7 ms·
A UK ISP which is fighting against censorship
- RossM 13y agoDefinitely an interesting service. A bit of a shame that after repeatedly encouraging the use of encryption, their site doesn't support HTTPS.
- harrytuttle 13y agoTheir content pages don't (they are entirely static) but their order form stuff does, obviously. HTTPS end to end isn't really worth it for some things.
- noja 13y ago> HTTPS end to end isn't really worth it for some things. Don't agree. Serving HTTPS is cheap now, and it's easier just to put _everything_ on SSL and avoid the mental effort of deciding what goes where.
- cmircea 13y agoNot that it's particularly expensive either. A single domain cert can be found for a few bucks, a wildcard for under 100.
- nadaviv 13y agoMost of the cost for a high-traffic website is processing requests over SSL, not the price of the cert.
- cmircea 13y agoReally? SSL is dirt cheap to compute these days. Google saw a 1% increase in CPU usage when they made SSL mandatory for Gmail. http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/2/10/dispelling-the-new-ssl-myth.html http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/2/10/dispelling-the-new... https://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.html https://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.h...
- hnha 13y agoit depends on the cipher and your software, I had tremendous trouble with some free php forum stuff recently when it curled things with PFS.
- cmircea 13y agoAES is implemented in hardware now. RSA is cheap to compute; SHA1 is not even a factor. If you want forward secrecy, DON'T use DHE, use ECDHE; plain DHE is expensive. To be fair nearly all PHP forum software is crap.
- nagrom 13y agoAh, but part of their argument is that it is always worth it so that when it is worth it, that content doesn't stand out. So, by their own argument, they should enable https even for the static content pages.
- ZeroMinx 13y agoThey're also XKCD/806 compliant! http://xkcd.com/806/ http://xkcd.com/806/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrews_%26_Arnold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrews_%26_Arnold
- corobo 13y agoIf they weren't so pricey I'd get their service for this alone
- nagrom 13y agoThey're really not all that pricey, I think - you're paying for an upgraded service and bandwidth off-peak is cheap. If you don't want to pay for that upgraded service (£10-20 per month?), it's probably not all that important to you.
- davidgerard 13y agoThey're great if you work in an office. They get a little pricier if you work from home and need to actually use your connection a lot by day.
- andyking 13y agoThey are also hideously expensive. I looked at them when I moved house a while ago - but their pricing, for the transfer-capped service you get, is extortionate. And if all ISPs are to be legally obliged to "provide" this filtering, A&A will not be an exception. So what are you paying the extra for - a few platitudes on a web page?
- blibble 13y agothey're only expensive if you're at home 9-5 during weekdays. I never am so it's £20/month for about 100GB (and effectively unlimited transfer in the early hours of the morning). they now also offer a flat 50GB at anytime for £25/month. you're paying extra for for native IPv6, beyond excellent service, an excellent control panel with options most ISPs don't have, as many IP addresses as you want (optionally PI), custom routing (want an AS for your house?), ability to dual bond across different providers, ability to add 3g as backup link, and much more... they're truly excellent, here's an example of their customer service on IRC: 1417.59| [bootc] ok, really long shot, but any staff tech around who fancy allocating me some more IPs? 1418.27| [bootc] I already feel rather greedy but I'm using most of my IPs already :-/ 1423.30| [@AA-Paul] bootc: What login, and what size block? 1424.14| [bootc] AA-Paul: abc1@a, and a /28 of legacy if possible? 1424.21| [bootc] for @a.1 1425.31| [bootc] I then need to re-number internally and expand my /27 sub-division of my /26 to the full /26 :-/ 1426.31| [@AA-Paul] bootc: Done. 1.2.3.4/28 will be routed to you when your router next logs in 1426.57| [bootc] AA-Paul: many thanks, you're a star! have a great rest of your weekend 1427.10| [@AA-Paul] No problem. You too :) (no I don't work for them, but am an extremely happy customer)
- harrytuttle 13y ago+1 for this. Another customer here. Every time I call, the person on the other end knows their shit straight away. They managed to un-screw-up my LLU phone service and broadband as well (screw you Telefonica and OpenReach!!!) They're really cheap for what you get. I pay £45/month for Home::1 which is for me 150Gb + line rental. O2 for the same was £37.50 dynamic IP and their support staff were fucking muppets.
- betawolf33 13y agoI am a customer of this ISP, and I can recommend them. They are much better set up for dealing with the technically-inclined customer than mainstream providers.
- timthorn 13y agoI know of no other ISP that designs routers from scratch - electronics & software, including OS.
- harrytuttle 13y agoThey don't. They bought them all in.
- timthorn 13y agoThe Firebrick range is all custom dev. They'll sell you a commodity router quite happily, but they're 50% responsible for Firebrick. A presentation by their MD on the backstory: http://online.ipexpo.co.uk/Videos/Adrian-Kennard-presents-Bricking-It http://online.ipexpo.co.uk/Videos/Adrian-Kennard-presents-Br...
