Distinction Without a Difference - The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language when, in fact, both positions are exactly the same -- at least in practice or practical terms.
To clarify once again. The distinctions drawn are not based on nomenclature. There are specific and important technical differences which have real impact on the discussion.
As I read your post again, I'm sorely tempted to respond in kind. However, I understand that you thought I was assigning ignorance of this particular area of knowledge to you as an insult (although you did do so in your original reply -- note that I simply repeated what you said first), rather than as a simple statement of fact. In your position, I would likely have responded similarly.
Your provided links show that "packet sniffing" and "traffic flow analysis" are not different concepts in practice. The difference is in how the collected data is analyzed or for what purpose.
This is an incorrect conclusion. Packet sniffing and Netflow analysis are significantly different in both theory and practice, both from the standpoint of data collected, as well as the method(s) of collection. Granted, if you are sniffing packets, you can perform a similar analysis, but that's both completely impractical (and in the context of the research) self-defeating. Attempting to sniff all packets off an IX Node requires mirroring all packets. Which would almost certainly cause serious congestion problems and be detected almost immediately. Collecting Netflow data from same wouldn't have a noticeable effect on the IX Node's network links.
Just to clarify that point. Collecting Netflow (or similar management protocol) data is significantly and demonstrably different (in the attack mechanisms posited by and the methodology employed by the researchers) in both theory and practice.
Yes, in a scenario with network links that carry much less data and both endpoints are known, packet sniffing and Netflow data collection *can* provide similar analytical results (I've done both myself), identifying data flows across large portions of the Internet (i.e., encompassing all or at least a significant fraction of Tor entry nodes -- in that the goal is identification of a device at an unknown location anywhere in the world) is a completely different animal.
I could go on, but those are the high points. The above should be obvious to anyone who has a reasonable amount of experience with IP networking. Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but given that this is a tech site and the article concerns a scholarly paper about networking, I assumed a certain level of working knowledge. My mistake.
There is no need to be rude or presumptive about my level of education. I shall explain what I meant in more depth to clear up any misunderstandings.
OP said: "So if you can spy on the traffic from the user to the tor entry node, and can spy on the traffic leaving the tor exit node at the same time... then you can tell that the traffic you saw going to the entry node is linked to the traffic leaving the exit node"
You said: "If you can correlate the server-->exit node flow to a specific entry node-->client flow, you've just identified the client outside of Tor."
Distinction Without a Difference - The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language when, in fact, both positions are exactly the same -- at least in practice or practical terms.
Your provided links show that "packet sniffing" and "traffic flow analysis" are not different concepts in practice. The difference is in how the collected data is analyzed or for what purpose. For the purposes of this discussion where analysis of collected packets is for identical purposes, this is also a distinction without a difference. "A packet analyzer...is a computer program or a piece of computer hardware that can intercept and log traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network." "NetFlow is a feature that was introduced on Cisco routers that provides the ability to collect IP network traffic as it enters or exits an interface."
If you feel I have misinterpreted your statements, I would appreciate additional feedback.
My points were literal, rather than pejorative. Sniffing packets is gathering the *actual* packets. Netflow collects statistics about packets being transmitted/received. Do you see the difference?
GP stated "Good luck being able to sniff traffic on *both* ends." Firstly, traffic isn't being "sniffed." Secondly, With Netflow, it's not necessary to have packet sniffers on the specific links used in order to gather packet statistics.
What is more, since context is everything, GP was responding to my assessment of the paper (you know, the point of the article) and misunderstood the methodology used by the researchers. I explained.
If I (here and in my original post) have been unable to explain to you both the difference between packet sniffing and Netflow analysis and/or why GP misunderstood the methodology employed by the researchers, I suggest you read the paper yourself.
TL;DR : Packet sniffing != Netflow. Methodologies have impact on results and should be understood.
Should you want to criticize me, my reasoning or my (or at least your interpretation of it) tone for any other reasons? By all means, go right ahead.
"The city I lived in previously had granted a monopoly to Charter."
