"The ISPs aren't peering at all, they are the termination point."
Huh? Peering is how traffic is exchanged between termination points. Traffic from Netflix to Comcast customers can reach Comcast's network three ways:
1) Netflix can peer with Comcast.
2) Netflix can be a transit customer of a network that peers with Comcast.
3) Netflix can be a transit customer of Comcast.
1 is what they agreed to now. 2 is what they had before using Cogent's peering with Comcast. 3 is unreasonable given the business nature of Comcast and Netflix.
> Why should Netflix hesitate to explain to their subscribers that their ISP is the cause of poor streaming because they refuse to peer with the Netflix network?
They were happy to peer with Netflix, Netflix just didn't want to pay for it. They tried to get Cogent to bully Comcast and that failed. So Netflix agreed to peer with Comcast directly. Settlement-based peering for traffic imbalances has been the norm for more than a decade. Netflix and Cogent just tried to strongarm Comcast and failed.
Google and Facebook produce large amounts of outbound bandwidth from a small number of endpoints. Comcast handles large amounts of inbound traffic to a large number of endpoints. The traffic benefits both parties equally, but it is inherent in both Google's and Facebook's business models that their traffic will cost them less than the costs it imposes on the destination networks. Thus it makes sense for Comcast to charge them to balance things out. This argument doesn't work in reverse.
You're tilting at windmills here. It has been a very long time since "Internet access" meant unfiltered, unthrottled access. If you were arguing for laws requiring clearer disclosure about exactly what people are getting, I wouldn't have a problem.
I have no problem with a law requiring carriers who claim to be neutral to in fact be neutral. But otherwise, this is like the nutty argument that fractional reserve banking is inherently fraudulent because some people might think the bank keeps all the deposits in their safe.
Right, but what about when there's *ZERO* choices for Internet? Presumably, anti-net neutrality policies are profitable for ISPs or they wouldn't want to adopt them. So you've just discouraged the very competition you claim you want by reducing the profitability of entering underserved markets.
If it cost a car dealer $1,000 more to sell a car, the price of cars would go up about $1,000 immediately. The money comes from the consumer. The consumer ultimately pays all the costs associated with making and selling the product.
If everyone agreed with this reasoning, the price would already be higher. The fact that the price is where it now shows that other people assess the probability of Bitcoin taking over a substantial fraction of the world economy *much* lower than you do. If you still think you're right and everyone else is wrong, then buy Bitcoins.
But that is a heckler's veto, recognized as invalid in the United States. Under this kind of reasoning, I can silence anyone I want by creating a situation where their speech is likely to cause a foreseeable risk of harm to others. For example, if a guy is preaching on a bus, even where he has a perfect right to preach, I can force him to either stop preaching or risk tort liability by simply saying, "If you don't stop preaching, I'll slap the driver, creating a risk of a traffic accident". In the United States, we don't hold people liable for how other people choose to react to their speech acts, even if that reaction is reasonably foreseeable, even if it is intended. (Except under very narrow circumstances nothing like the circumstances involved here.)
That's still completely absurd. The risk of an accident from a driver receiving a single text is microscopic. The idea that one can "recklessly" create such a small risk is bizarre.
Say I convince my friend that he really would like a Slurpee and he drives 30 minutes to 7-11 and back to get one. On the way, he loses control of his car and runs into another car. Surely the risk of an additional car on the road for 30 minutes is greater than the risk of receiving a single text. Should I be liable if I create that risk "recklessly"?
We prohibit texting while driving because the cumulative risk of the large numbers of texts received isn't justified by the small social benefits of texting while driving. It's not because receiving a single text while driving is an unreasonable danger to accept.
If lie detectors tests worked, advising someone to lie during such a test would result in their nefarious deeds coming to light. Why would that be a crime? Or are you assuming it's common knowledge that lie detector tests don't actually work?
To claim that lying during a lie detector test is an act of fraud is to admit that lie detector tests don't work. The whole point of such tests is supposed to be that you can't beat them by lying.
You're assuming all the people involved were rational and calm, the driver follow instructions, and information was accurately relayed. There have been several similar incidents and in all of them, despite lots of people blaming mechanical problems, it was driver error. When I hear hoofprints, I think horses. I'll believe it's a zebra when the real evidence comes in.
