10 ms·

How to throttle the FCC to dial up modem speeds

274 points by mrsaint 12y ago

cddotdotslash 12y ago
If you want to simulate this in JavaScript for all users, I wrote this short snippet: https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e
PaulHoule 12y ago
I'd like to see a law that government offices can only have an internet connection as fast as the slowest constituent.
- minikites 12y ago
  Agreed and also this should be true for the pay of elected officials and corporate executives.
  - 3825 12y ago
    Minimum wage for elected officials sounds good on paper. Michael Bloomberg would not mind. However, how does this work for corporate executives? When you say pay does this include stock grants and options or just salary?
    - m0th87 12y ago
      Also it arguably opens the doors for corruption. Bloomberg ran on a campaign of "I'm so rich, no one can bribe me." If a non-billionaire politician receives the minimum wage, they could be more susceptible to financial incentives.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      No, it does not. The minimum wage is set by elected officials. What do you think will happen when they set the minimum wage to whatever it is they want to be paid? How about instead, you set their pay to a percentile marker for the income of their constituents, entirely disregarding income received from any government, including those without wage or salary income. For households with spouses and dependants and such, each member has income equal to the total income of the household divided by the number of members. So if 20% of households have no one working at all (as it is now), elected officials could significantly increase their own pay just by finding a job for just one person in each of those households. Increasing the income of the top 1% would not produce any additional pay. If 51% of households are broke or on the dole, elected officials paid at 50th %ile would get $0. They get to rely on welfare too, just like everyone else. And really, if that's the case, they're lucky enough to not be paid with bullets to the head for their "service".
  - ntietz 12y ago
    The problem with this is that it limits elected officials to only be already wealthy, because then they can go without a good paycheck. High salaries are important to letting the common person into office (although there are plenty of OTHER factors that stop that from happening).
  - eloff 12y ago
    Good luck attracting and retaining talent if you can't pay market prices for executives.
    - KingMob 12y ago
      I doubt they should be so worried. Studies show no link between executive pay and executive performance: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0
      - bostonpete 12y ago
        I think this is showing a lack of a link between executive pay and stock performance. It could be the case (though I don't know how you'd measure it) that executive performance improved with pay but just had no discernible impact on stock performance.
        niels_olson 12y ago
        I don't think most executives do it for the money. Money is just a way of keeping score.
      - eloff 12y ago
        It doesn't matter, performance is not the only concern. Connections and domain knowledge are even more valuable. Let's say you're Amazon and you pay your CTO a respectable $250k/year. Along comes Microsoft or Google and offers him ten times as much. He's rational so he accepts and take with him all of Amazon's technical secrets to success. Even if there were national regulation capping executive pay in the US, other countries would hire away all of the top players with all their knowledge and connections. It would be a disaster. Is executive pay crazy? Yes, often. But the market supposedly is efficient and the pay is that high for rational reasons in many cases (not all!)
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      All you need to do is break it into two jobs. The first job is a paid actor that collects and enters all business-relevant data into a computer system, then follows exactly the script that the system provides in response. This actor is replaced immediately if he ever tries to deviate from the script. Internally, the system automatically translates the recognizable business symbols into abstract values. The second job is an engineer that optimizes the system for the highest obfuscated profit number. Also, build in a safeguard to the obfuscator/de-obfuscator program so that the engineer cannot fire himself.
  - rmc 12y ago
    Sure fire way to encourage politicans to take bribes as well as ensuring only the independently wealthy can be politicians,
    - pritambaral 12y ago
      > take bribes as well as ensuring only the independently wealthy can be politicians Those are other, unrelated problems that need to be addressed in their own right, but cannot be used as justification for high pay scale of politicians.
      - bostonpete 12y ago
        I suspect most high ranking government officials in the US could make significantly more in the private sector so it's hard to claim there's a high scale of pay for politicians -- at least in the US.
        talmand 12y ago
        Politicians don't get rich from their paycheck.
        niels_olson 12y ago
        They also didn't get elected for knowing a bunch of regular folks.
        pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Assuming you're not being snide; how do they get rich then (whilst in post)?
        edias 12y ago
