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I don't know if you're making a joke, but revoking Net Neutrality is exactly the thing a VPN won't protect you from. If ISPs are allowed to charge different ra

I don't know if you're making a joke, but revoking Net Neutrality is exactly the thing a VPN won't protect you from. If ISPs are allowed to charge different rates for different traffic types on their network, they can charge an exorbitant fee for VPN traffic and punish you.

dreamcompiler 10y ago
They can, but they won't. Most major companies and the government require their employees to use VPNs now, and an ISP can't tell the difference between a personal VPN and an employer-mandated one. If they penalize VPN users, they're going to get flack from the Fortune 500 and from the governments whose goodwill they depend on to exist, not just from a bunch of individual hackers.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  ISPs can easily tell the difference between corporate and residential customers, and penalize the latter. 'I can figure out a way to game this system therefore it's not a problem' is a very hackerish response, but it's also an immature one; not because it's bad to mediate social relations with technology, but to pretend that oneself is the only actor one needs to be concerned about, a position which is neither pragmatic nor principled. Of course I don't expect you to hew to the same principles as I do, but as a practical matter you won't be able to invent/hack your way out of your problems forever* so it behooves you to consider situations in which that strategy will not be available to you. * unless you die young or go live in a cabin in the woods like Ted Kaczynski.
  - dreamcompiler 10y ago
    > ISPs can easily tell the difference between corporate and residential customers How? BTW I agree with you that we can't just hack our way out of policy problems. But one avenue of resistance to bad policy is technology.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Street maps? Kind of service their customers asked to buy? They don't know anything about why you're browsing but they know what kind of service you're buying from them because you told them. OK you could buy the basic corporate package because you like the download speeds and then just use it as a consumer to watch multiple cat videos at once, but most people aren't going to pay extra for the business package. It's like lying to political pollsters, a few people do it but not enough to invalidate the basic methodology of polling.
- takeda 10y ago
  Yes, you can use VPN but it will be unusable, unless you purchase a special business package for $200/mo extra.
- shuntress 10y ago
  Only the flack from big companies is what should matter to the ISP?
- gregmac 10y ago
  > ISP can't tell the difference between a personal VPN and an employer-mandated one. ... Fortune 500 and from the governments To an ISP that sees net neutrality as a barrier to extracting their "true value", they hear: a user is depending on the ISP to provide a corporate VPN to their Fortune 500 or government job. It's only reasonable that the ISP is fairly compensated for that, after all, without the ISP the employee couldn't work at all! Now it's just a question of price.. +$200/mo? 5% of the employee wages might be reasonable? Or maybe a % of the company's revenue? The employee contributes to revenue, the ISP enables the employee to work... it's only fair. They'd have to charge this for any VPN of course, because like you said, they can't tell the difference between personal and corporate VPNs. (In case it's not obvious I vehemently disagree with the above situation, and strongly believe that we should either have very tightly-enforced net neutrality or even better, make last-mile a utility that's not allowed to directly provide internet access and instead let people choose from dozens of ISPs to provide their upstream connection)
- equalunique 10y ago
  I'd say even ISPs have their employees on VPNs.

dreamcompiler 10y ago

They can, but they won't. Most major companies and the government require their employees to use VPNs now, and an ISP can't tell the difference between a personal VPN and an employer-mandated one. If they penalize VPN users, they're going to get flack from the Fortune 500 and from the governments whose goodwill they depend on to exist, not just from a bunch of individual hackers.

anigbrowl 10y ago
ISPs can easily tell the difference between corporate and residential customers, and penalize the latter. 'I can figure out a way to game this system therefore it's not a problem' is a very hackerish response, but it's also an immature one; not because it's bad to mediate social relations with technology, but to pretend that oneself is the only actor one needs to be concerned about, a position which is neither pragmatic nor principled. Of course I don't expect you to hew to the same principles as I do, but as a practical matter you won't be able to invent/hack your way out of your problems forever* so it behooves you to consider situations in which that strategy will not be available to you. * unless you die young or go live in a cabin in the woods like Ted Kaczynski.
- dreamcompiler 10y ago
  > ISPs can easily tell the difference between corporate and residential customers How? BTW I agree with you that we can't just hack our way out of policy problems. But one avenue of resistance to bad policy is technology.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Street maps? Kind of service their customers asked to buy? They don't know anything about why you're browsing but they know what kind of service you're buying from them because you told them. OK you could buy the basic corporate package because you like the download speeds and then just use it as a consumer to watch multiple cat videos at once, but most people aren't going to pay extra for the business package. It's like lying to political pollsters, a few people do it but not enough to invalidate the basic methodology of polling.
takeda 10y ago
Yes, you can use VPN but it will be unusable, unless you purchase a special business package for $200/mo extra.
shuntress 10y ago
Only the flack from big companies is what should matter to the ISP?
gregmac 10y ago
> ISP can't tell the difference between a personal VPN and an employer-mandated one. ... Fortune 500 and from the governments To an ISP that sees net neutrality as a barrier to extracting their "true value", they hear: a user is depending on the ISP to provide a corporate VPN to their Fortune 500 or government job. It's only reasonable that the ISP is fairly compensated for that, after all, without the ISP the employee couldn't work at all! Now it's just a question of price.. +$200/mo? 5% of the employee wages might be reasonable? Or maybe a % of the company's revenue? The employee contributes to revenue, the ISP enables the employee to work... it's only fair. They'd have to charge this for any VPN of course, because like you said, they can't tell the difference between personal and corporate VPNs. (In case it's not obvious I vehemently disagree with the above situation, and strongly believe that we should either have very tightly-enforced net neutrality or even better, make last-mile a utility that's not allowed to directly provide internet access and instead let people choose from dozens of ISPs to provide their upstream connection)
equalunique 10y ago
I'd say even ISPs have their employees on VPNs.