Um, no they didn't. Or at least, haven't had a legal monopoly at all recently. That's been illegal by Federal law since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
I think what GP means is that the local government (as happens in most of the US) granted a local franchise, which gives Charter preferential access to rights-of-way in exchange for [something]. That something might be agreeing to wire the whole city or it it might be paying off the politicians or it might be something else. As for "monopolies" being illegal, enforcement has been quite spotty -- but that doesn't advance your argument, so you ignored it.
John Dean was never a Democrat. I stopped reading after that as it was clear that you either have no idea what you're talking about or are a liar. Either way, you have zero credibility on this topic.
... a former police officer has been dragged into court by the U.S. Department of Justice for teaching people how to beat a pseudoscientific method of detecting whether somebody is lying, a method that itself isn't even admissible as evidence courts in most parts of the world? What's next? Will the surgeon general drag people into court for pointing out that when consuming a homeopathic remedy with 30C dilution, one would need to swallow a volume greater than all the water present in all the oceans of our entire planet in order to stand a good chance of swallowing just one molecule of the original substance?
Congratulations. The 1% of the people on this planet who would understand your joke are cracking up.
I'm guessing you don't get out much, do you...
It's basic high school chemistry. Just because you didn't learn what you were supposed to learn in school, doesn't mean we are all as ignorant as you.
You are correct, with one exception: Bill Clinton wasn't just threatened with impeachment, he WAS impeached. It's just that the impeachment did not result in his being removed from office.
Impeachment is analogous to indictment in regular court proceedings, while trial by the other house is analogous to the trial before judge and jury in regular courts. Typically, the lower house of the legislature will impeach the official and the upper house will conduct the trial.
Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, but the Senate did not conduct a trial.
"illegal to lie to government official" - you generalize much. Lying itself isn't outlawed, only deception with the effect of damage to society. If there's no damage to society, there's no crime. It may be argued that fake tests like polygraphs don't serve the good of society and bypassing them doesn't harm it, thus it's not a crime.
If he taught people to beat a polygraph and **always** said to never lie to government investigators he would not be in trouble.
So it's okay to lie to other people?
And his methods are universal. I find it funny how people can teach about beating a pseudoscientific lie detector without a problem up until someone tells them that they're going to use the methods to beat a government polygraph test. Then it's somehow 'bad.'
IANAL, but as I understand it, lying to police is not a crime. However, lying to Federal agents is a crime.
It's always better to keep your mouth shut, because even if lying to police isn't a crime, if they catch you in a lie, that can look bad if/when you're being prosecuted.
Actually, often to get away your only choice is to lie to the cops.
Big mistake. That will net you an obstruction charge. The only safe course of action is to refuse to speak to them at all. Give them your name, address, and the following statement: "I do not wish to make any statement without the benefit of counsel." If you have information that they want badly enough they'll give you immunity. Otherwise keep your fucking mouth shut.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
Umm...How about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Thee Voting Rights Act of 1965? The "Great Society" (that's our modern welfare state as well as Medicare and Medicaid, BTW) programs, The Clean Air Act? Medicare Part B coverage? All progressive legislation, all much more significant in terms of impact on the US than the ACA. There's more, but I'm not your history teacher.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Obama is a center-right politician as are most Democrats serving in national office in the US. Dennis Kucinich was about as far left (well, since Bella Abzug left Congress) as it got in recent times. There are a few still in congress who are center-left, but most Democrats in office today would have been considered moderate Republicans even twenty-five years ago.
You, apparently don't understand the concept of marginal cost and how it applies to network bandwidth.. I suggest you educate yourself or you just make yourself appear to be uninformed and uneducated.
I'm not trying to insult you here. If I was trying to insult you, I would succeed and there would be no ambiguity. This is constructive criticism.
In my opinion, any monopoly that has the balls to pull this type of disingenuous bullshit with the POTUS has demonstrated itself to have gone completely rogue. It's time for the Department of Justice to reign them in. It's up to the big ISPs paid lackeys who wants credit for splitting up the nation's most hated company during a lame duck session. Hating the fuck out of Comcast should be something that can bring this country together for Christmas. Remember, as long as they're fighting for their right to have unnatural market power(blackmailing Netflix), they aren't trying to corrupt our government with Regulatory Capture. Also: kudos to the FCC for trying to spin being a bunch of bought and paid for crooks as being pragmatism. I wonder if it's the same PR firm responsible for this press release who managed that psyops campaign?