        Generally they don't unless their doing something illegal. Most politicians are reasonably to very wealthy going into office, and being a high ranking politician basically secures them a high paying position in the private sector afterwards. Many people from the FCC/FDA will go into the telecom/pharmaceutical industries for example. Others will charge huge fees for speaking engagements and appearances. I remember reading Bill Clinton charges in the 10k-50k range for speaches but not sure on the specifics. So basically no one expects to make money from their paycheck, but rather go into politics for the fame, connections, and other intangibles.
  - IanDrake 12y ago
    >and corporate executives Sure why not, all they did is take money from willing people called customers. While we're at it let's add... Basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and soccer players, golfers, Hollywood stars, and successful book authors like Steven King. These people are so greedy because they make millions a year! All while their viewers/readers/hot dog venders/editors make so much less. It's not fair. Seriously, I don't understand why people complain about executive pay when the folks I just listed make more for adding less value to the world.
    - mhurron 12y ago
      Because people NEVER complain about sports stars/actors/authors imbalance in compensation. But why are we talking about this when there are kids starving in Africa /sarcasm Not everyone has to list everything that annoys them when they are talking about one of those things.
    - kumbasha 12y ago
      Lots of executives around the world make huge profits for their companies and employees, without collecting multimillion dollar salaries for themselves. Since being a millionaire is empirically not required for CEOs, their multimillion dollar salaries could be better used elsewhere.
      - russell_h 12y ago
        If you see a company paying their executive too much, why not either: a) Offer to do their job for less. b) Start a competing company? With your lower costs you should have no trouble crushing them in the market.
        pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Because people who're in a position to control company buying are falling over themselves to ensure justice in wages and make sure that people who're in a position to control company buying aren't being overpaid?
- eli 12y ago
  Hungry and homeless too?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- afarrell 12y ago
  That would basically mean that any government internal IT project would have to be able to work usable on dialup. Government IT contracting is already enough of a disaster.
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    No, it means they would have to actually care about broadband competition in US and about abuses from the local monopolies, in order to get faster Internet.
    - criley2 12y ago
      >No, it means they would have to actually care about broadband competition in US and about abuses from the local monopolies, in order to get faster Internet No, it means they'll care even less because they'll be relegated to satellite only rural bullshit internet that has insanity latency, etc. They will not experience anything relating to Comcast/cable/DSL/telcos in any significant way because the truly out there rural places in the country have far worse connections than a comcast monopoly.
      - BrandonM 12y ago
        Yep. My parents live a half hour outside Wilmington, NC, and they can't even get Hughes (satellite Internet). They currently pay $90/mo for 2gb of Verizon wireless data. Their only other choice is DirecTV's offering, which is priced similarly and also metered. On the other hand, my brother in Wilmington has Time Warner, and I can't even SSH out, at least with whatever default setup they hooked him up with.
        jethro_tell 12y ago
        My parents are in the same situation. I can ssh out but with 1500 mil latency a day at the console is pretty tough.
  - kumbasha 12y ago
    I can't imagine the government needs anything more than HTML 1.0.
- however5342 12y ago
  That'll show those government workers who work for SNAP (food stamps), National Institutes of Health, NASA, and National Science Foundation. Serves 'em right for daring to work for the government. Since the workers in those offices are clearly to blame for the speed at which ISPs deliver internet service. /s
  - AJ007 12y ago
    A better goal would be the executives and family of certain telecoms. Very doable with all of the cross data targeting available now.
  - gabriel34 12y ago
    Your argument supposes the affected people will be those who have nothing to do with the problem. a) The most obvious villains, i.e. the decision makers at the top of the chain of command will be affected directly and indirectly. b) Even those who aren't directly or indirectly responsible have much more power to influence things than your regular citizen and should be shown how bad this can get. b) If the company I work for goes belly up I do feel partially responsible for it. If it gets involved in some corruption scheme, I feel ashamed. FCC's empoyees should feel responsible for the doings of the organization they work for and contribute to. They are partly their doing. c) Immediate effects aside it is a nice form of protesting.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sehr 12y ago
Might as well do Congress while you're at it!
- rschmitty 12y ago
  White house, supreme court, how about anything from the government?
  - aaronholbrook 12y ago
    Why not take it a step further and limit the lobbyists and bad telcos?
