Stupid server semantic argument (was: Non Linux but network tech question)

[Ben Scott]

On 6/21/07, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
> Perception doesn't have any effect on the Comcast NOC, but it has an
> effect on the ToS the company can get away with.

  Says who?

  The point I'm trying to make, and that most people seem to be
missing, is that *Comcast controls the terms*.  This isn't a situation
where a company has to comply with third-party regulations.  Comcast
is the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, all rolled into
one, and they're the only voter, too.

  Remember: Comcast wants you sucking down content like a good little
drone.  For the sake of conciseness, I will call this "Rule #1".

  If you call Comcast trying to play semantic word games, in all
likelihood, they're just going to summarily shut you off anyway.  See
#1.  There's no appeal, no way for you to argue your case.  They just
pull your plug.

  Even if you somehow manged to convince them to reinterpret their own
Terms of Service in a way that lets you do what you want, they will
simply *change the Terms of Service*.  They already do this on a
semi-regular basis, to judge by the Change Notices I get from them.
And they *will* do it: See #1.

  "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

  If someone comes up with some popular "client" application that
needs to listen on port 25, or any other equally asinine scheme,
Comcast will just allow that, but still deny the rest.  If need be,
they can simply put a bandwidth meter on your modem, and sock you when
your usage goes out of balance.  See #1.

  Trying to play language lawyer with the ToS is playing the game by
Comcast's rules, and further, they can change the rules whenever they
like.

  Note that I'm not saying you should immediately shut off your SSH
server or port 25 listener or whatever.  Staying below the radar is
fine if that's what you want to do.  I'm just saying that arguing
their own terms with them is doomed to failure.

  Since I do prefer to do more than just shoot things down, here are
some alternative strategies which might actually accomplish something:

(A) Convincing Comcast to change their minds on #1.  Unlikely in my
eyes, but possible.

(B) Lobbying for regulation that requires Comcast to allow things
contrary to #1.  I regard this as a lousy solution, because it will
mean you're constantly fighting Comcast's latest ways around the
regulations.  That kind of thing usually sucks, at best.

(C) Lobbying for a situation that results in actual competition in the
high-speed consumer Internet market.  We're currently heading for a
strict duopoly of big-cable and big-telco.  Comcast and Verizon, or
whatever the mega-merger end products will be.  "We've got both kinds:
Country *and* Western."  Whether competition be enabled by structural
separation, many small local providers, distributed P2P wireless nets,
or something else, I'd say this is the best bet for the whole, in the
long term.  I just don't know if it's realistically possible.

  One thing to keep in mind is that the majority of people *are* good
little drones. who are not only willing, but in fact appear to
*prefer* to be spoon-fed their content.  So anything that depends on a
massive uprising of people producing worthwhile peer-to-peer content
seems more than a little far-fetched, to me.  This also destroys the
anti-leech protocol arguments; implementing such just decreases the
popularity of the protocols.

-- Ben