Seems like they are intentionally congesting their links to force content providers to pay them extra for prioritisation. Ground rules for net neutrality are needed.. badly.
It's not that clear cut. Their behaviour affects all traffic. Net neutrality just stipulates that all traffic be treated equally. And in this case it is, abysmally. No wonder Comcast isn't that worried about net neutrality.
That's a deliberate obfuscation of the issue since amount and type of traffic are directly related.
Obfuscation is a bit harsh. And it's certainly not deliberate. You are making a true but overly simple correlation. There is a direct but contingent relationship. Email and voip may roughly be the same size but it's not the same traffic type. Net Neutrality is meant to protect more than video.
I hate Comcast but they are technically correct. Level 3 is wrong. Network neutrality is discrimination based on traffic type or protocol. Comcast is saying that Level 3 must pay for all traffic in excess of the ratio regardless of type or protocol. Level 3 is merely trying to leverage the momentum behind network neutrality in order to get the government to make-up for their poor ability to calculate margins. And given that Comcast has a monopoly on a huge chunk of eyeballs it puts a lot of pressure on Level 3 to capitulate in order to make Netflix happy. It's really Level 3 that's screwed here, not Netflix (assuming the additional router hops do not degrade quality too much). Of course, Comcast also runs some risk of losing customers/increased support calls if the quality of Netflix degrades but it is largely insulated by its monopoly in most markets. If there is anything offensive about this whole scenario, it's Comcast using its monopoly to abuse Level 3, not a net neutrality violation against Netflix.
Of course the fishy bit is that most of this traffic just happens to be Netflix content and Comcast is a provider of similar content. Comcast claims this is merely co-incidental. That's kind of hard to believe but guessing about motives is murky business.
Both of them are being stupid though. Level 3 looks incompetent by claiming this is a net neutrality issue and appears to be rent seeking by seeking regulation. Comcast looks like a big bully while they are trying to acquire NBC. I wouldn't be surprised to see some regulation around acceptable peering ratios between monopoly last-mile networks and other networks come out of all of this. And given the assumptions built into the download/upload ratios of most consumer broadband connections 5:1 seems reasonable.
Even if Comcast drops Level3 completely, you will still get Netflix - Level3 will just pass off the traffic to someone who does peer with Comcast. It'll be slower than if Level3 directly peered with Comcast, but it will still get there.
Netflix doesn't need to pay Comcast anything. Netflix is already paying Level3 to be their CDN. Level3 just now needs to pay for the bandwidth they're using.
Huh? Aren't Comcast's customers, the one's who are streaming Netflix, already paying for that bandwidth that they're using? This sounds like Comcast wanting to double-dip.
Uh, cause that's not how the internet works? The end-users pay Comcast for "internet connectivity" by which is usually meant the ability to connect to any other location on the internet. That's usually called "full transit" when you are talking about deals between networks rather than consumers. Now since not every host on the internet is on Comcast's network Comcast must negotiate with other networks to get access to those other hosts. Further since Comcast has no idea which hosts to which its users may want to connect it must either directly or indirectly negotiate deals with *all* other networks connected to the internet.
The most efficient way to do so is directly through peering. In order for the arrangement to be fair the ratio of traffic passing between networks ideally should be 1:1. If it's not, the one out of balance should compensate the other. Even if the out-of-balance network has to pay it's still likely cheaper to peer than not. If the networks do not peer, then they must purchase transit from each other or another network that connects both of them, if they want to communicate. As you may have noticed a network doesn't have to directly connect to every other network. It just has to do so transitively. Thus the most well-connected networks (i.e. "backbones" or Tier 1 providers) usually charge the most because it's easier to connect to one network (the backbone) than thousands (every network on the internet).
They be "selective" about the documents being released (beyond redaction of some information in them), and suddenly they're now the target of people crying that they're censoring the real interesting information. Therefore, their policy is simply "release it all and let someone else sort it out".
