4 ms·

When I worked at one of the biggest ISP's in the world we got extremely despondent when https and other end-2-end encryptions became the standard because we wer

by sgt101 6y ago

When I worked at one of the biggest ISP's in the world we got extremely despondent when https and other end-2-end encryptions became the standard because we were then unable to understand what traffic was on the wires. For ISPs and network providers now everything is just bits, and it's all commodity. The service layer is now implemented by clients.

jcims 6y ago
I 'grew up' on networking in the late 90's when next to nothing was encrypted on the wire. The amount of understanding I was able to develop about how protocols work by just sniffing the packets was immense. I see folks coming out of school these days and while they far surpass my skills with software development they don't really have any intuition about how the protocols work at the network level, and as a result tend to flounder when things break. However, if I hadn't stowed away all of that info 20+ years ago I think I would be in largely the same position. Obviously encrypted network protocols are essential for security and privacy, but it kind of sucks for folks trying to figure out how things work.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Another big change was the move to switched networks. Coming from a shared lan that felt like being blind.
  - jcims 6y ago
    Great point! Then you'd span ports just to get the same visibility you used to have but somehow it felt sneaky haha.
chii 6y ago
that's a good outcome. I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons.
- vaduz 6y ago
  > I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons. The energy companies already do disallow certain types of use for "their electrons" (check your contract, seriously - domestic users are forbidden from certain uses) and with the advent of accurate monitoring thanks to 'smart meters' are able to enforce that much more easily.
  - mnahkies 6y ago
    What uses are you talking about? As far as I understand it suppliers are generally more than happy for you to use more of their electrons and don't particularly care what you use them for. One thing that I do think will change over the next few years, helped by smart meters is that we'll see more time of use based pricing, and that with renewables on the rise (and their associated intermittency) at some point we'll see the traditional night rate cheaper than day rate equation flip. By being able to measure consumption at a higher resolution it's possible to offer pricing that is reflective of the "true cost" of the energy, eg: agile tariffs that we see emerging from companies like octopus in the UK Personally I think this is good for consumers, and good for the environment as it allows for incentivising consumption when the energy is greener/cheaper. There is certainly an element of concern over privacy (eg detecting activity in a home), however I would posit that internet usage patterns probably already provide the same data and of course with far worse privacy implications.
    - vaduz 6y ago
      > What uses are you talking about? > As far as I understand it suppliers are generally more than happy for you to use more of their electrons and don't particularly care what you use them for. In the UK the law differentiates "domestic customers" using services for domestic purpose (this part is important, commercial use is is excluded!) and, "non-domestic" which includes all others. Domestic customers get to have a fuel price cap and lower climate charge levy thanks to that (though caveats apply, as it does not include "green deals" and fixed terms) but "non-domestic" users do not. Of course you are right: the suppliers would indeed be more than happy to suply you as much of their electrons as you could obtain - at the business rates, not domestic, ideally at one where caps don't apply. Take this little innocous line from the British Gas (Centrica) standard rate T&Cs: Supply and supplying: The gas or electricity (or both) we provide, or what we do to provide them. The supply is for you to use entirely or mainly for domestic purposes There is a reason for it - a significant enough jump in energy use (say, if you want to charge an EV or put up a multi-GPU bitcoin miner) does trigger an investigation. EV users get a to select a preferential rate [1], suspected commercial users are asked to move to business rates (or show why that shouldn't be the case), any detected pot growers get referred to the appropriate police force. The energy company does care - at least so you can pay it more. > 'Smart meters' I agree that the move to more accurate/higher resolution measurement would make it possible to offer pricing that is more reflective of "true cost" - Economy 7 is well known to skew incentives, especially as more and more energy is used outside of traditional "day" hours (and with more and more solar powr in the mix, the overgeneration during the day hours) - but I would not be so optimistic that the consumers are going to be the primary beneficiaries of the change when the dust settles, they never are. As for privacy, well, there is one substantial additional difference: your bandwidth and internet usage patterns generally have to be monitored by your ISP or internet services you visit, whereas a SMETS2 meter will create a nice new 2.4 Ghz network (and 868 Mhz, if/when it is available), so sooner or later it will be readable by a local attacker, if it isn't already. This is a device that is supposed to last as long as 20 years (though SMETS1 proved this might be a bit optimistic...). [0] https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/tariffs/standard/tariff-rates https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/ta... [1] https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/tariffs/electric-drivers-energy-plan-sep-2021/tariff-rates https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/ta...