There's a great audio of one such incident with a woman whose brake pedal jammed on the Long Island Expressway. In more than 20 minutes of conversation, it was impossible to get her to shift the car into neutral. When they finally got her to, she said, "the engine is racing!" and put it back into drive. This was while police were trying to make physical contact with her car to slow her down from in front and there was a significant risk of death. Nobody could stop her from worrying that she shouldn't race the engine. You have too much faith in humanity. It is not justified.
So what? Driving at 125 miles per hour could have killed him -- worrying about the engine or the brakes is idiotic. And the brakes won't catch fire decelerating you from 125 to 0 just once after the transmission is in neutral. He should have shifted into neutral as soon as he realized he couldn't keep the engine from accelerating the car beyond where he wanted it to be.
They don't meet the definition of a security, see the Securities Act of 1933 et seq. They are more like a commodity. They are more like ounces of orange juice than shares in a company that makes orange juice.
Because generally at law, specific performance is not a remedy. You sue for the value of what you have lost, not the actual thing you have lost.
If I give you a meal worth $50 to clean my garage and you don't paint my house, I sue you for $50. I don't sue for the meal. I don't sue to force you to clean the garage.
Bitcoin does not rely on servers to be secure. If you choose to store the key that secures your Bitcoins on a server, then the key is only as secure as that server. But you don't have to do this unless you wish to.
Right, but they said they wouldn't because EU law required them to -- a law that would be unconstitutional (violating the first Amendment) if it was a US law. So why is the US enforcing such a law?
As a somewhat absurd hypothetical, consider if Iran passed a law that a company can't do business with Iran if they hire any Jews. Some company really wants to do business with Iran, so as Iranian law requires, they say they won't hire any Jews. Then the United States government gets a tip that this company has hired a few Jews, investigates, and fines the company. Does that seem like something the US should be doing?
Slashdot Mirror
"The ISPs aren't peering at all, they are the termination point."
Huh? Peering is how traffic is exchanged between termination points. Traffic from Netflix to Comcast customers can reach Comcast's network three ways:
1) Netflix can peer with Comcast.
2) Netflix can be a transit customer of a network that peers with Comcast.
3) Netflix can be a transit customer of Comcast.
1 is what they agreed to now. 2 is what they had before using Cogent's peering with Comcast. 3 is unreasonable given the business nature of Comcast and Netflix.
> Why should Netflix hesitate to explain to their subscribers that their ISP is the cause of poor streaming because they refuse to peer with the Netflix network?
They were happy to peer with Netflix, Netflix just didn't want to pay for it. They tried to get Cogent to bully Comcast and that failed. So Netflix agreed to peer with Comcast directly. Settlement-based peering for traffic imbalances has been the norm for more than a decade. Netflix and Cogent just tried to strongarm Comcast and failed.
Google and Facebook produce large amounts of outbound bandwidth from a small number of endpoints. Comcast handles large amounts of inbound traffic to a large number of endpoints. The traffic benefits both parties equally, but it is inherent in both Google's and Facebook's business models that their traffic will cost them less than the costs it imposes on the destination networks. Thus it makes sense for Comcast to charge them to balance things out. This argument doesn't work in reverse.
You're tilting at windmills here. It has been a very long time since "Internet access" meant unfiltered, unthrottled access. If you were arguing for laws requiring clearer disclosure about exactly what people are getting, I wouldn't have a problem.
I have no problem with a law requiring carriers who claim to be neutral to in fact be neutral. But otherwise, this is like the nutty argument that fractional reserve banking is inherently fraudulent because some people might think the bank keeps all the deposits in their safe.
Right, but what about when there's *ZERO* choices for Internet? Presumably, anti-net neutrality policies are profitable for ISPs or they wouldn't want to adopt them. So you've just discouraged the very competition you claim you want by reducing the profitability of entering underserved markets.
Right, and this will force more people to go without because it will decrease the profitability of providing Internet access, decreasing competition.
It doesn't work that way. There is no category of "money" that something must either fit in or not fit in.
Is a toy car a car? If yes, does that mean you have to register it?
Please by quiet while adults are trying to speak.
Say I have $10,000 that I go by selling drugs. I want to make it appear legitimate. So here's what I do:
1) I convert the $10,000 to Bitcoins anonymously.
2) I sell those Bitcoins for $10,000.
3) I claim that I bought those Bitcoins for $65, and pay taxes on the profits.
I have no made my drug profits appear to be legitimate income.