That's true but those people are idiots. I however understand the need to avoid even the hint of hypocrisy when pointing out the hypocrisy of others.
At what point will wikileaks go after who they were originally intended - despots in Africa and the Middle East, and maybe some dirty corporations? Just about everything that I've seen released this time is a bunch of "well, duh" stuff and driven by base anti-Americanism. I'm not saying some secrets don't need to be exposed, just that Assange seems so callous in doing it.
Uh, if the greatest trove of confidential information in history about one of the most holier-than-thou countries in the world (and I say this as an American) fell into your lap, you'd be a complete moron not to publish it.
It's always amusing when a new pundit discovers exactly how the Internet actually works.
Until they gain enough technical knowledge to be dangerous, they assume that the Internet is just as Hollywood portrays... A rock-solid utility run by the Government that only PhDs and arcanely skilled teenage geniuses can control or understand.
Then they discover just how "fragile" it is, and start telling the people who've been making it work all along that they need to straighten up and fly right, or else a major disaster is going to happen. Good thing they told us.
It's sad that they can't just say "Oh, I guess I didn't understand.". Instead they have to "take charge" of things because otherwise they'd have to accept their own irrelevance, or even (gasp) accept that despite their new-found expertise, they *still* don't really understand.
So straighten up, Cisco... it's obvious to this guy you don't know what you're doing. Fix that BGP thing and do it NOW, you hear him?
and wait for the Republicans to fight this government intervention tooth and nail..........
You'll be waiting a long, long time. Chances are that most of the companies that would benefit from this legislation (i.e. large IT shops) donate more money to the Republicans than the Democrats. You act as if there is a fundamental difference in the parties rather than rationalizations for supporting whichever group gives the party more money. Neither of the parties believe in the principles which they espouse. They simply cater their rhetoric to whomever gives them more votes or money. This kind of stitched together ideology is full of contradiction. The Republican party as it exists now is a great example.
but instead of being the eyes of a totalitarian state he is the eyes of Big Business. Does the thin sliver of difference between coercion by the state and the connivance of Big Business matter? Both seek to compromise our freedom.
I mean when it came out it looked better than Windows and did more. Too bad Commodore was unable to get its act together on the hardware side.
Uh, that's a pretty big chip on your shoulder. Nobody said Apple *invented* the GUI, just that they already had a GUI for their OS on the market before Windows 1.0. Sheesh. Take a chill pill.
those given stimulation running in the opposite direction, left to right, did markedly worse at these puzzles than those given no current, with their ability matching that of an average six-year-old... The effects were not short-lived, either. When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted.
What about the other sides, were the negative effects persistant? Did you just create a group of idiots? Is this legal?
"When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted. There was no wider effect on general maths ability in either group, just on the ability to complete the puzzles learned as the current was applied."
It only applies to the skill learned at that time but, yes, presumably they will permanently suck at that skill. And, yes, they might have the right to sue since their brains were potentially permanently damaged.
The argument is now whether the observable changes are predominantly attributable to man's impact on the environment, or to the natural climatic lifecycle of the Earth.
Is there, really? I believe this question has been answered pretty decisively by the scientific community, with a resounding consensus that man's actions are moderately to significantly affecting global warming.
Agreed. And regardless of how much, we are contributing *some* to global warming and reducing that contribution, especially in a non-linear system, seems to make sense. However I think that also means we need to accept that there may be nothing we can do about global warming and we need to spend more time thinking about how we are going adapt. Personally I look forward to having the weather of the Carolinas here in Boston when I'm ready to retire.;-)
Is it wrong that as fast as things as changing these days, part of me still hopes for one of these '1000x faster in 5 years' technologies to live up to its full promise?
I know it's coming; if not this tech than surely another one... I guess one hopes to live in interesting times, and I still dream for the day I wake up and there's a computer for sale that shatters Moore's Law. A computer 1000x faster than what was available the day before.
Faster, please.
