Net Neutrality'? (torrentfreak.com)
BitTorrent and TRON have an ambitious plan to improve the BitTorrent protocol. Not only will users be financially rewarded for seeding, but they can also pay for faster access. While this may sound good to some, we wonder how this rhymes with BitTorrent's fight for Net Neutrality and its advocacy against paid prioritization. From a report: We ask this question because BitTorrent has been a fierce proponent of an open Internet. It has been a frontrunner in advocating for Net Neutrality, repeatedly criticizing paid traffic prioritization and so-called "fast lanes." BitTorrent went as far as creating the dedicated "internetbetter" website, avenging FCC's plans to meddle with the 'Open Internet,' advertising its campaign on a massive billboard. "The FCC's proposed changes to Net Neutrality would create a preferential fast lane for designated traffic," BitTorrent wrote at the time. "Those with the deep pockets to pay for this fast lane will have the ability to access and distribute content at higher speeds. Those who lack the purchasing power will be disadvantaged. This moves us towards an Internet of discrimination." These efforts didn't prevent the Net Neutrality rules from being repealed in the US, but it appears that BitTorrent's own plans may not be in line with an 'open' Internet either.
Bittorrent isn’t the provider, they're the end-point. It would be different if they were the ISP. (They haven’t become an ISP, have they?) In the highway scenario, where Comcast and AT&T and all are providers of the highway, Bittorrent is the drive-in movie theater... actually that’s not even right. More like they’re a search engine for where little bits of data are located around the interwebs. It’s a bit closer to them being providers but... they’re only providing “where it is” data, not the means to CONVEY that data...
Now that I’ve written this, I’m suddenly not feeling as certain Bittorrent is in the right on this. Hmmm...
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
That's an interesting question, is bittorrent an application or a virtual ISP? The genesis behind net neutrality is to ensure fair access to monopoly pipes. Can a virtual ISP have a monopoly pipe?
Net Neutrality is dead ...
Will they be excommunicated from the Internet for their sins against the sacred Net Neutrality?
There's no problem with charging more for faster access. The problem is that carriers want to charge both their customers and the businesses whose data they provide to their customers to move the same set of bits.
It sounds like BT is doing the opposite. They will be paying the providers and charging the consumers.
Resource neutrality is not technically desirable. That's why there's quotas for disk usage, schedulers for CPU/RAM, and QoS for netork traffic. Contention due to resource neutrality breaks everything.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
I think it's more like paying DropBox or Azure for faster downloads. I don't see a problem with it.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
without there also being a slow lane
Since available bandwidth is fixed, they have to slow someone down to speed someone else up. So yes, that's pretty much the definition of violating NN.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Bittorrent isnâ(TM)t the provider, they're the end-point. It would be different if they were the ISP. (They havenâ(TM)t become an ISP, have they?) In the highway scenario, where Comcast and AT&T and all are providers of the highway, Bittorrent is the drive-in movie theater... actually thatâ(TM)s not even right.
No, both are problems, but yes they are problems at a very different scale.
Comparing NN to pipes and water leaking:
An ISP throttling you with paid fast lanes is akin to a water main pipe bursting in your basement.
A service online perhaps akin to a drippy sink faucet.
So yes by all means put 100% of your resources and time into fixing the water main, as that is by far a major problem with major coincidences.
No one will fault you for ignoring the leaky faucet during all of that.
But it is still wrong to claim the leaking faucet isn't at all a problem, because it is! It's just a minor one comparatively.
You can always shutoff the valve to that sink and go to a different sink in your house to use for the time being. This isn't *fixing* the problem with the sink, it is *avoiding* the problem with the sink, clearly demonstrating it is still a problem even if trivial to work around while you have bigger things to work on.
I also would say they are not in the *right* for doing this, just like no one asks for a leaky faucet.
It is still not wanted, and still a problem needing fixed.
It's just a problem that *seems* like not worth dealing with right now, frankly because that is true.
That just puts it at the end of the "fix me" list, but it doesn't remove it.
Having one use pay for speed has never been the issue with NN. It's when both endpoints have to pay the middleman. That is, no one thinks it's strange I can buy gigabit internet access or just 3 megabit. That's what they're talking about. What NN is about is, even though I paid for gigabit, if Google doesn't pay I only stream Youtube at 3 megabit (but still get Netflix, which did pay, at gigabit).
This gets confused by terminology, is a dumb article, and should never have been posted on Slashdot. It either is a dumb person trying to sound smart, or a smart person trying to confuse dumb people.
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It seems that,once again,someone who has no clue about what net neutrality is has gotten an intentionally misleading, or completely ignorant, post to make it to the front page. Honestly, which is it... is the original poster stupid or just a malcontent liar?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
and they seed pirated content they're going to be eaten alive in court by the RIAA & MPAA.
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And everyone want's to be paid. There's no moral side to either side. Everyone's a cunt, get over it.