If it cost a car dealer $1,000 more to sell a car, the price of cars would go up about $1,000 immediately. The money comes from the consumer. The consumer ultimately pays all the costs associated with making and selling the product.
If everyone agreed with this reasoning, the price would already be higher. The fact that the price is where it now shows that other people assess the probability of Bitcoin taking over a substantial fraction of the world economy *much* lower than you do. If you still think you're right and everyone else is wrong, then buy Bitcoins.
Whether or not the conduct creates an unreasonable risk has nothing to do with whether that conduct is legal or not.
"Wether or not they work is irrelevant. Aiding someone in committing a crime, in this case..."
If they don't work, it's not aiding anyone in committing a crime. In fact, it's ensuring they get caught.
But that is a heckler's veto, recognized as invalid in the United States. Under this kind of reasoning, I can silence anyone I want by creating a situation where their speech is likely to cause a foreseeable risk of harm to others. For example, if a guy is preaching on a bus, even where he has a perfect right to preach, I can force him to either stop preaching or risk tort liability by simply saying, "If you don't stop preaching, I'll slap the driver, creating a risk of a traffic accident". In the United States, we don't hold people liable for how other people choose to react to their speech acts, even if that reaction is reasonably foreseeable, even if it is intended. (Except under very narrow circumstances nothing like the circumstances involved here.)
That's still completely absurd. The risk of an accident from a driver receiving a single text is microscopic. The idea that one can "recklessly" create such a small risk is bizarre.
Say I convince my friend that he really would like a Slurpee and he drives 30 minutes to 7-11 and back to get one. On the way, he loses control of his car and runs into another car. Surely the risk of an additional car on the road for 30 minutes is greater than the risk of receiving a single text. Should I be liable if I create that risk "recklessly"?
We prohibit texting while driving because the cumulative risk of the large numbers of texts received isn't justified by the small social benefits of texting while driving. It's not because receiving a single text while driving is an unreasonable danger to accept.
If lie detectors tests worked, advising someone to lie during such a test would result in their nefarious deeds coming to light. Why would that be a crime? Or are you assuming it's common knowledge that lie detector tests don't actually work?
To claim that lying during a lie detector test is an act of fraud is to admit that lie detector tests don't work. The whole point of such tests is supposed to be that you can't beat them by lying.
You're assuming all the people involved were rational and calm, the driver follow instructions, and information was accurately relayed. There have been several similar incidents and in all of them, despite lots of people blaming mechanical problems, it was driver error. When I hear hoofprints, I think horses. I'll believe it's a zebra when the real evidence comes in.
There's a great audio of one such incident with a woman whose brake pedal jammed on the Long Island Expressway. In more than 20 minutes of conversation, it was impossible to get her to shift the car into neutral. When they finally got her to, she said, "the engine is racing!" and put it back into drive. This was while police were trying to make physical contact with her car to slow her down from in front and there was a significant risk of death. Nobody could stop her from worrying that she shouldn't race the engine. You have too much faith in humanity. It is not justified.
So what? Driving at 125 miles per hour could have killed him -- worrying about the engine or the brakes is idiotic. And the brakes won't catch fire decelerating you from 125 to 0 just once after the transmission is in neutral. He should have shifted into neutral as soon as he realized he couldn't keep the engine from accelerating the car beyond where he wanted it to be.
They don't meet the definition of a security, see the Securities Act of 1933 et seq. They are more like a commodity. They are more like ounces of orange juice than shares in a company that makes orange juice.
Because generally at law, specific performance is not a remedy. You sue for the value of what you have lost, not the actual thing you have lost.
If I give you a meal worth $50 to clean my garage and you don't paint my house, I sue you for $50. I don't sue for the meal. I don't sue to force you to clean the garage.
Bitcoin does not rely on servers to be secure. If you choose to store the key that secures your Bitcoins on a server, then the key is only as secure as that server. But you don't have to do this unless you wish to.
Right, but they said they wouldn't because EU law required them to -- a law that would be unconstitutional (violating the first Amendment) if it was a US law. So why is the US enforcing such a law?
As a somewhat absurd hypothetical, consider if Iran passed a law that a company can't do business with Iran if they hire any Jews. Some company really wants to do business with Iran, so as Iranian law requires, they say they won't hire any Jews. Then the United States government gets a tip that this company has hired a few Jews, investigates, and fines the company. Does that seem like something the US should be doing?
It's a bit bogus to compare something that breaks US law to something that doesn't break US law.