Obama's Plan to Regulate the Internet is 332 Pages. The Public Can't Read It!

[spydy13]

So you think that speed can be maintained without throttling, and without any additional investment in the system?

Good luck with that.

There is no doubt that the overall bandwidth needs to be improved, especially as more and more people get their content from services like youtube, netflix, etc. I don't trust that obtaining premiums from heavy use internet companies would achieve that though.

Don't you have to also agree that it is kind of a problem if the ISPs, who in many cases are also cable companies, are basically allowed to inflict punitive damage for offering cheaper and in many cases better options than the ISPs/cable companies provide.

 

[gourimoko]

So you think that speed can be maintained without throttling, and without any additional investment in the system?

Good luck with that.

But the system in place can easily be maintained, the entire infrastructure is designed to run at or near link speed with 100% utilization. With that, home use utilization is not on the rise, it's static. As the market grows, more and more users are relying on LTE and HSPA networks rather than traditional HFC.

Commercial utilization has been static, even with tremendous market growth, due to several factors including offsite data storage, offshoring, and greater awareness of cloud services.

Even with that, overselling itself is not illegal, cable companies have been doing it for years. This has always been an unfair advantage that cable companies had over telephone companies (DSL cannot be oversold in the same manner as cable).

Going back to the original point, the argument regarding packet sniffing is that companies are stating that you have no inherent right to privacy. That they are the sole arbiters of who, what, when, where, and how fast any information should travel over their portion of the internet.

The FCC has made it so that the general concept of the "Internet" is maintained. A company, an ISP, sells access to "The Internet." No one is going out and saying "I want to buy Comcast Net," again this is akin to the 1990s era America Online network. That is the "imminent threat to the Internet" that Net Neutrality protects against.

Again, I'm just not understanding your argument because it seems to be predicated on some really absurd premises:

1) That the user has no reasonable expectation of, or a right to privacy.
2) That the user is buying internet service sold to them at (n)Mbps speed but has no reasonable expectation to ever achieve that speed.
3) That the user knowingly is submitting their information to Comcast for review, rather than to the party on the other end of the connection.

 

[gourimoko]

Right. Which is a built-in limit on doing as much of it as some fear.

No, it isn't.

If allowed, companies could offset the cost of infrastructure improvements and reductions in overall efficiency by selling "fast lanes."

Don't you see how this comes full circle?

It is more profitable to consolidate the bandwidth to a select few customers over the same infrastructure, while building in downthrottled service in order to reuse the same network topology while making higher margins over longer more secured contracts.

If you can't see how this impacts the economics of the entire system, I have no interest in explaining it. It's exactly what I was trying to avoid.

As someone who is obviously very familiar with these systems, I'd be really interested to hear a sensible argument. Just one. So far you haven't stated one, but you've posted at least 15 paragraphs on the subject. Why?

But again, I don't have a problem with throttling certain packets at peak times to avoid penalizing others. Slow down Youtube? P2P? File-sharing? Streaming? Yeah, I'm fine with that because I barely use any of that, and it takes a lot of bandwidth.

This is an unwarranted interference with the end-user.

Funny. I think that is warranted.

You're quoting someone here, not me though.. But, again, you realize that in order to determine what the content is, the content has to be visible to Comcast right?

Again, no reasonable expectation of privacy?

Lastly, how is it warranted to slow down my traffic based on my personal use on a connection that I bought and paid for? This isn't metered service, it's unlimited, as sold as such.

I should have, as an end-user, a reasonable expectation to receive somewhere near the peak speeds that I'm paying for.

Network congestion is a valid issue to throttle connections, but not on a QoS (content) basis, as again, that's a violation of the personal privacy of the end-user.

Of course, I also think someone should be able to pay a bit extra if they're a heavy user of that stuff and want to be sure they're not being throttled. Pay for the premium of not being throttled.

Again, no expectation of privacy.
Again, the customers have bought 60mbps unlimited service. That doesn't mean unlimited Web, or unlimited Facebook. It means 60mbps unlimited internet access.

That is how these packages are sold. And yes ISPs do offer metered service; no one buys it.

Because they're trying to manage the line efficiently for everyone, and different users have different interests and priorities.

What you are talking about has nothing to do with net neutrality.

Comcast can downthrottle to preserve the integrity of the network all it wants. However, it cannot snoop on the connection and packet sniff to determine who deserves x speed and who deserves y based on content.

Comcast can throttle users based on total bytes transmitted, or overuse, and that's their right, and I'm fine with that -- so long as the services is not sold as being "unlimited."

How would opening up the package determine the speed and cost after point of shipment? Weight and size can be determined without opening the package.

Easily..

UPS and FedEx use something called dimensional shipping calculation. Meaning they use the following equation:

Weight = (LWH) / Negotatied-Rate-Divisor.

So each customer can negotiate a divisor based on their volume of packages sent, and the "dimensional weight" is then used on a tiered map to determine the actual cost to fulfill shipment.