    - rschmitty 12y ago
      Oh I thought about that, but how are you going to target the lobbyists and bad telcos without harming actual customers on those providers who may very well be against this whole debacle. Government branches likely have a block of IPs while lobbyists I doubt are registered like that :)
      - logfromblammo 12y ago
        I'm sure the lobbyists for the music and film industry can be uniquely identified by their IP addresses. You could at least do them.
- Yunk 12y ago
  Call me a hawk, but I think it makes more sense for content provider who wont be buying their way into the fast lane to pre-emptively rate limit all customers of the major US ISPs. Content providers that depend on the US may want to synchronize on specific day of the week to limit each ISP, for example Comcast Thursday, while foreign providers can conservatively cut off all of the US so they don't have to worry about missing any future pay networks..
- lsllc 12y ago
  Came here to post this, you beat me to it! +1
smcl 12y ago
From the comments > Should a simple header/corner banner be injected also? This would be good, particularly if it was served from a connection without this throttling.
- TheCraiggers 12y ago
  I'm actually against this idea, for the simple reason that if that page ends up being delivered via cache somewhere, I don't want them thinking "Well, it says I was throttled, but it actually wasn't that bad. I don't see what all the fuss is about."
  - mseebach 12y ago
    You could inject anti-caching headers, too. Should, indeed, since the page will have been customised for the user.
IgorPartola 12y ago
Can anyone shed some light on what the goal here is. I am all for messing with people for no good reason in subtle ways they do not understand but the author clearly has a purpose here? Is this to teach the FCC about net neutrality?
- icehawk219 12y ago
  That's the general idea. Show them what life will be like if you're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means. Especially since the branding has become that they really want to create a "fast lane" which actually doesn't sound like such a bad idea until you realize the reality is the exact opposite.
  - ojilles 12y ago
    But if you target someone that doesn't understand the technology, their response is going to be exactly the opposite: "Look what they did, they should not be able to do that => let's carve out a separate part on the internet for essential services". And now you accomplished exactly the opposite. How about we collectively buy them faster lines?
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    Show them what life will be like if you're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means. How do we get from "the kind of deal Netflix struck with Comcast will continue to be legal in the future" to "Comcast will start serving web sites to customers paying $50/month at dial-up speeds"? It's nonsense. Why have so many ostensibly smart people bought into it?
    - jdmichal 12y ago
      Because Netflix only struck a deal with Comcast because too little Netflix traffic could pass through Comcast. That doesn't hurt Comcast at all, because they have monopoly. It does hurt Netflix, because now they have a bunch of subscribers who can't effectively use their service. People who can't effectively use a service tend to stop paying for it. So, given that these kinds of deals only happen when service is slow: What's the best way for Comcast to continue to be able to pull these fees in from large services? You're a smart person; I'm sure you can figure it out. Hint: Comcast has not exactly shown reluctance to participate in "traffic shaping" in the past.
SimeVidas 12y ago
Can someone ELI5 this? Why would the FCC visit your site?
- minikites 12y ago
  They wouldn't, it looks like more pat-yourself-on-the-back then give-yourself-a-high-five internet slacktivism. Someone should make a petition!
  - DigitalSea 12y ago
    Think bigger. What if Google implemented something like this to prove a point? This is a genius idea, it goes beyond your standard Internet activism which is usually words and no action.
    - ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
      Google would probably have a slightly more elegant solution than copypastaing an nginx config from Github.
      - DigitalSea 12y ago
        Which is why I said, "implemented something like this" I didn't say implement this. I meant same idea, but done in a more Google way.
- msravi 12y ago
  If Google, FB, etc. got on the bandwagon and slowed down all requests from FCC and GOV IPs, I'm sure that would get their attention pretty quick! Now again, why would FCC or anyone in govt. visit Google or FB? I'll let you answer that!
- gph 12y ago
  Would be funny if porn sites implemented this. If FCC employees are like other federal departments there's a good chance that's how they spend a lot of their time[1]. [1]http://www.seeyounexttuesday.com/study-federal-employees-spend-most-of-the-work-day-watching-porn/ http://www.seeyounexttuesday.com/study-federal-employees-spe...
geekam 12y ago
I'd like to have this done to all government agencies, at least all of the major ones.
kemmis 12y ago
If you want to throttle IIS, I think the IIS Media Pack Bit Rate Throttling module might be a good place to start: http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate-throttling-is-now-released.aspx http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate-throt...
bavcyc 12y ago