(and thank you)
If you create stuff, you should know that everything takes longer than you think it will; and, therefore, nothing happens as fast as you expect it to happen.
Except the only thing guaranteed is that they will try to fight the fire. The whole place could still burn down and then I'm sure he would have refused to pay.
For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.
Unfortunately most people don't think of taxes or fees as insurance. Instead all they see is all of this money going toward nothing. And really it's a different kind of insurance than most people are accustomed. It's not like people are guaranteed to get anything by paying it. Firefighters could show up and the house could still burn down.
they'll get it. When will this idiocy stop? When will we stop treating corporations as people? I just don't understand it. It makes no sense. If we treat them as people when it's to their benefit we should do so when it's to their detriment as well. If someone at a corporation breaks the law everyone at the corporation should pay the price or the company itself should pay the price, a price commensurate to the crime, not the ridiculous wrist slaps that happen now.
It seems interesting that the Israelis committed themselves to peace talks right when Stuxnet hit Iran. Maybe Israel is now reassured the US takes the the threat of Iran seriously because they are doing something about it? Let the conspiracy theories begin!
Now if the worm in industrials plants result of industrial accidents that kill people, then clearly it would be an act of war, which would be pretty stupid because there are far more effective means of crippling infrastructure with far more primitive methods.
Not if it is built into the side of a mountain, like, say, a nuclear fuel processing plant.
they all want to extend that power. It makes me think that the Federal government itself is party-agnostic. It has the goal of all bureaucracies, to continually expand its power. You want to wrap-up increased censorship in "think of the children"? Fine. You want to wrap up increased censorship in "hate-speech"? Fine. It's all the same to the Federal government. It just needs to market the expansion of its powers in the right way to the party that happens to be in "power" and when that party loses the power still stays with the Federal government.
I wonder why there is such a disconnect between the ALP and its constituents? I wonder if they understand that their position on this issue may have cost them their majority (among other things like the refusal to follow-up on environmental promises)? Conroy should have been sacked with Rudd (or re-assigned as the case may be since he's now Minister of Foreign Affairs). How do you get it through their thick heads that they are losing votes? We have the same problem in 'America. All of these Attorneys General think that they are gaining votes for shutting down Craigslist's Adult Section but really they are losing votes. I certainly won't vote to re-elect my Attorney General based on this one issue. Her opponent could be a stuffed doll and I still wouldn't vote for her.
just as there are an infinite number of primes. It's not like the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of pi is any more significant than say the 200th. At least with primes you reduce the time for factorization.
Actually finding large primes has very little to do with factorization. In general, the most efficient factorization procedures, the elliptic curve sieve and the general number field sieve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_field_sieve don't benefit from knowing any primes in advance beyond a few very small primes. Moreover, the largest primes known are all of special forms that don't show up very often. For example, the very largest primes are known as Mersenne primes which are primes which are 1 less than a power of 2. We can determine if such numbers are prime using a very efficient test called the Lucas-Lehmer test. The largest such prime known today is 2^43,112,609-1. This is much, much larger than any number we'd want to practically factor (for example numbers used in RSA encryption are generally on the order of a few hundred digits. It is believed that numbers with 2000 or so digits will be secure for the indefinite future). So yeah, finding large primes is about as useful as this when it comes to practical factoring. There are other somewhat good reasons to be interested in finding large primes, but factoring isn't one of them.
Yeah, I know all of that. That wasn't my point. Reread what I wrote.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't this effectively amount to fraud? Comcast knows there is no way it can deliver the bandwidth it's promised to its customers.
Seems like they are intentionally congesting their links to force content providers to pay them extra for prioritisation. Ground rules for net neutrality are needed.. badly.
It's not that clear cut. Their behaviour affects all traffic. Net neutrality just stipulates that all traffic be treated equally. And in this case it is, abysmally. No wonder Comcast isn't that worried about net neutrality.
That's a deliberate obfuscation of the issue since amount and type of traffic are directly related.