Comcast / AT&T / etc absolutely do not want this. Being classified as common carriers is about the worst business move they could forced into. Why? Because Title II equates to a lot of regulations - that's what Title II is. Title II is why phones are heavily regulated by taxes, where they must be laid, and other regulations that have been in place since 1934 (and updated in 1993). If Comcast / AT&T / Verizon / etc get lumped into Title II, then it'll cost them millions of dollars in employee costs, plus any additional costs from possible additional regulations that may be imposed now or down the road.
Bzzt! wrong. I don't believe you are who you say you are. If you were, you'd know that up until 2002, cable internet services were classified as "common carriers" under Title II. The same was true for DSL providers until 2005.
As I recall those guys did just fine. the regulations aren't as onerous as you're making them out to be and the FCC has wide latitude (which it has used repeatedly) to waive portions of Title II for specific reasons.
Also, the update that you mention was the "Telecommunications Act of 1996," and was not passed three years earlier. Yes, there will be more regulation than there is now, but that regulation, made for more competition, more innovation and better service. That's what the FCC is *supposed* to do.
There IS still the debate on whether Comcast is genuine on wanting net neutrality. I've been told that there's more to the Netflix story than is being told (and that Comcast was only looking to be paid for the bandwidth consumed), but I don't have enough evidence to substantiate this either way. We currently mostly have net neutrality now, without regulation, due to market forces.
That ship sailed, friend. Comcast Is already paid for that bandwidth -- by it's own customers. That data was requested over links that were paid for by Comcast's customers as a pipe to bring them data from the Internet. Netflix tried to deliver the data requested to Comcast's customers Comcast was either unwilling or unable to do so. Comcast sold services and then claimed it couldn't deliver those services unless it was paid more.
I'll be the first to admit that Comcast is perhaps one of the most vile companies that currently exist in the US. However, what we have now mostly works *without* additional regulation. I'm fearful what additional regulation may do to this - our government doesn't have a great history of making things better with more regulation.
Just be sure you look through the politics and look at the actual arguments. This isn't about Net Neutrality. Rather, Obama is using Net Neutrality as a keyword to push for Title II. And *that* won't end well.
You are correct. Title II reclassification by itself is not "network neutrality." Network Neutrality is dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop. Title II reclassification is just a small part of that. Much more needs to be done to effect and ensure real network neutrality. It does not exist on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and most of the other big ISPs. I know, because I actually have (at least as far as I can tell) an ISP that gives me a "dumb pipe providing unrestricted IP (v4 but not v6 yet) connectivity. Full stop."
The issues of surreptitious throttling, abusive terms of service and lobbyists (probably guys just like you) taking to the statehouses to cripple or outright ban competition for the big ISPs is a much bigger part of the problem. If there was real competition, Comcast wouldn't be able to protect their content distribution arms or compete effectively in the ISP market.
The more I read your apologist tripe, the more I'm certain that you're a shill (paid or not -- for your sake I hope you're paid for this) and not who and what you claim to be. You're here to attempt to sow FUD. Unfortunately for you, there are still a bunch (dwindling, but st
The term "net neutrality" is bounced around over and over and now even our technically challenged president is for it. But what exactly is "net neutrality?" What does it prevent from happening. What is required to happen?
I'll bet that three different people will have five different definitions.
perhaps you're right about the opinions. My unsolicited one boils down to "dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop."
Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.
Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops. In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.
Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not. In network operations, priority is a very specific concept. It means that you treat one class of traffic better than others, usually to the detriment of other classes of traffic. As an example, e911 voice traffic has the *highest* priority on the Comcast network.
Comcast does not treat Netflix traffic any better than anyone else's traffic. Nor is it treated any worse. It is forwarded as Best Effort within the Comcast network.
