Net Neutrality. What good is a free operating system without a network?

[Ben Scott]

On 5/11/06, Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett at gmail.com> wrote:
> S 2360: Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006
> http://www.freepress.net/congress/billinfo.php?id=168

  From section 4(a) of that bill: "A network operator shall— (1) not
interfere with, block, degrade, alter, modify, impair, or change any
bits, content, application or service transmitted over the network of
such operator;"

  First thing that leaps to mind are things like spam blocking,
firewalls, DDoS blocking, and so on.  Now, section 4(b)(1)(A) tries to
enumerate all the possible things which ISPs are still allowed to do.
But that just means that an attacker has to finds something *not*
listed and ISPs are in a legal bind: Do we protect the network, or
comply with the law?

  Okay, so let's assume the virus writiers and spammers never try
anything new.  Let's look at section 4(b)(1)(C), which states that
operators can take "reasonable and non-discriminatory measures" to
protect their "security".  Well, "non-discriminatory" is a
non-starter, as by definition, any selective defense is discriminating
against *somebody*.  Sure, the somebody may be scum, but scum are
protected by the law, too.

  But let's ignore *that*, too.  Let's just look at Slashdot.
Slashdot links to a website.  The network hosting that site starts to
melt down, because half the fscking Internet is trying to hit that
site at once.  Standard practice is to shut down that website or block
referrals from Slashdot or take similar actions.  But this bill makes
that illegal.

  And these are just things I thought of right away.

  Again, the Law of Unintended Consequences rears is a big problem
here (it tends to be with *any* legislation).  We're all pretty sure
we don't want Ma Bell controlling the Internet, but I have yet to see
any practical solutions.  Lots of rhetoric, lots of people crying out
"That's not right", but nothing useful as solutions go.

> There is another informative site
> http://www.freepress.net/netfreedom/
> which lists Ben Scott as a 'Leading Voice' in the issue
> <-- /me heckles Ben
>  (See the box in the lower right corner 'Other Resources')

  Amusing.  :)

> Earlier you positted that people shoud pay more when they use more.  That
> *is* the system in use today.  I pay 50% less for a dial-up connection than
> I do for a broadband connection.  I pay still more (10x) for a T1
> connection.

  I already posted an explanation of the differences between the last
mile and the shared network.  Go read it.  :)

> Quoting (http://www.freepress.net/deadend/=netfears)

  Propaganda.  Again, the fact that I happen to sympathize with the
propaganda doesn't mean it isn't sensationalist FUD.

> I'm still looking for the information on what the telcos are specifically
> requesting, but it comes down to payment by senders in addition to payment
> by consumers.

  Hmmm, "senders" vs "consumers" seems like apples and oranges.  Maybe
you mean "senders" vs "receivers".  So they want to meter usage based
on bytes transmitted as well as bytes received?  That's already
standard practice for many hosting companies -- they don't care which
way the bytes are flowing; they just care that you're using bytes.

  A lot of the propaganda I've seen uses words like "What if Verizon
blocks you from visiting your favorite podcasts..." or such.  Well, my
first response is, "Then they loose me as a customer."  Of course, the
situation often is, the only choice I have is Verizon.  And again,
that's what *I* see as the problem.  As long as we have a small number
of large companies controlling everything, we will continually run
into problems where they abuse that power.  We can try and come up
with the perfect set of rules that dictate how these monopolies can
abuse their power, or we can address the root cause -- we have large
companies which control everything.

-- Ben