Obfuscation is a bit harsh. And it's certainly not deliberate. You are making a true but overly simple correlation. There is a direct but contingent relationship. Email and voip may roughly be the same size but it's not the same traffic type. Net Neutrality is meant to protect more than video.
I hate Comcast but they are technically correct. Level 3 is wrong. Network neutrality is discrimination based on traffic type or protocol. Comcast is saying that Level 3 must pay for all traffic in excess of the ratio regardless of type or protocol. Level 3 is merely trying to leverage the momentum behind network neutrality in order to get the government to make-up for their poor ability to calculate margins. And given that Comcast has a monopoly on a huge chunk of eyeballs it puts a lot of pressure on Level 3 to capitulate in order to make Netflix happy. It's really Level 3 that's screwed here, not Netflix (assuming the additional router hops do not degrade quality too much). Of course, Comcast also runs some risk of losing customers/increased support calls if the quality of Netflix degrades but it is largely insulated by its monopoly in most markets. If there is anything offensive about this whole scenario, it's Comcast using its monopoly to abuse Level 3, not a net neutrality violation against Netflix.
Of course the fishy bit is that most of this traffic just happens to be Netflix content and Comcast is a provider of similar content. Comcast claims this is merely co-incidental. That's kind of hard to believe but guessing about motives is murky business.
Both of them are being stupid though. Level 3 looks incompetent by claiming this is a net neutrality issue and appears to be rent seeking by seeking regulation. Comcast looks like a big bully while they are trying to acquire NBC. I wouldn't be surprised to see some regulation around acceptable peering ratios between monopoly last-mile networks and other networks come out of all of this. And given the assumptions built into the download/upload ratios of most consumer broadband connections 5:1 seems reasonable.
This isn't how it works.
Even if Comcast drops Level3 completely, you will still get Netflix - Level3 will just pass off the traffic to someone who does peer with Comcast. It'll be slower than if Level3 directly peered with Comcast, but it will still get there.
Netflix doesn't need to pay Comcast anything. Netflix is already paying Level3 to be their CDN. Level3 just now needs to pay for the bandwidth they're using.
Huh? Aren't Comcast's customers, the one's who are streaming Netflix, already paying for that bandwidth that they're using? This sounds like Comcast wanting to double-dip.
Uh, cause that's not how the internet works? The end-users pay Comcast for "internet connectivity" by which is usually meant the ability to connect to any other location on the internet. That's usually called "full transit" when you are talking about deals between networks rather than consumers. Now since not every host on the internet is on Comcast's network Comcast must negotiate with other networks to get access to those other hosts. Further since Comcast has no idea which hosts to which its users may want to connect it must either directly or indirectly negotiate deals with *all* other networks connected to the internet.
The most efficient way to do so is directly through peering. In order for the arrangement to be fair the ratio of traffic passing between networks ideally should be 1:1. If it's not, the one out of balance should compensate the other. Even if the out-of-balance network has to pay it's still likely cheaper to peer than not. If the networks do not peer, then they must purchase transit from each other or another network that connects both of them, if they want to communicate. As you may have noticed a network doesn't have to directly connect to every other network. It just has to do so transitively. Thus the most well-connected networks (i.e. "backbones" or Tier 1 providers) usually charge the most because it's easier to connect to one network (the backbone) than thousands (every network on the internet).
They be "selective" about the documents being released (beyond redaction of some information in them), and suddenly they're now the target of people crying that they're censoring the real interesting information. Therefore, their policy is simply "release it all and let someone else sort it out".
That's true but those people are idiots. I however understand the need to avoid even the hint of hypocrisy when pointing out the hypocrisy of others.
"OMG! Did you hear what he said about her! OMG! Did you hear what she said about him! LOLLLZZZ!!!"
Sigh. It would have been nice if they had been more selective about releasing documents and chose ones that really matter.
