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> ISPs are your gateway to the internet you can't route around and web/mobile/content companies are built on top and can be routed around. We disagree on a cor

by ethbro 9y ago

> ISPs are your gateway to the internet you can't route around and web/mobile/content companies are built on top and can be routed around. We disagree on a core premise then. I contend that at scale, web companies can't be routed around. At minimum, when I have to run blacklist filters to avoid my third party web traffic ending up logged on Google or Facebook servers, something is wrong. When the majority of new tech is being acquhired and integrated into existing platforms (e.g. WhatsApp & Google Docs), something is wrong. Your conclusion sums up my thoughts as well. > What is more respectable, innovative products that you want to use or products you are forced to use through authority and mini monopolies?

drawkbox 9y ago
> At minimum, when I have to run blacklist filters to avoid my third party web traffic ending up logged on Google or Facebook servers But you just admitted you can route around them. Let me know when you route around your ISP. Your line of thinking is basically the ISP narrative of "Hey web companies are doing lots of bad stuff, why can't we? And why can't we do so without building any product or anything anyone wants?" ISPs could build or help fund products that protect your data from Facebook/Google etc more easily, and those will pop up independently. But ISPs don't actually want to protect your data, they lobbied to get access to it without innovating or building products, they just want your data not them, it is a dangerous game that could really backfire on them.
- ethbro 9y ago
  > Let me know when you route around your ISP. Right now? I can VPN to Switzerland. And I can use a TLS encrypted channel to most of the Internet. Until ISPs start banning / slow laning encryption or mandating ISP-controlled computers, hostile network links are a solved problem.
  - drawkbox 9y ago
    Just wait til ISPs want to sell you VPNs... for [insert random marketing benefit like 'security', 'privacy', 'discounts', 'no data cap', 'cheaper' that hides throttling competitors and allows them to install an app on your devices to do whatever they want including scraping, which many people will fall for due to abused instilled trust from their privileged network gateway position they bribed to attain]
    - ethbro 9y ago
      No doubt. Extrapolating down the current trajectory, probably dovetailed with law enforcement concerns, there's no way that doesn't happen. Encryption moots all the additional value they're trying to create. That's essentially their play with mobile-accessible first party content players. Make it easy / mandate it, and people will happily walk into the walled garden where they can be watched.
      - drawkbox 9y ago
        Also, if you already use a VPN I'd say you already don't trust your ISP but you want them to have more power? My evil genius side tells me that ISPs have already been developing VPN clients and probably own many third party ones through shell corps and obscuring/finagling ownership offshore even. In the last few years some have really taken off and gotten lots of funding and advertising and fit this model, I won't name names but I have my conjecture suspicions on a handfuls of them. Sketchy or poser VPN clients can say they don't keep logs but they can easily transfer it off to the ISPs which they are now LEGALLY allowed to sell off and share. Because VPN clients are apps installed on devices (mobile/desktop/tablets etc) they can basically do anything to get that data including scraping destinations and content from unencrypted browsers and apps once the handshake is complete and decrypted. You are thinking naively or aren't thinking predatory or evil enough to think like ISP bullies yet. ISPs didn't bribe and lobby HARD for over a decade removing privacy protections and neutrality of networks just to be blocked by encrypted transmissions. ISPs have also been very friendly to surveillance overreaches, they probably cut deals for using that data and since there are so few and your gateway it is easy. [1][2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [2] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/ https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/
        ethbro 9y ago
        I'd like to note that I never said ISPs shouldn't be regulated. Simply that modern ISPs and large network-effect web companies share many characteristics, so calling for one to be regulated and the other not (whichever way it goes) seems odd. As for the specific point, in my threat model ISPs aren't competent or rewarded enough to poison VPN clients. Comcast may be anti-user, but I don't think it's NSA-capable. My overarching belief is that there are technical solutions to network adversaries. There are fewer (and sometimes no) technical solutions to application adversaries, when I desire to use the service. (And see my previous comments about some large services approaching unavoidable status)

by ethbro 9y ago

drawkbox 9y ago

> At minimum, when I have to run blacklist filters to avoid my third party web traffic ending up logged on Google or Facebook servers But you just admitted you can route around them. Let me know when you route around your ISP. Your line of thinking is basically the ISP narrative of "Hey web companies are doing lots of bad stuff, why can't we? And why can't we do so without building any product or anything anyone wants?" ISPs could build or help fund products that protect your data from Facebook/Google etc more easily, and those will pop up independently. But ISPs don't actually want to protect your data, they lobbied to get access to it without innovating or building products, they just want your data not them, it is a dangerous game that could really backfire on them.

ethbro 9y ago
> Let me know when you route around your ISP. Right now? I can VPN to Switzerland. And I can use a TLS encrypted channel to most of the Internet. Until ISPs start banning / slow laning encryption or mandating ISP-controlled computers, hostile network links are a solved problem.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Just wait til ISPs want to sell you VPNs... for [insert random marketing benefit like 'security', 'privacy', 'discounts', 'no data cap', 'cheaper' that hides throttling competitors and allows them to install an app on your devices to do whatever they want including scraping, which many people will fall for due to abused instilled trust from their privileged network gateway position they bribed to attain]
  - ethbro 9y ago
    No doubt. Extrapolating down the current trajectory, probably dovetailed with law enforcement concerns, there's no way that doesn't happen. Encryption moots all the additional value they're trying to create. That's essentially their play with mobile-accessible first party content players. Make it easy / mandate it, and people will happily walk into the walled garden where they can be watched.
    - drawkbox 9y ago
      Also, if you already use a VPN I'd say you already don't trust your ISP but you want them to have more power? My evil genius side tells me that ISPs have already been developing VPN clients and probably own many third party ones through shell corps and obscuring/finagling ownership offshore even. In the last few years some have really taken off and gotten lots of funding and advertising and fit this model, I won't name names but I have my conjecture suspicions on a handfuls of them. Sketchy or poser VPN clients can say they don't keep logs but they can easily transfer it off to the ISPs which they are now LEGALLY allowed to sell off and share. Because VPN clients are apps installed on devices (mobile/desktop/tablets etc) they can basically do anything to get that data including scraping destinations and content from unencrypted browsers and apps once the handshake is complete and decrypted. You are thinking naively or aren't thinking predatory or evil enough to think like ISP bullies yet. ISPs didn't bribe and lobby HARD for over a decade removing privacy protections and neutrality of networks just to be blocked by encrypted transmissions. ISPs have also been very friendly to surveillance overreaches, they probably cut deals for using that data and since there are so few and your gateway it is easy. [1][2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [2] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/ https://www.wired.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-klein/
      - ethbro 9y ago
        I'd like to note that I never said ISPs shouldn't be regulated. Simply that modern ISPs and large network-effect web companies share many characteristics, so calling for one to be regulated and the other not (whichever way it goes) seems odd. As for the specific point, in my threat model ISPs aren't competent or rewarded enough to poison VPN clients. Comcast may be anti-user, but I don't think it's NSA-capable. My overarching belief is that there are technical solutions to network adversaries. There are fewer (and sometimes no) technical solutions to application adversaries, when I desire to use the service. (And see my previous comments about some large services approaching unavoidable status)