Cringely has a post on peering issues, slight allusion to the FCC issue : http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/
johnjwang 12y ago
This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality. The people that are going to be affected most by this (if it does work) are going to be the rank and file at the FCC who have no decision making power and only hold a job there. The FCC has 2k employees and most of them don't even work in the relevant bureau that deals with net neutrality. When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. You're going to hurt the wrong people if you do this and it succeeds. Why not write to your Congressperson instead or think of something that doesn't adversely affect a ton of people who don't have anything to do with the net neutrality debate?
- TheCraiggers 12y ago
  That's one way of looking at it. The other way is that we treat the FCC as an entity. We make it tough for that entity to do everything in order to put pressure on the top. It's not like the employees have zero power there. And while it may indeed be near-zero power, I still feel that they have more power as an employee of the FCC than I do as a member of the faceless public. Maybe this will empower a scared employee to come forward and speak out. Or maybe you're right and they do have zero power there, but maybe they'll understand what's at stake and call their representative. Also, it's not like we're throttling these employee's home connections. We're not slowing down their daughter's access to Wikipedia at home, we're slowing down their connection to Facebook while at work.
- protonfish 12y ago
  That's like saying you shouldn't fight a war by attacking the soldiers.
- talmand 12y ago
  Writing your rep in Congress is a waste of time with as many form letters they receive pretty much demanding everything under the sun. You would be just easily ignored noise. If this type of bandwidth throttling limit is to work it would have to target a much larger group than the FCC. The entire federal government might be a start. But management might like that as it would likely lead to increased productivity. One would have to focus on that list of people outside of work somehow. Maybe a day of slow loading YouTube videos for all the customers of certain ISPs with a banner explaining what's going on. All in all, I don't think anything like this could work unless you're willing to accidentally suck in a lot of people that are not involved.
rynop 12y ago
I'd be willing to bet Tom Wheeler and the "higher ups" of the FCC are not at the office a majority of the time. It would be sweet if businesses in the service industry (like lets say Manny's) had pics of the top X guys at the FCC in their kitchen. See one of them walk in - just delay their service ;) Here is Tom Wheeler http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr
- rynop 12y ago
  Looks like they already made a page with pics for us: http://www.fcc.gov/leadership http://www.fcc.gov/leadership
- DannyBee 12y ago
  Why would you bet they aren't in the office. A friend of mine who interned at the FCC says the commissioners are almost always around in their offices. It's not like the FCC pays amazingly well and these guys are sitting on beaches. The commissioners each earn $155,500 a year (they are level IV on the executive schedule).
JohnnyLee 12y ago
I think the focus on the FCC is too narrow. In my opinion throttling all .gov addresses would be more effective. Including .edu addresses would affect a population with plenty of time on their hands and who aren't afraid to let everyone know about their problems.
- Fomite 12y ago
  And a bunch of people who don't have time on their hands (staff and faculty) who will probably just go "Fuck you guys, now you're getting in the way of work."
  - Pfhreak 12y ago
    Isn't that the idea?
    - Fomite 12y ago
      Not if they can't particularly help effect change. "Random departmental secretary trying to book flights" isn't going to write their congressman over your clever code. All you've done is make their day worse.
Datsundere 12y ago
If only popular social media did this now. I bet the people over there check their facebook/twitter every 10 seconds.
- iLoch 12y ago
  No way, they're too busy checking LinkedIn.
dahart 12y ago
The pictures comment lead me to Tom's list of speeches, the latest of which directly contradicts the claims being made here. Are we sure the FCC is the bad guy? http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks-ncta http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks-nct... "Let me be clear. If someone acts to divide the Internet between “haves” and “have-nots,” we will use every power at our disposal to stop it." "Prioritizing some traffic by forcing the rest of the traffic into a congested lane won’t be permitted under any proposed Open Internet rule. We will not allow some companies to force Internet users into a slow lane so that others with special privileges can have superior service."
- inh3 12y ago
  "Actions speak louder than words." The FCC could put the money where their mouth is by re-classifying ISPs as "Title II - Common Carriers."
