5 ms·

Now with the added bonus of taking your personal data, location, etc, because it's in your contract.

ashtonkem 6y ago
I remain baffled how many people I know who run ad blockers cheerfully bought Google routers. And FB is arguably worse than Google here; I can’t imagine willfully handing FB all my network traffic.
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  I've mentioned this on HN before, but I find condemnation of the NSA situation followed by calls for municipal broadband similarly baffling.
  - dboreham 6y ago
    No municipality has the competence to tap your connection.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    I'd be more pragmatically worried about XfiniWarner than a municipal broadband provider. The former operates at scale and can escape accountability by fallaciously invoking private property, whereas the latter has at least some democratic oversight at the town level. Although really all communications companies are effectively organs of the state, regardless of their governing charter.
  - lmm 6y ago
    Municipal agencies are subject to a lot of safeguards e.g. FOIA that private companies are not - market competition is supposed to hold them accountable instead, but for natural monopolies like internet service the competition doesn't actually exist.
  - smolder 6y ago
    If we were talking about some federal, nationalized internet infrastructure, I'd agree. Municipal broadband isn't that. The NSA operates at a much different scale than a municipal broadband provider, which is small and basically transparent. Local broadband providers have no capability to undermine cryptographic standards, use libraries of 0days to take over your PC, or anything like that. NSA et al aren't going to grant them that capability either. I'd at least like the option of an ISP that is under indirect voter control, to complement the usual 900lb gorillas that line their pockets at everyone's expense and are basically unaccountable.
- wmf 6y ago
  I understand how networking works and I think for myself so yeah, I have a Google router. I'll be chuckling quietly when your router gets wormed.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    What assurance do you have by understanding how networking works? Have you actually dug into the software on that Google router to make sure it isn't backhauling the output of conntrack -L, perhaps for quality assurance and product feedback purposes?
    - NavinF 6y ago
      What assurance do you have that any closed-source router isn't doing that? It's all the same. If anything, FB/Google have more to lose than your average company
      - mindslight 6y ago
        None, which is why I don't use closed source routers. Between different companies is a subjective opinion. I'd argue that people who trust FB/Google have already bought into surveillance culture, and so those companies don't have much to lose by adding network traffic to their take. Reasonable people can agree to disagree about that, but it's just odd to claim that "understand[ing] how networking works" makes for some kind of objective judgement.

I remain baffled how many people I know who run ad blockers cheerfully bought Google routers. And FB is arguably worse than Google here; I can’t imagine willfully handing FB all my network traffic.

ultrarunner 6y ago
I've mentioned this on HN before, but I find condemnation of the NSA situation followed by calls for municipal broadband similarly baffling.
- dboreham 6y ago
  No municipality has the competence to tap your connection.
- mindslight 6y ago
  I'd be more pragmatically worried about XfiniWarner than a municipal broadband provider. The former operates at scale and can escape accountability by fallaciously invoking private property, whereas the latter has at least some democratic oversight at the town level. Although really all communications companies are effectively organs of the state, regardless of their governing charter.
- lmm 6y ago
  Municipal agencies are subject to a lot of safeguards e.g. FOIA that private companies are not - market competition is supposed to hold them accountable instead, but for natural monopolies like internet service the competition doesn't actually exist.
- smolder 6y ago
  If we were talking about some federal, nationalized internet infrastructure, I'd agree. Municipal broadband isn't that. The NSA operates at a much different scale than a municipal broadband provider, which is small and basically transparent. Local broadband providers have no capability to undermine cryptographic standards, use libraries of 0days to take over your PC, or anything like that. NSA et al aren't going to grant them that capability either. I'd at least like the option of an ISP that is under indirect voter control, to complement the usual 900lb gorillas that line their pockets at everyone's expense and are basically unaccountable.
wmf 6y ago
I understand how networking works and I think for myself so yeah, I have a Google router. I'll be chuckling quietly when your router gets wormed.
- mindslight 6y ago
  What assurance do you have by understanding how networking works? Have you actually dug into the software on that Google router to make sure it isn't backhauling the output of conntrack -L, perhaps for quality assurance and product feedback purposes?
  - NavinF 6y ago
    What assurance do you have that any closed-source router isn't doing that? It's all the same. If anything, FB/Google have more to lose than your average company
    - mindslight 6y ago
      None, which is why I don't use closed source routers. Between different companies is a subjective opinion. I'd argue that people who trust FB/Google have already bought into surveillance culture, and so those companies don't have much to lose by adding network traffic to their take. Reasonable people can agree to disagree about that, but it's just odd to claim that "understand[ing] how networking works" makes for some kind of objective judgement.