At what point will wikileaks go after who they were originally intended - despots in Africa and the Middle East, and maybe some dirty corporations? Just about everything that I've seen released this time is a bunch of "well, duh" stuff and driven by base anti-Americanism. I'm not saying some secrets don't need to be exposed, just that Assange seems so callous in doing it.
Uh, if the greatest trove of confidential information in history about one of the most holier-than-thou countries in the world (and I say this as an American) fell into your lap, you'd be a complete moron not to publish it.
It's always amusing when a new pundit discovers exactly how the Internet actually works.
Until they gain enough technical knowledge to be dangerous, they assume that the Internet is just as Hollywood portrays... A rock-solid utility run by the Government that only PhDs and arcanely skilled teenage geniuses can control or understand.
Then they discover just how "fragile" it is, and start telling the people who've been making it work all along that they need to straighten up and fly right, or else a major disaster is going to happen. Good thing they told us.
It's sad that they can't just say "Oh, I guess I didn't understand.". Instead they have to "take charge" of things because otherwise they'd have to accept their own irrelevance, or even (gasp) accept that despite their new-found expertise, they *still* don't really understand.
So straighten up, Cisco... it's obvious to this guy you don't know what you're doing. Fix that BGP thing and do it NOW, you hear him?
++
and wait for the Republicans to fight this government intervention tooth and nail. .........
You'll be waiting a long, long time. Chances are that most of the companies that would benefit from this legislation (i.e. large IT shops) donate more money to the Republicans than the Democrats. You act as if there is a fundamental difference in the parties rather than rationalizations for supporting whichever group gives the party more money. Neither of the parties believe in the principles which they espouse. They simply cater their rhetoric to whomever gives them more votes or money. This kind of stitched together ideology is full of contradiction. The Republican party as it exists now is a great example.
but instead of being the eyes of a totalitarian state he is the eyes of Big Business. Does the thin sliver of difference between coercion by the state and the connivance of Big Business matter? Both seek to compromise our freedom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
"Apple had already brought graphical user interfaces to computers with Macintosh"
More like stolen from Xerox, who was inspired by Alan Kay's ideas, who probably was at THE demo : DOUGLAS ENGLEBART
What's next? Apple invented the keyboard? The mouse? The bit? Gimme a break.
What about GEOS for the Commodore 64? GEOS
I mean when it came out it looked better than Windows and did more. Too bad Commodore was unable to get its act together on the hardware side.
Uh, that's a pretty big chip on your shoulder. Nobody said Apple *invented* the GUI, just that they already had a GUI for their OS on the market before Windows 1.0. Sheesh. Take a chill pill.
It's silly and childish. He doesn't even work for Microsoft anymore.
those given stimulation running in the opposite direction, left to right, did markedly worse at these puzzles than those given no current, with their ability matching that of an average six-year-old ... The effects were not short-lived, either. When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted.
What about the other sides, were the negative effects persistant? Did you just create a group of idiots? Is this legal?
"When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted. There was no wider effect on general maths ability in either group, just on the ability to complete the puzzles learned as the current was applied."
It only applies to the skill learned at that time but, yes, presumably they will permanently suck at that skill. And, yes, they might have the right to sue since their brains were potentially permanently damaged.
The argument is now whether the observable changes are predominantly attributable to man's impact on the environment, or to the natural climatic lifecycle of the Earth.
Is there, really? I believe this question has been answered pretty decisively by the scientific community, with a resounding consensus that man's actions are moderately to significantly affecting global warming.
Agreed. And regardless of how much, we are contributing *some* to global warming and reducing that contribution, especially in a non-linear system, seems to make sense. However I think that also means we need to accept that there may be nothing we can do about global warming and we need to spend more time thinking about how we are going adapt. Personally I look forward to having the weather of the Carolinas here in Boston when I'm ready to retire. ;-)
Is it wrong that as fast as things as changing these days, part of me still hopes for one of these '1000x faster in 5 years' technologies to live up to its full promise?