- harrytuttle 13y agoOk didn't know that - thanks for the info!
- chrisbridgett 13y agoShut up and take my money!
- therealrevk 13y agoNice set of comments on this - scarily I think I have to say that someone is not wrong on the internet ( http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/ ) as I think people have replied sensibly to concerns. We do try to do things right at A&A. I know it costs a tad more, but I don't think it unreasonable for what we office and we try to fit what people want (hence new Home::1 tariff, and so on). See www.me.uk for more views.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- alan_cx 13y agoUm could have this wrong, but as far as I am aware, most ISP are against this filtering. This came up a few weeks ago, and they basically said no. This is why now Camoron is banging on about threatening legislation to make them do it. That said, the ISPs objections are likely cost, rather than protecting freedom. Much like Camoron, this is pandering and nanny stare, rather than really caring about children. To him this is a tick box ticked which costs the treasury nothing, he gets the ISPs to pay for his votes. All quite seedy.
- 3amOpsGuy 13y ago"That said, the ISPs objections are likely cost" And rightly so. If this goes through, i'd like to see the ISPs add a line item to everyone's bill calling this out in plain sight to all their customers. "This month you paid an extra #1.75 to cover the costs of Government censorship infrastructure we're required to purchase / install / maintain.
- DanBC 13y agoMobile providers already provide this filtering. I have to keep asking for "Content Lock" (or somesuch) to be removed when I renew my 3g mobile broadband dongle. If that's all he wants it seems trivially easy to supply it. I'm gently surprised the ISPs haven't already done so. That way they'd have a simple example to point to when the government asks for more stuff. "Look, we already did the filter, and it's hopeless, but it's what you asked for. Trust us on this - what you're asking for can be done, but should not be done." It's the classic example of clueless people asking the wrong question. "How can I do $THIS?" "Well, you can do $THIS, but no-one in their right minds would do this because it's stupid. You could do $THAT, and $OTHER, which is better and covers most of what you want without so much stupid." Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working with UK Gov.
- toyg 13y agoA&A are great, they've also fought tooth and nail against lame "Great Firewall" projects and the three-strikes p2p aberration. I really wanted to give them money, but they can't use the Virgin cable network. My BT copper line goes over a far-west-style pole, because XIX-century northern terraces weren't exactly built for telecom geeks, so ADSL is no match for the underground early-1990s coax laid by NTL (now Virgin). When I'll move somewhere with a decent copper link, I'll probably go with A&A straight away; yes they are expensive, but it's not always about the bottom line.
- timthorn 13y agoYou can ask them for an L2TP connection, using Virgin as a pure bearer to the AA network and breaking out from there. Clearly any usage caps from Virgin will still apply, but the IP provision will be from people who know what they're doing.
- mseebach 13y agoA variation of this that they could pick up and run with is to offer a VPN solution so you can terminate your traffic at A&A regardless of who is the better broadband provider in your area.
- andyhmltn 13y agoI would love to go with them! But sadly I live in a rural area that barely gets 3mbps from the major companies so I doubt an independent would be able to get even that :-(
- timthorn 13y agoA&A uses lines from BT Openreach and TalkTalk Wholesale. They're great at getting the most from a line - if you're getting 3mbps from a major, you're likely to get as good or better with A&A.
- andyhmltn 13y agoOh awesome, I'll look into it then!
- ksrm 13y agoHow do they do that?
- timthorn 13y agoBy not accepting poor performance from their suppliers, and by taking advantage of the control available for things like the SNR margin: http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-trial.html http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-trial.html
- TranceMan 13y agoThey have already added the 'active choice' option: Tell us which you would like: * Unfiltered Internet access - no filtering of any content within the A&A network - you are responsible for any filtering in your own network * Censored Internet access - restricted access to unpublished government mandated filter list - still cannot guarantee kids don't access porn With the latter choice informing the user: Sorry, for a censored internet you will have to pick a different ISP. Our services are all unfiltered. http://revk.www.me.uk/2013/07/active-choice.html http://revk.www.me.uk/2013/07/active-choice.html https://order.aa.net.uk/h1order.cgi https://order.aa.net.uk/h1order.cgi
- davidgerard 13y agoThis is about right. The only ISPs in Britain which do not fuck with your connection are A&A and Zen. I'm with Zen, if I wasn't I'd be with A&A.
- semanticist 13y agoThat's definitely incorrect. ADSL24 don't apply filtering, and I imagine that many of the small ISPs don't. There's no legal obligation for any ISP to apply filtering.
- Nux 13y agoWish there wore more ISPs like this in UK. Also I wish their offerings were more in step with the times. :( Right now I get FTTC (80/20) from BT for £40, unlimited and unthrottled[1]. I'd be willing to pay a bit more for a similar service from AA. [1] - whatever that means nowadays