The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points. Comcast has alot more bandwidth internally and once traffic makes it into the network, congestion is not usually a problem (things do break, redundant links become saturated, etc. It's a big network, but in normal operation mode, congestion doesn't exist). What little prioritization we do has alot more to do with latency than with congestion (ie, your phone call is more important than your massive porn transfer, since voice is alot more sensitive to delay than bulk data transfer).
All of what you say is normal and reasonable, although I assume you don't honor QoS tags from VOIP traffic that originates outside your network. Which isn't a criticism, no one does. As for the paid links, that's not an issue, IMHO. I would point out that Comcast did refuse to install netflix CDN/caching servers, which would likely have resolved the issue much more cleanly for everyone. But the cable TV and content divisions must be "protected."
What's an issue for me (NB, I'm *not* a Comcast customer, you guys aren't even near me) is the surreptitious throttling of P2P and VPN traffic (and then lying about it), blocking port 25 and abusive (no servers, outrageous prices for static IPs if you guys even give those out at all on consumer links, I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I was a customer.) terms of service, not to mention the "retention" and upselling tortures your customer service reps put consumer-grade customers through.
At my previous employer we had a (not by choice -- we needed a redundant provider and you were it) Comcast Business link and, while the link was fairly stable and we got the speeds we paid for, anytime there was a problem (which wasn't often, in your defense) the tech support guys were worthless.
With the scripts and no (at least not exposed to me) ticketing reference numbers, no status updates and no follow up, it was awful.
Compared with the nine or ten other ISPs I dealt with globally, you guys were marginally better than Deutsche Telekom and that ain't saying much.
Sorry to dump all that on you, but if you want to talk about your organization, we should get it all out into the open. I didn't touch on the lobbying, the partnering with ALEC to block municipal broadband and the lawyers and the FUD from the front office and lobbyists. And don't even get me started on the huge subsidies provided to upgrade/build infrastructure that somehow never made it to very many truck rolls. So let's just let all that lie.
The truth is that, yes your networks are big and complex. Yes, there are areas where I can understand why you guys see some of the TOS as necessary to stop abuse, and yes I know that most folks (even here) are completely clueless about what it takes to run a large, heterogeneous, mu
Do NOT be fooled by the "Net Neutrality" cover story. This is an effort to regulate the Internet by hardcore leftists, and if allowed to proceed will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
The unregulated Internet CHANGED THE WORLD. Allowing government regulations will only destroy what has been created.
Hardcore leftists? Who exactly are you talking about? Dennis Kucinich is about as left as it gets in major parties in the US, and he isn't too far to the left of center. Obama is center-right on most issues. Eizabeth Warren is straight up center-left, as is Bernie Sanders. Based on their policy decisions, most of the rest of the Democrats in the house/senate would have been considered moderate Republicans not so very long ago.
What the hell is it with you guys? Based on the rhetoric, if Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon ran on their records and platforms, you'd be calling them communists.
Seriously. Go and actually look at the policies those guys pursued -- if their names weren't on them, you'd be screaming bloody murder about marxist ingrates with most of it. Geez Louise.
Oh, and before somebody asks, Linux 1.0 was released 14 March 1994.
FreeBSD was there first.
True enough, but I was using (IIRC) SVr3 (HP/UX) in '91, SunOS 4.0.x (BSD)in '92 and (Yggdrasil as I recall) Linux v0.91 in '93. You got the order right, but the dates wrong, friend.
As for the quibbling about who killed who, that link should help.
Slashdot Mirror
Distinction Without a Difference - The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language when, in fact, both positions are exactly the same -- at least in practice or practical terms.
To clarify once again. The distinctions drawn are not based on nomenclature. There are specific and important technical differences which have real impact on the discussion.
As I read your post again, I'm sorely tempted to respond in kind. However, I understand that you thought I was assigning ignorance of this particular area of knowledge to you as an insult (although you did do so in your original reply -- note that I simply repeated what you said first), rather than as a simple statement of fact. In your position, I would likely have responded similarly.