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > "Actions speak louder than words." I think the FCC's repeated adoption of pro-neutrality regulations are very clear actions. The people who keep knocking them down are the federal courts, and then the FCC keeps setting up new ones framed slightly differently but aimed at achieving the same ends. So, yeah, actions speak louder than words -- and the FCC's actions on net neutrality are pretty consistently in favor of it (just as the words of the majority of commissioners, including the current chair, are.) The whole "fast lane" idea is based on a couple news outlets reporting of claims of anonymous sources with unspecified qualifications about their interpretation of the content of an unreleased proposal (note also that the original articles weren't actually consistent on their claims, either, as one claimed that the proposal would include a provision allowing for "fast lanes", and one suggesting that the proposal would allow it implicitly because it didn't address the practice at all), claims which have been emphatically denied on the record by Wheeler, whose proposal it is. Once they've actually published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment, there will be a chance for informed discussion.
  - pdabbadabba 12y ago
lukecampbell 12y ago
I don't think the entire FCC, and all of their employees are really out to get you and I. A few maybe but I think it's somewhat too broad an approach to punish the few by punishing everyone associated with the FCC. Their IT staff probably doesn't deserve this either.
- sp332 12y ago
  It's a temporary protest, not a punishment.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Does it come with a message that says tongue in cheek that you're on the "slow lane", and they should upgrade to the fast lane? Otherwise they may just think that site is slow.
m0dest 12y ago
I could see this backfiring. If this gains any momentum at all, the media response from the ISPs will be obvious: "We appreciate that web developers are embracing their right to throttle certain customers. We're very happy that the FCC has decided to grant ISPs those same privileges."
thisjustinm 12y ago
I like this concept but think about how the user at the FCC will perceive this. When your internet is slow who do you blame? 1 - The site, i.e. "Yahoo must be getting a lot of traffic today." 2 - Your ISP. ie. "Comcast must be overloaded in my area right now." 3 - Your equipment. i.e. "Maybe I need to restart my wifi / PC" And then, somewhere way down that list you maybe, just maybe think - "I wonder if there is an organized effort by a small group of developers to set up their sites in such a way that my particular IP here at the FCC is having its speed throttled." I agree that we need to spread the word about what is at stake with Net Neutrality but I'm not sure if this is the best way.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  Write a bit of code that tells them why the website is slow. Shouldn't be that difficult I get the same thing with cookies because i have a UK ip. Well not the throttling part but the banner part.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  They know already. Their techies know. They are on Reddit and HN just like everyone else.
BastianHof 12y ago
How do we know these are actually FCC ips?
dsjoerg 12y ago
Way to stick it to the man... er, well, the man's crony's underlings.
bdamm 12y ago
This is a foolish, dangerous game to play. You know, there are probably just as many people in the government who are trying to win the fight for the people. What you really want is to identify the browsers of actual users in decision making capability, and target them. Surely, with the level of user tracking going on these days, this is a feasible concept.
BWStearns 12y ago
Maybe add the congress and senate addresses? I know that they're not immediately responsible for the decision but they're a good group of influencers.
Vanayad 12y ago
Wouldn't it be awesome to have the major website/companies (like Facebook, Google, MS, Amazon, etc) have a landing page when accessing their site in a style like they did with SOPA but now the whole webpage is unavailable for ~1 minute "due to slowed down traffic" or something. I think that would get the attention of people. (Of course, this should run just for a limited time )
hartator 12y ago
Am I the only one who think that childish? You aren't even sure that will target the right people and not some kind of public worker who just doing some job!
- nokcha 12y ago
  >You aren't even sure that will target the right people Indeed. The FCC tried to promulgate a rule requiring net neutrality, but a Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC lacked statutory authority to do so [1]. So the FCC is powerless unless and until Congress revises the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or otherwise grants the necessary legal authority to the FCC. [1] http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D93...
m1 12y ago
Apache port: https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a
ksolanki 12y ago
This doesn't seem very productive. As Gandhi once said, "Hate the sin not the sinner". This is not even punishing the sinner, who are not your everyday public workers but likely some lobbying corp.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Edit: Nevermind, I guess he did say it--although he's not the originator of the quote.
  - ksolanki 12y ago
    Pretty sure Gandhi said that (I have read his biography 3 times!), but should point out that this is nothing much to do with Hinduism.
justizin 12y ago
the irony of using network management techniques to protest the lack of a law which could outlaw this very type of network management is pretty thick. pure net neutrality could make it illegal to have software which treats any ip addresses differently. there are some real issues to think through, but most of what's happening right now is emotionally driven banality.