If UPS / FedEx or the USPS could open the box, they could determine the net empty volume and subtract/add to/from the rate. This would allow them to more accurately bill customers, both positively and negatively.

But privacy would be lost, and now neither the sender nor the receiver has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

In essence the "package" is analogous to the packet, both are being transferred between a sender and a receiver, and neither party is granting permission to the service provider to view it's contents.

That's your problem, not mine.

But this is such a silly comment, because you as a consumer have no advantages from net neutrality not passing. It's everyone's problem.... That's the reason the government got involved.

This is the type of privacy complaint I think is wildly exaggerated. As you pointed out, that level of filtering would dramatically slow things down.

Q-Tip, one last time......

That level of filtering is inherent in traffic shaping. Comcast wants to pay for the infrastructure by selling "fast lanes" which would be more profitable than leaving the system as it is.

Again, let me try this one more time.

For Comcast to know you are "streaming" or "file sharing" or whatever it is you personally think should be down-throttled, they need to open the packet and make an analysis of the protocol used, the origin, destination, and other quantitative assessments regarding nature of transmission.

This means that the data is being reviewed over their internal network in plain text. This means you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, as they are filtering your content at the connection. This means that everything that you are doing is being monitored by the ISP.

This isn't an Orwellian slippery slope; this is literally what is required to have network wide traffic shaping using content-based QoS systems.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

But the system in place can easily be maintained, the entire infrastructure is designed to run at or near link speed with 100% utilization.

Unless you're saying that peak speeds can be maintained without any throttling, and without the need to spend more money to expand the system, I have no idea what you're trying to say. But if that was true, fast lanes would be of no value because everything would be a fast lane.

Going back to the original point, the argument regarding packet sniffing is that companies are stating that you have no inherent right to privacy. That they are the sole arbiters of who, what, when, where, and how fast any information should travel over their portion of the internet.

Okay, for the 10th time, I don't care about this. That's not going to change no matter how many times you say it. I do not think it is in the interest of an ISP to violate my privacy in any respect that would concern me. A huge fucking waste of time, money, and bandwidth for them.

Now, if I was someone who did a lot of illegal file-sharing, watched pirated TV shows, etc., I might care a bit more. But I don't. Frankly, I wish it was a lot easier to crackdown on that shit.

2) That the user is buying internet service sold to them at (n)Mbps speed but has no reasonable expectation to ever achieve that speed.

If a service is advertising 10Mbps, and cannot ever reach that even theoretically, with no other load on the system, then I could certainly understand suing them for false advertising/misrepresentation. Don't see how that has anything to do with this issue, though.

3) That the user knowingly is submitting their information to Comcast for review, rather than to the party on the other end of the connection.

Well, I'm perfectly fine with Comcast or anyone else peaking at my packets as part of a reasonable effort to manage traffic.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Q-Tip, one last time......

That level of filtering is inherent in traffic shaping. Comcast wants to pay for the infrastructure by selling "fast lanes" which would be more profitable than leaving the system as it is.

Why would anyone pay for a fast lane if the current system is already capable of handling everything with no loss of speed?

Again, let me try this one more time.

For Comcast to know you are "streaming" or "file sharing" or whatever it is you personally think should be down-throttled, they need to open the packet and make an analysis of the protocol used, the origin, destination, and other quantitative assessments regarding nature of transmission.

One last time....

I don't care. I'm fine with them doing that as part of a means of keeping speed up for the rest of us. I don't consider any of that to have a privacy interest of value to me. And of course, a fair bit of traffic management can be done just through the headers alone by throttling traffic only to/from certain cites.

But I have a question. Won't it still be legal for ISP's to packet sniff to stop illegal activity like downloading movies via BitTorrent, which they may very well want to do because of the load? And of course, they won't know that the activity is legal until they actually peek, in which case, the privacy interest is already lost. So even this NN reg doesn't prevent them from packet sniffing, and violating your personal privacy expectations.

This means that the data is being reviewed over their internal network in plain text....This isn't an Orwellian slippery slope; this is literally what is required to have network wide traffic shaping using content-based QoS systems

Oh, so now you're telling me that as part of their effort to downthrottle users who are streaming YouTube, using bitTorrent on movies, other illegal file sharing , or whatever, they're going to have some chuckle-head reading my emails, or my posts on RCF?

Why the fuck would they do that?

And if that's not what you're saying....then exactly what text is it that I should be so concerned about?

 

[gourimoko]

Why would anyone pay for a fast lane if the current system is already capable of handling everything with no loss of speed?

Don't think you understand what fast lanes are.

Fast lanes are non-throttled, predetermined, packet destinations.

These are not faster connections.

This means that very large companies like Google and Microsoft would pay Comcast not to filter packets where the destination url was say "google.com","youtube.com", or "microsoft.com"

I think you're trying to make an argument from ignorance and you are conflating the concepts of "internet fast lanes" with "fast connections."