Your provided links show that "packet sniffing" and "traffic flow analysis" are not different concepts in practice. The difference is in how the collected data is analyzed or for what purpose.
This is an incorrect conclusion. Packet sniffing and Netflow analysis are significantly different in both theory and practice, both from the standpoint of data collected, as well as the method(s) of collection. Granted, if you are sniffing packets, you can perform a similar analysis, but that's both completely impractical (and in the context of the research) self-defeating. Attempting to sniff all packets off an IX Node requires mirroring all packets. Which would almost certainly cause serious congestion problems and be detected almost immediately. Collecting Netflow data from same wouldn't have a noticeable effect on the IX Node's network links.
Just to clarify that point. Collecting Netflow (or similar management protocol) data is significantly and demonstrably different (in the attack mechanisms posited by and the methodology employed by the researchers) in both theory and practice.
Yes, in a scenario with network links that carry much less data and both endpoints are known, packet sniffing and Netflow data collection *can* provide similar analytical results (I've done both myself), identifying data flows across large portions of the Internet (i.e., encompassing all or at least a significant fraction of Tor entry nodes -- in that the goal is identification of a device at an unknown location anywhere in the world) is a completely different animal.
I could go on, but those are the high points. The above should be obvious to anyone who has a reasonable amount of experience with IP networking. Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but given that this is a tech site and the article concerns a scholarly paper about networking, I assumed a certain level of working knowledge. My mistake.
There is no need to be rude or presumptive about my level of education. I shall explain what I meant in more depth to clear up any misunderstandings. OP said: "So if you can spy on the traffic from the user to the tor entry node, and can spy on the traffic leaving the tor exit node at the same time... then you can tell that the traffic you saw going to the entry node is linked to the traffic leaving the exit node" You said: "If you can correlate the server-->exit node flow to a specific entry node-->client flow, you've just identified the client outside of Tor." Distinction Without a Difference - The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language when, in fact, both positions are exactly the same -- at least in practice or practical terms. Your provided links show that "packet sniffing" and "traffic flow analysis" are not different concepts in practice. The difference is in how the collected data is analyzed or for what purpose. For the purposes of this discussion where analysis of collected packets is for identical purposes, this is also a distinction without a difference. "A packet analyzer...is a computer program or a piece of computer hardware that can intercept and log traffic passing over a digital network or part of a network." "NetFlow is a feature that was introduced on Cisco routers that provides the ability to collect IP network traffic as it enters or exits an interface." If you feel I have misinterpreted your statements, I would appreciate additional feedback.
My points were literal, rather than pejorative. Sniffing packets is gathering the *actual* packets. Netflow collects statistics about packets being transmitted/received. Do you see the difference?
GP stated "Good luck being able to sniff traffic on *both* ends." Firstly, traffic isn't being "sniffed." Secondly, With Netflow, it's not necessary to have packet sniffers on the specific links used in order to gather packet statistics.
What is more, since context is everything, GP was responding to my assessment of the paper (you know, the point of the article) and misunderstood the methodology used by the researchers. I explained.
If I (here and in my original post) have been unable to explain to you both the difference between packet sniffing and Netflow analysis and/or why GP misunderstood the methodology employed by the researchers, I suggest you read the paper yourself.
TL;DR : Packet sniffing != Netflow. Methodologies have impact on results and should be understood.
Should you want to criticize me, my reasoning or my (or at least your interpretation of it) tone for any other reasons? By all means, go right ahead.
Your interesting anecdotes do not in any way contradict the FACTS. I was using SysV in the early 80s. So what.
You might as well point out that BSD's first release was in 1977. Doesn't in any way change the 1.0 dates for FreeBSD and Linux.
And your fetish about 1.0 versions doesn't change the facts either. Those facts being listed in the posted link. Have a lovely day!
It seems to me that you just said the same thing as the parent post.
It seems to me, that you don't know the difference between packet sniffing and traffic analysis using Netflow and similar tools.
The links are there for your edification. You're welcome.
it seems like more and more old people are dying in hang gliding accidents these days.
What orifice did you pull that from? He died from esophageal cancer.