274 points by mrsaint 12y ago

If you want to simulate this in JavaScript for all users, I wrote this short snippet: https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e

PaulHoule 12y ago

I'd like to see a law that government offices can only have an internet connection as fast as the slowest constituent.

minikites 12y ago
Agreed and also this should be true for the pay of elected officials and corporate executives.
- 3825 12y ago
  Minimum wage for elected officials sounds good on paper. Michael Bloomberg would not mind. However, how does this work for corporate executives? When you say pay does this include stock grants and options or just salary?
  - m0th87 12y ago
    Also it arguably opens the doors for corruption. Bloomberg ran on a campaign of "I'm so rich, no one can bribe me." If a non-billionaire politician receives the minimum wage, they could be more susceptible to financial incentives.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    No, it does not. The minimum wage is set by elected officials. What do you think will happen when they set the minimum wage to whatever it is they want to be paid? How about instead, you set their pay to a percentile marker for the income of their constituents, entirely disregarding income received from any government, including those without wage or salary income. For households with spouses and dependants and such, each member has income equal to the total income of the household divided by the number of members. So if 20% of households have no one working at all (as it is now), elected officials could significantly increase their own pay just by finding a job for just one person in each of those households. Increasing the income of the top 1% would not produce any additional pay. If 51% of households are broke or on the dole, elected officials paid at 50th %ile would get $0. They get to rely on welfare too, just like everyone else. And really, if that's the case, they're lucky enough to not be paid with bullets to the head for their "service".
- ntietz 12y ago
  The problem with this is that it limits elected officials to only be already wealthy, because then they can go without a good paycheck. High salaries are important to letting the common person into office (although there are plenty of OTHER factors that stop that from happening).
- eloff 12y ago
  Good luck attracting and retaining talent if you can't pay market prices for executives.
  - KingMob 12y ago
    I doubt they should be so worried. Studies show no link between executive pay and executive performance: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0
    - bostonpete 12y ago
      I think this is showing a lack of a link between executive pay and stock performance. It could be the case (though I don't know how you'd measure it) that executive performance improved with pay but just had no discernible impact on stock performance.
      - niels_olson 12y ago
        I don't think most executives do it for the money. Money is just a way of keeping score.
    - eloff 12y ago
      It doesn't matter, performance is not the only concern. Connections and domain knowledge are even more valuable. Let's say you're Amazon and you pay your CTO a respectable $250k/year. Along comes Microsoft or Google and offers him ten times as much. He's rational so he accepts and take with him all of Amazon's technical secrets to success. Even if there were national regulation capping executive pay in the US, other countries would hire away all of the top players with all their knowledge and connections. It would be a disaster. Is executive pay crazy? Yes, often. But the market supposedly is efficient and the pay is that high for rational reasons in many cases (not all!)
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    All you need to do is break it into two jobs. The first job is a paid actor that collects and enters all business-relevant data into a computer system, then follows exactly the script that the system provides in response. This actor is replaced immediately if he ever tries to deviate from the script. Internally, the system automatically translates the recognizable business symbols into abstract values. The second job is an engineer that optimizes the system for the highest obfuscated profit number. Also, build in a safeguard to the obfuscator/de-obfuscator program so that the engineer cannot fire himself.
- rmc 12y ago
  Sure fire way to encourage politicans to take bribes as well as ensuring only the independently wealthy can be politicians,
  - pritambaral 12y ago
    > take bribes as well as ensuring only the independently wealthy can be politicians Those are other, unrelated problems that need to be addressed in their own right, but cannot be used as justification for high pay scale of politicians.
    - bostonpete 12y ago
      I suspect most high ranking government officials in the US could make significantly more in the private sector so it's hard to claim there's a high scale of pay for politicians -- at least in the US.
      - talmand 12y ago
        Politicians don't get rich from their paycheck.
        niels_olson 12y ago
        They also didn't get elected for knowing a bunch of regular folks.
        pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Assuming you're not being snide; how do they get rich then (whilst in post)?
        edias 12y ago