Not only will users be financially rewarded for seeding
Oh great - I bet Hollywood lawyers are salivating at this. There are many countries in the world where downloads and uploads are no big deal and not criminal - so long as there's no commercial gain from it. "Financially rewarding" people for uploads will criminalize a whole group who currently are not breaking the law.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No one asked the American people if they wanted it or not. The people don't get to decide: the lobbyists do.
The alternative, as human history shows us clearly, is corporations with guns. Which means that you get nothing and lose everything, as corporation is not accountable to anyone but owners. Current democratically elected government is in fact accountable to voters in many ways.
Free market if allowed to function in unmanaged capacity leads to death of free market through consolidation of power and eventual full monopolization of each field. Again, look at history for examples. This is a tried system that simply doesn't work. Free market is a system that by design has an end point, which is death of free market. But it can be managed to stay in the "healthy competition" phase, without ever progressing toward the end, making free market concept actually useful.
Hence the need for government intervention into free market to keep free market alive, rather than get killed by monopolization. Meaning if you're pro free market and anti-cartel, you're pro government/men with guns, as long as they limit free market in the ways that specifically manage free market to prevent it from killing itself through monopolization.
Something that both extreme libertarians and extreme authoritarians tend to miss.
Listen folks, you can't get innovation without letting people organize themselves and their resources however they see fit.
I would totally agree with you 100% if it wasn't for the fact that in huge chunks of the US, there is exactly one hard line service provider of internet.. Typically this is the local cable company. It's illegal to compete with them on equal terms (no access to right-of-way or telephone poles) and often they receive government subsidies. When the government is handing your competitor cash how the fuck do you compete with that?
I'll be fine with ditching Net Neutrality if we also ditch the corporate cronyism. Until such time as we have a situation where competition is not legally prohibited, then said companies can't bitch about the rules / laws placed upon them. Take government money and you don't get to bitch about the government rules.
A good test for all quality VPN services then :)
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is not what net neutrality is about and you know it.
Net neutrality is about me paying my ISP for 20 mbits/second and then not being able to download from XYZ streaming company (whom I have also paid) at full speed unless XYZ sends a check to my ISP to be marked as a PRIORITY DESTINATION.
XYZ pays their ISP (FastCo) and I pay my ISP (ZoomCo) and that should be the end of it.. The Anti-Neutrality people want me to pay ZoomCo and then XYZ to pay both FastCo and ZoomCo.. That's bullshit.
Fast lanes were never about prioritizing TYPES of traffic for performance reasons, you shill. That shit has been legal FOREVER. Exemptions were always (even under the net neutrality days) given for performance and congestion situations.
Net Neutrality is about prohibiting ISPs from getting to shape traffic for purely FINANCIAL reasons.
Pure nonsense, just another 'Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLIFIED!' ignorance thing and an assumption of other perspectives to suit that drivel.
1. Total bandwidth is a fixed thing at each hop between you and the destination, even if its local, you are not guaranteed max speed to any site anywhere. All available bandwidth is zero sum so if something else is using up 99% of the max then you only get 1%.
2. Someone has to pay to handle the streaming volume now let alone the 4K-8K-3D streaming to come in the future. So you pay for upgrades to your local ISP network or they 'have to' and or will throttle or make new agreements with their peers, and or make new agreements with companies putting large amount of data across their network. The current version of NN screws these custom agreements in every way possible so the highest probability is the cost for upgrading goes to the local subscribers.
3. Historically the peering agreements were balanced on how much traffic was added to the network, and there have been many agreements for various companies to pay extra for their content at various stages over the years, the current NN makes this very difficult or impossible.
4. Notice how ALL the major companies (Youtube/Google/Netflix/Facebook/etc) which add large bulk data to the network are for NN, vs all the companies which via hardware upgrade outlays and peering agreements that ultimately support this bandwidth use are not (pick your local ISP or trunking company here). Fair arguements can be made that the version of NN 'everyone' seems to want seriously impacts competition for ISP and routing companies, as in 'why upgrade, everyone has to pay the same, we'll wait for enough complaints then when forced we'll spend'.
The NN question is not as simple as Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!
I'm sure there are lots of other ideas, but I think if we really wanted to do something concrete to improve internet for everyone, keep that bad version of NN repealed, and then disallow local/regional ISP monopolies in their various forms and see what happens.
Bullshit.
Lobbyists don't buy voters. They buy politicians while in office.
Officials whose constituents feel strongly about an issue win over lobbyists every time there's a vote.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You know that being an extremist makes you conclude the strangest things, such as that government is just another corporation, or that dying for allah is the primary purpose of life?
You assume what I'm assuming.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I see that your faith is utterly impenetrable to logic. Unfortunate, but expected for an extremist.
That's because you haven't got a clue. AT&T tried this shit back in the 1930's (or thereabouts). They actually tried charging more, per call, depending on your target. I don't mean different cities either. I mean they wanted more money based on whom you were calling in the same city. i.e. trying to call the grocery store? that's one price.. Trying to call a hospital? That's a little more.
The Feds shut down that shit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
THAT is what net neutrality is about. If you don't understand that, then I dunno what to tell you...
Which by definition is the opposite of extremist, as that's the mainstream view across overwhelming majority of humanity.