Esophageal cancer, hang gliding. Same thing. They both use many of the same letters after all. You should pay more attention!
"The city I lived in previously had granted a monopoly to Charter."
Um, no they didn't. Or at least, haven't had a legal monopoly at all recently. That's been illegal by Federal law since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
I think what GP means is that the local government (as happens in most of the US) granted a local franchise, which gives Charter preferential access to rights-of-way in exchange for [something]. That something might be agreeing to wire the whole city or it it might be paying off the politicians or it might be something else. As for "monopolies" being illegal, enforcement has been quite spotty -- but that doesn't advance your argument, so you ignored it.
John Dean was never a Democrat. I stopped reading after that as it was clear that you either have no idea what you're talking about or are a liar. Either way, you have zero credibility on this topic.
... a former police officer has been dragged into court by the U.S. Department of Justice for teaching people how to beat a pseudoscientific method of detecting whether somebody is lying, a method that itself isn't even admissible as evidence courts in most parts of the world? What's next? Will the surgeon general drag people into court for pointing out that when consuming a homeopathic remedy with 30C dilution, one would need to swallow a volume greater than all the water present in all the oceans of our entire planet in order to stand a good chance of swallowing just one molecule of the original substance?
Congratulations. The 1% of the people on this planet who would understand your joke are cracking up.
I'm guessing you don't get out much, do you...
It's basic high school chemistry. Just because you didn't learn what you were supposed to learn in school, doesn't mean we are all as ignorant as you.
You are correct, with one exception: Bill Clinton wasn't just threatened with impeachment, he WAS impeached. It's just that the impeachment did not result in his being removed from office.
impeachment is just part of the process:
Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, but the Senate did not conduct a trial.
"illegal to lie to government official" - you generalize much. Lying itself isn't outlawed, only deception with the effect of damage to society. If there's no damage to society, there's no crime. It may be argued that fake tests like polygraphs don't serve the good of society and bypassing them doesn't harm it, thus it's not a crime.
That's actually not the case, and hasn't been since 1934.
If he taught people to beat a polygraph and **always** said to never lie to government investigators he would not be in trouble.
So it's okay to lie to other people?
And his methods are universal. I find it funny how people can teach about beating a pseudoscientific lie detector without a problem up until someone tells them that they're going to use the methods to beat a government polygraph test. Then it's somehow 'bad.'
IANAL, but as I understand it, lying to police is not a crime. However, lying to Federal agents is a crime.
It's always better to keep your mouth shut, because even if lying to police isn't a crime, if they catch you in a lie, that can look bad if/when you're being prosecuted.
Don't talk to the police. Just keep your mouth shut.
undercover agents don't have to answer that truthfully... it's just a misconception reinforced by hollywood
Uniformed officers don't have to answer that truthfully either, although that would seem a rather poor strategy on their part.
Cops can lie to you under a broad range of circumstances, so the best strategy is not to engage them at all./P
Actually, often to get away your only choice is to lie to the cops.
Big mistake. That will net you an obstruction charge. The only safe course of action is to refuse to speak to them at all. Give them your name, address, and the following statement: "I do not wish to make any statement without the benefit of counsel." If you have information that they want badly enough they'll give you immunity. Otherwise keep your fucking mouth shut.
Exactly. Take some free legal advice
Know what to kiss and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
In fairness to the president, there was no way single payer could have made it through the Senate.
More's the pity.
Umm...How about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Thee Voting Rights Act of 1965? The "Great Society" (that's our modern welfare state as well as Medicare and Medicaid, BTW) programs, The Clean Air Act? Medicare Part B coverage? All progressive legislation, all much more significant in terms of impact on the US than the ACA. There's more, but I'm not your history teacher.
Learn a little history, friend.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Obama is a center-right politician as are most Democrats serving in national office in the US. Dennis Kucinich was about as far left (well, since Bella Abzug left Congress) as it got in recent times. There are a few still in congress who are center-left, but most Democrats in office today would have been considered moderate Republicans even twenty-five years ago.