        Generally they don't unless their doing something illegal. Most politicians are reasonably to very wealthy going into office, and being a high ranking politician basically secures them a high paying position in the private sector afterwards. Many people from the FCC/FDA will go into the telecom/pharmaceutical industries for example. Others will charge huge fees for speaking engagements and appearances. I remember reading Bill Clinton charges in the 10k-50k range for speaches but not sure on the specifics. So basically no one expects to make money from their paycheck, but rather go into politics for the fame, connections, and other intangibles.
- IanDrake 12y ago
  >and corporate executives Sure why not, all they did is take money from willing people called customers. While we're at it let's add... Basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and soccer players, golfers, Hollywood stars, and successful book authors like Steven King. These people are so greedy because they make millions a year! All while their viewers/readers/hot dog venders/editors make so much less. It's not fair. Seriously, I don't understand why people complain about executive pay when the folks I just listed make more for adding less value to the world.
  - mhurron 12y ago
    Because people NEVER complain about sports stars/actors/authors imbalance in compensation. But why are we talking about this when there are kids starving in Africa /sarcasm Not everyone has to list everything that annoys them when they are talking about one of those things.
  - kumbasha 12y ago
    Lots of executives around the world make huge profits for their companies and employees, without collecting multimillion dollar salaries for themselves. Since being a millionaire is empirically not required for CEOs, their multimillion dollar salaries could be better used elsewhere.
    - russell_h 12y ago
      If you see a company paying their executive too much, why not either: a) Offer to do their job for less. b) Start a competing company? With your lower costs you should have no trouble crushing them in the market.
      - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Because people who're in a position to control company buying are falling over themselves to ensure justice in wages and make sure that people who're in a position to control company buying aren't being overpaid?
eli 12y ago
Hungry and homeless too?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
afarrell 12y ago
That would basically mean that any government internal IT project would have to be able to work usable on dialup. Government IT contracting is already enough of a disaster.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  No, it means they would have to actually care about broadband competition in US and about abuses from the local monopolies, in order to get faster Internet.
  - criley2 12y ago
    >No, it means they would have to actually care about broadband competition in US and about abuses from the local monopolies, in order to get faster Internet No, it means they'll care even less because they'll be relegated to satellite only rural bullshit internet that has insanity latency, etc. They will not experience anything relating to Comcast/cable/DSL/telcos in any significant way because the truly out there rural places in the country have far worse connections than a comcast monopoly.
    - BrandonM 12y ago
      Yep. My parents live a half hour outside Wilmington, NC, and they can't even get Hughes (satellite Internet). They currently pay $90/mo for 2gb of Verizon wireless data. Their only other choice is DirecTV's offering, which is priced similarly and also metered. On the other hand, my brother in Wilmington has Time Warner, and I can't even SSH out, at least with whatever default setup they hooked him up with.
      - jethro_tell 12y ago
        My parents are in the same situation. I can ssh out but with 1500 mil latency a day at the console is pretty tough.
- kumbasha 12y ago
  I can't imagine the government needs anything more than HTML 1.0.
however5342 12y ago
That'll show those government workers who work for SNAP (food stamps), National Institutes of Health, NASA, and National Science Foundation. Serves 'em right for daring to work for the government. Since the workers in those offices are clearly to blame for the speed at which ISPs deliver internet service. /s
- AJ007 12y ago
  A better goal would be the executives and family of certain telecoms. Very doable with all of the cross data targeting available now.
- gabriel34 12y ago
  Your argument supposes the affected people will be those who have nothing to do with the problem. a) The most obvious villains, i.e. the decision makers at the top of the chain of command will be affected directly and indirectly. b) Even those who aren't directly or indirectly responsible have much more power to influence things than your regular citizen and should be shown how bad this can get. b) If the company I work for goes belly up I do feel partially responsible for it. If it gets involved in some corruption scheme, I feel ashamed. FCC's empoyees should feel responsible for the doings of the organization they work for and contribute to. They are partly their doing. c) Immediate effects aside it is a nice form of protesting.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sehr 12y ago