I know it's coming; if not this tech than surely another one... I guess one hopes to live in interesting times, and I still dream for the day I wake up and there's a computer for sale that shatters Moore's Law. A computer 1000x faster than what was available the day before.
Faster, please.
(and thank you)
If you create stuff, you should know that everything takes longer than you think it will; and, therefore, nothing happens as fast as you expect it to happen.
Except the only thing guaranteed is that they will try to fight the fire. The whole place could still burn down and then I'm sure he would have refused to pay.
For those of you that say "Why didn't they put it out when the guy pleaded to pay the $75?" Sorry, that's SOP. If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire.
Unfortunately most people don't think of taxes or fees as insurance. Instead all they see is all of this money going toward nothing. And really it's a different kind of insurance than most people are accustomed. It's not like people are guaranteed to get anything by paying it. Firefighters could show up and the house could still burn down.
they'll get it. When will this idiocy stop? When will we stop treating corporations as people? I just don't understand it. It makes no sense. If we treat them as people when it's to their benefit we should do so when it's to their detriment as well. If someone at a corporation breaks the law everyone at the corporation should pay the price or the company itself should pay the price, a price commensurate to the crime, not the ridiculous wrist slaps that happen now.
It seems interesting that the Israelis committed themselves to peace talks right when Stuxnet hit Iran. Maybe Israel is now reassured the US takes the the threat of Iran seriously because they are doing something about it? Let the conspiracy theories begin!
Now if the worm in industrials plants result of industrial accidents that kill people, then clearly it would be an act of war, which would be pretty stupid because there are far more effective means of crippling infrastructure with far more primitive methods.
Not if it is built into the side of a mountain, like, say, a nuclear fuel processing plant.
they all want to extend that power. It makes me think that the Federal government itself is party-agnostic. It has the goal of all bureaucracies, to continually expand its power. You want to wrap-up increased censorship in "think of the children"? Fine. You want to wrap up increased censorship in "hate-speech"? Fine. It's all the same to the Federal government. It just needs to market the expansion of its powers in the right way to the party that happens to be in "power" and when that party loses the power still stays with the Federal government.
I wonder why there is such a disconnect between the ALP and its constituents? I wonder if they understand that their position on this issue may have cost them their majority (among other things like the refusal to follow-up on environmental promises)? Conroy should have been sacked with Rudd (or re-assigned as the case may be since he's now Minister of Foreign Affairs). How do you get it through their thick heads that they are losing votes? We have the same problem in 'America. All of these Attorneys General think that they are gaining votes for shutting down Craigslist's Adult Section but really they are losing votes. I certainly won't vote to re-elect my Attorney General based on this one issue. Her opponent could be a stuffed doll and I still wouldn't vote for her.
the meaning of the word is ambiguous. So we are both right.
Also, you're both wrong.
Stop being so ambiguous.
just as there are an infinite number of primes. It's not like the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of pi is any more significant than say the 200th. At least with primes you reduce the time for factorization.
Actually finding large primes has very little to do with factorization. In general, the most efficient factorization procedures, the elliptic curve sieve and the general number field sieve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_field_sieve don't benefit from knowing any primes in advance beyond a few very small primes. Moreover, the largest primes known are all of special forms that don't show up very often. For example, the very largest primes are known as Mersenne primes which are primes which are 1 less than a power of 2. We can determine if such numbers are prime using a very efficient test called the Lucas-Lehmer test. The largest such prime known today is 2^43,112,609-1. This is much, much larger than any number we'd want to practically factor (for example numbers used in RSA encryption are generally on the order of a few hundred digits. It is believed that numbers with 2000 or so digits will be secure for the indefinite future). So yeah, finding large primes is about as useful as this when it comes to practical factoring. There are other somewhat good reasons to be interested in finding large primes, but factoring isn't one of them.
Yeah, I know all of that. That wasn't my point. Reread what I wrote.