You, apparently don't understand the concept of marginal cost and how it applies to network bandwidth.. I suggest you educate yourself or you just make yourself appear to be uninformed and uneducated.
I'm not trying to insult you here. If I was trying to insult you, I would succeed and there would be no ambiguity. This is constructive criticism.
In my opinion, any monopoly that has the balls to pull this type of disingenuous bullshit with the POTUS has demonstrated itself to have gone completely rogue. It's time for the Department of Justice to reign them in. It's up to the big ISPs paid lackeys who wants credit for splitting up the nation's most hated company during a lame duck session. Hating the fuck out of Comcast should be something that can bring this country together for Christmas. Remember, as long as they're fighting for their right to have unnatural market power(blackmailing Netflix), they aren't trying to corrupt our government with Regulatory Capture. Also: kudos to the FCC for trying to spin being a bunch of bought and paid for crooks as being pragmatism. I wonder if it's the same PR firm responsible for this press release who managed that psyops campaign?
There. FTFY.
Comcast / AT&T / etc absolutely do not want this. Being classified as common carriers is about the worst business move they could forced into. Why? Because Title II equates to a lot of regulations - that's what Title II is. Title II is why phones are heavily regulated by taxes, where they must be laid, and other regulations that have been in place since 1934 (and updated in 1993). If Comcast / AT&T / Verizon / etc get lumped into Title II, then it'll cost them millions of dollars in employee costs, plus any additional costs from possible additional regulations that may be imposed now or down the road.
Bzzt! wrong. I don't believe you are who you say you are. If you were, you'd know that up until 2002, cable internet services were classified as "common carriers" under Title II. The same was true for DSL providers until 2005.
As I recall those guys did just fine. the regulations aren't as onerous as you're making them out to be and the FCC has wide latitude (which it has used repeatedly) to waive portions of Title II for specific reasons.
Also, the update that you mention was the "Telecommunications Act of 1996," and was not passed three years earlier. Yes, there will be more regulation than there is now, but that regulation, made for more competition, more innovation and better service. That's what the FCC is *supposed* to do.
There IS still the debate on whether Comcast is genuine on wanting net neutrality. I've been told that there's more to the Netflix story than is being told (and that Comcast was only looking to be paid for the bandwidth consumed), but I don't have enough evidence to substantiate this either way. We currently mostly have net neutrality now, without regulation, due to market forces.
That ship sailed, friend. Comcast Is already paid for that bandwidth -- by it's own customers. That data was requested over links that were paid for by Comcast's customers as a pipe to bring them data from the Internet. Netflix tried to deliver the data requested to Comcast's customers Comcast was either unwilling or unable to do so. Comcast sold services and then claimed it couldn't deliver those services unless it was paid more.
I'll be the first to admit that Comcast is perhaps one of the most vile companies that currently exist in the US. However, what we have now mostly works *without* additional regulation. I'm fearful what additional regulation may do to this - our government doesn't have a great history of making things better with more regulation.
Just be sure you look through the politics and look at the actual arguments. This isn't about Net Neutrality. Rather, Obama is using Net Neutrality as a keyword to push for Title II. And *that* won't end well.
You are correct. Title II reclassification by itself is not "network neutrality." Network Neutrality is dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop. Title II reclassification is just a small part of that. Much more needs to be done to effect and ensure real network neutrality. It does not exist on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and most of the other big ISPs. I know, because I actually have (at least as far as I can tell) an ISP that gives me a "dumb pipe providing unrestricted IP (v4 but not v6 yet) connectivity. Full stop."
The issues of surreptitious throttling, abusive terms of service and lobbyists (probably guys just like you) taking to the statehouses to cripple or outright ban competition for the big ISPs is a much bigger part of the problem. If there was real competition, Comcast wouldn't be able to protect their content distribution arms or compete effectively in the ISP market.
The more I read your apologist tripe, the more I'm certain that you're a shill (paid or not -- for your sake I hope you're paid for this) and not who and what you claim to be. You're here to attempt to sow FUD. Unfortunately for you, there are still a bunch (dwindling, but st
The term "net neutrality" is bounced around over and over and now even our technically challenged president is for it. But what exactly is "net neutrality?" What does it prevent from happening. What is required to happen?