by sgt101 6y ago

jcims 6y ago

I 'grew up' on networking in the late 90's when next to nothing was encrypted on the wire. The amount of understanding I was able to develop about how protocols work by just sniffing the packets was immense. I see folks coming out of school these days and while they far surpass my skills with software development they don't really have any intuition about how the protocols work at the network level, and as a result tend to flounder when things break. However, if I hadn't stowed away all of that info 20+ years ago I think I would be in largely the same position. Obviously encrypted network protocols are essential for security and privacy, but it kind of sucks for folks trying to figure out how things work.

jacquesm 6y ago
Another big change was the move to switched networks. Coming from a shared lan that felt like being blind.
- jcims 6y ago
  Great point! Then you'd span ports just to get the same visibility you used to have but somehow it felt sneaky haha.

chii 6y ago

that's a good outcome. I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons.

vaduz 6y ago
> I would be very scared if the electrical utility company started looking at what i'm using the electrons for, and start disallowing certain types of uses for their electrons. The energy companies already do disallow certain types of use for "their electrons" (check your contract, seriously - domestic users are forbidden from certain uses) and with the advent of accurate monitoring thanks to 'smart meters' are able to enforce that much more easily.
- mnahkies 6y ago
  What uses are you talking about? As far as I understand it suppliers are generally more than happy for you to use more of their electrons and don't particularly care what you use them for. One thing that I do think will change over the next few years, helped by smart meters is that we'll see more time of use based pricing, and that with renewables on the rise (and their associated intermittency) at some point we'll see the traditional night rate cheaper than day rate equation flip. By being able to measure consumption at a higher resolution it's possible to offer pricing that is reflective of the "true cost" of the energy, eg: agile tariffs that we see emerging from companies like octopus in the UK Personally I think this is good for consumers, and good for the environment as it allows for incentivising consumption when the energy is greener/cheaper. There is certainly an element of concern over privacy (eg detecting activity in a home), however I would posit that internet usage patterns probably already provide the same data and of course with far worse privacy implications.
  - vaduz 6y ago
    > What uses are you talking about? > As far as I understand it suppliers are generally more than happy for you to use more of their electrons and don't particularly care what you use them for. In the UK the law differentiates "domestic customers" using services for domestic purpose (this part is important, commercial use is is excluded!) and, "non-domestic" which includes all others. Domestic customers get to have a fuel price cap and lower climate charge levy thanks to that (though caveats apply, as it does not include "green deals" and fixed terms) but "non-domestic" users do not. Of course you are right: the suppliers would indeed be more than happy to suply you as much of their electrons as you could obtain - at the business rates, not domestic, ideally at one where caps don't apply. Take this little innocous line from the British Gas (Centrica) standard rate T&Cs: Supply and supplying: The gas or electricity (or both) we provide, or what we do to provide them. The supply is for you to use entirely or mainly for domestic purposes There is a reason for it - a significant enough jump in energy use (say, if you want to charge an EV or put up a multi-GPU bitcoin miner) does trigger an investigation. EV users get a to select a preferential rate [1], suspected commercial users are asked to move to business rates (or show why that shouldn't be the case), any detected pot growers get referred to the appropriate police force. The energy company does care - at least so you can pay it more. > 'Smart meters' I agree that the move to more accurate/higher resolution measurement would make it possible to offer pricing that is more reflective of "true cost" - Economy 7 is well known to skew incentives, especially as more and more energy is used outside of traditional "day" hours (and with more and more solar powr in the mix, the overgeneration during the day hours) - but I would not be so optimistic that the consumers are going to be the primary beneficiaries of the change when the dust settles, they never are. As for privacy, well, there is one substantial additional difference: your bandwidth and internet usage patterns generally have to be monitored by your ISP or internet services you visit, whereas a SMETS2 meter will create a nice new 2.4 Ghz network (and 868 Mhz, if/when it is available), so sooner or later it will be readable by a local attacker, if it isn't already. This is a device that is supposed to last as long as 20 years (though SMETS1 proved this might be a bit optimistic...). [0] https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/tariffs/standard/tariff-rates https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/ta... [1] https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/tariffs/electric-drivers-energy-plan-sep-2021/tariff-rates https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information/ta...