Comcast doesn't provide a connection to say, YouTube. It provides a connection for you to get to the Tier 1 network that connects to YouTube's datacenter. So as of now, YouTube is not a Comcast customer/client; no relationship exists from a service providers point of view.

However, "fast lanes" would create a product out of nothing to sell companies like YouTube, Vimeo, etc, to have their domains whitelisted from throttling.

Again... this is not a network congestion issue.

One last time....

I don't care. I'm fine with them doing that as part of a means of keeping speed up for the rest of us.

It's not a network congestion issue. Your argument is an oxymoron. An argument against net neutrality is an argument for slower overall bandwidth as only a percentage of your already present data would not be down-throttled.

I don't consider any of that to have a privacy interest of value to me.

You don't care if Comcast is looking into customers packets? You don't care about consumer privacy?

And of course, a fair bit of traffic management can be done just through the headers alone by throttling traffic only to/from certain cites.

But why? Why not throttle based on bytes transferred?

But I have a question. Won't it still be legal for ISP's to packet sniff to stop illegal activity like downloading movies via BitTorrent, which they may very well want to do because of the load?

No.

Downloading via bittorrent is not illegal. Downloading pirated content via bittorrent is illegal, just like downloading pirated content from a web server is illegal.

And of course, they won't know that the activity is legal until they actually peek, in which case, the privacy interest is already lost. So even this NN reg doesn't prevent them from packet sniffing, and violating your personal privacy expectations.

Err.. This isn't how cable companies like Charter, TWC, or Comcast actually detect piracy. They work with anti-piracy organizations that file complaints and honeypot users. The honeypots record user IP addresses and report them to their ISPs.

They do not actually packet sniff on the routing end as that would be far more expensive and likely wouldn't work.

Why wouldn't it work? Because most torrent traffic is encrypted.... but I already told you this before. Lots of traffic is encrypted. Ever notice just going to Google.com redirects you to an SSL encrypted location? So should https://www.google.com be downthrottled?

Oh, so now you're telling me that as part of their effort to downthrottle users who are streaming YouTube, using bitTorrent on movies, other illegal file sharing , or whatever, they're going to have some chuckle-head reading my emails, or my posts on RCF?

I guess privacy concerns don't matter to you.

Why the fuck would they do that?

Because for companies like Comcast, Charter, TWC, Cablevision, etc; there is no guarantee that your data is handled safely and securely. Default passwords are still found on many ISP CMTS', and routers. ISP backend servers are often misconfigured, lacking recent security patches, and demonstrating simply lazy and ignorant security measures.

Targets of attack would include usage buffers and logs of content filtering and packet sniffing which would be visible to anyone with credentials to view it, and from a POSIX standpoint, anyone with root access. That includes tiered levels of support both domestically and abroad, as well as unauthorized access that otherwise would not have been able to view this level of information.

In essence, social engineering and MITM attacks would become accessible to any script kiddie with his local SNMP password.

And btw, I have the keys and passwords to the entire Time Warner network for the Northeast Ohio area and I can prove it. (Ask X). So think about that for a second.

The point is that no one should have such access to personal data of customers so easily and especially not without a warrant.

And if that's not what you're saying....then exactly what text is it that I should be so concerned about?

I can't tell you to value your privacy. Either you do or you don't. I just thought you were smart enough to understand that many of us do have an expectation to privacy and that expectation is fairly reasonable.

Again, you're not worried about people reading your emails. So it'd be okay if the mailman opened up your mail and read it? It's okay if UPS looks at all the packages going to and coming from your house? You're alright with people peering into your private affairs?

 

[Man Called X]

Yeah, gour's not lying about this. Still convincing the wife, but think I've got it. And when I manage to figure it all out, I shall dance triumphantly.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Don't think you understand what fast lanes are.

No, I'm not. I understand the difference between the fast lanes and, say a speed of 10Mbps. But by prioritizing certain packets, and obviously not throttling them, it is giving faster overall service to that customer than to others. The speed boost is being provided from out ISP out rather than in the line between the customer and the ISP, but it is still an overall "speed" issue, and one that essentially slows down others.

Downloading via bittorrent is not illegal. Downloading pirated content via bittorrent is illegal, just like downloading pirated content from a web server is illegal.

Right. And Comcast, etc., will still have the right to look at all those packets.

Err.. This isn't how cable companies like Charter, TWC, or Comcast actually detect piracy. They work with anti-piracy organizations that file complaints and honeypot users. The honeypots record user IP addresses and report them to their ISPs.

It's both. The ISP may very well get information on which destination ISP's are being used for illegal downloads, and it can't stop/throttle that unless it looks at the headers, which is at least one level of packet-sniffing.

I guess privacy concerns don't matter to you.

And I guess you really don't want to answer the question that I asked. Are you saying that the ISP's are having someone actually read the texts of my emails, or posts on RCF, or not?

And btw, I have the keys and passwords to the entire Time Warner network for the Northeast Ohio area and I can prove it. (Ask X). So think about that for a second.

Ah, so now I understand why you are so eager to maintain your "privacy" on the internet.