I'll bet that three different people will have five different definitions.
perhaps you're right about the opinions. My unsolicited one boils down to "dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop."
Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.
Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops. In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.
Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not. In network operations, priority is a very specific concept. It means that you treat one class of traffic better than others, usually to the detriment of other classes of traffic. As an example, e911 voice traffic has the *highest* priority on the Comcast network.
Comcast does not treat Netflix traffic any better than anyone else's traffic. Nor is it treated any worse. It is forwarded as Best Effort within the Comcast network.
The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points. Comcast has alot more bandwidth internally and once traffic makes it into the network, congestion is not usually a problem (things do break, redundant links become saturated, etc. It's a big network, but in normal operation mode, congestion doesn't exist). What little prioritization we do has alot more to do with latency than with congestion (ie, your phone call is more important than your massive porn transfer, since voice is alot more sensitive to delay than bulk data transfer).
All of what you say is normal and reasonable, although I assume you don't honor QoS tags from VOIP traffic that originates outside your network. Which isn't a criticism, no one does. As for the paid links, that's not an issue, IMHO. I would point out that Comcast did refuse to install netflix CDN/caching servers, which would likely have resolved the issue much more cleanly for everyone. But the cable TV and content divisions must be "protected."
What's an issue for me (NB, I'm *not* a Comcast customer, you guys aren't even near me) is the surreptitious throttling of P2P and VPN traffic (and then lying about it), blocking port 25 and abusive (no servers, outrageous prices for static IPs if you guys even give those out at all on consumer links, I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I was a customer.) terms of service, not to mention the "retention" and upselling tortures your customer service reps put consumer-grade customers through.
At my previous employer we had a (not by choice -- we needed a redundant provider and you were it) Comcast Business link and, while the link was fairly stable and we got the speeds we paid for, anytime there was a problem (which wasn't often, in your defense) the tech support guys were worthless.
With the scripts and no (at least not exposed to me) ticketing reference numbers, no status updates and no follow up, it was awful.
Compared with the nine or ten other ISPs I dealt with globally, you guys were marginally better than Deutsche Telekom and that ain't saying much.
Sorry to dump all that on you, but if you want to talk about your organization, we should get it all out into the open. I didn't touch on the lobbying, the partnering with ALEC to block municipal broadband and the lawyers and the FUD from the front office and lobbyists. And don't even get me started on the huge subsidies provided to upgrade/build infrastructure that somehow never made it to very many truck rolls. So let's just let all that lie.
The truth is that, yes your networks are big and complex. Yes, there are areas where I can understand why you guys see some of the TOS as necessary to stop abuse, and yes I know that most folks (even here) are completely clueless about what it takes to run a large, heterogeneous, mu
Do NOT be fooled by the "Net Neutrality" cover story. This is an effort to regulate the Internet by hardcore leftists, and if allowed to proceed will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
The unregulated Internet CHANGED THE WORLD. Allowing government regulations will only destroy what has been created.
Hardcore leftists? Who exactly are you talking about? Dennis Kucinich is about as left as it gets in major parties in the US, and he isn't too far to the left of center. Obama is center-right on most issues. Eizabeth Warren is straight up center-left, as is Bernie Sanders. Based on their policy decisions, most of the rest of the Democrats in the house/senate would have been considered moderate Republicans not so very long ago.
What the hell is it with you guys? Based on the rhetoric, if Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon ran on their records and platforms, you'd be calling them communists.
Seriously. Go and actually look at the policies those guys pursued -- if their names weren't on them, you'd be screaming bloody murder about marxist ingrates with most of it. Geez Louise.
Oh, and before somebody asks, Linux 1.0 was released 14 March 1994.
FreeBSD was there first.
True enough, but I was using (IIRC) SVr3 (HP/UX) in '91, SunOS 4.0.x (BSD)in '92 and (Yggdrasil as I recall) Linux v0.91 in '93. You got the order right, but the dates wrong, friend.
As for the quibbling about who killed who, that link should help.