Might as well do Congress while you're at it!

rschmitty 12y ago
White house, supreme court, how about anything from the government?
- aaronholbrook 12y ago
  Why not take it a step further and limit the lobbyists and bad telcos?
  - rschmitty 12y ago
    Oh I thought about that, but how are you going to target the lobbyists and bad telcos without harming actual customers on those providers who may very well be against this whole debacle. Government branches likely have a block of IPs while lobbyists I doubt are registered like that :)
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      I'm sure the lobbyists for the music and film industry can be uniquely identified by their IP addresses. You could at least do them.
Yunk 12y ago
Call me a hawk, but I think it makes more sense for content provider who wont be buying their way into the fast lane to pre-emptively rate limit all customers of the major US ISPs. Content providers that depend on the US may want to synchronize on specific day of the week to limit each ISP, for example Comcast Thursday, while foreign providers can conservatively cut off all of the US so they don't have to worry about missing any future pay networks..
lsllc 12y ago
Came here to post this, you beat me to it! +1

smcl 12y ago

From the comments > Should a simple header/corner banner be injected also? This would be good, particularly if it was served from a connection without this throttling.

TheCraiggers 12y ago
I'm actually against this idea, for the simple reason that if that page ends up being delivered via cache somewhere, I don't want them thinking "Well, it says I was throttled, but it actually wasn't that bad. I don't see what all the fuss is about."
- mseebach 12y ago
  You could inject anti-caching headers, too. Should, indeed, since the page will have been customised for the user.

IgorPartola 12y ago

Can anyone shed some light on what the goal here is. I am all for messing with people for no good reason in subtle ways they do not understand but the author clearly has a purpose here? Is this to teach the FCC about net neutrality?

icehawk219 12y ago
That's the general idea. Show them what life will be like if you're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means. Especially since the branding has become that they really want to create a "fast lane" which actually doesn't sound like such a bad idea until you realize the reality is the exact opposite.
- ojilles 12y ago
  But if you target someone that doesn't understand the technology, their response is going to be exactly the opposite: "Look what they did, they should not be able to do that => let's carve out a separate part on the internet for essential services". And now you accomplished exactly the opposite. How about we collectively buy them faster lines?
- twoodfin 12y ago
  Show them what life will be like if you're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means. How do we get from "the kind of deal Netflix struck with Comcast will continue to be legal in the future" to "Comcast will start serving web sites to customers paying $50/month at dial-up speeds"? It's nonsense. Why have so many ostensibly smart people bought into it?
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    Because Netflix only struck a deal with Comcast because too little Netflix traffic could pass through Comcast. That doesn't hurt Comcast at all, because they have monopoly. It does hurt Netflix, because now they have a bunch of subscribers who can't effectively use their service. People who can't effectively use a service tend to stop paying for it. So, given that these kinds of deals only happen when service is slow: What's the best way for Comcast to continue to be able to pull these fees in from large services? You're a smart person; I'm sure you can figure it out. Hint: Comcast has not exactly shown reluctance to participate in "traffic shaping" in the past.

SimeVidas 12y ago

Can someone ELI5 this? Why would the FCC visit your site?

minikites 12y ago
They wouldn't, it looks like more pat-yourself-on-the-back then give-yourself-a-high-five internet slacktivism. Someone should make a petition!
- DigitalSea 12y ago
  Think bigger. What if Google implemented something like this to prove a point? This is a genius idea, it goes beyond your standard Internet activism which is usually words and no action.
  - ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
    Google would probably have a slightly more elegant solution than copypastaing an nginx config from Github.
    - DigitalSea 12y ago
      Which is why I said, "implemented something like this" I didn't say implement this. I meant same idea, but done in a more Google way.
msravi 12y ago
If Google, FB, etc. got on the bandwagon and slowed down all requests from FCC and GOV IPs, I'm sure that would get their attention pretty quick! Now again, why would FCC or anyone in govt. visit Google or FB? I'll let you answer that!
gph 12y ago
Would be funny if porn sites implemented this. If FCC employees are like other federal departments there's a good chance that's how they spend a lot of their time[1]. [1]http://www.seeyounexttuesday.com/study-federal-employees-spend-most-of-the-work-day-watching-porn/ http://www.seeyounexttuesday.com/study-federal-employees-spe...

geekam 12y ago

I'd like to have this done to all government agencies, at least all of the major ones.

kemmis 12y ago

If you want to throttle IIS, I think the IIS Media Pack Bit Rate Throttling module might be a good place to start: http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate-throttling-is-now-released.aspx http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate-throt...

bavcyc 12y ago

Cringely has a post on peering issues, slight allusion to the FCC issue : http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/

johnjwang 12y ago

This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality. The people that are going to be affected most by this (if it does work) are going to be the rank and file at the FCC who have no decision making power and only hold a job there. The FCC has 2k employees and most of them don't even work in the relevant bureau that deals with net neutrality. When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. You're going to hurt the wrong people if you do this and it succeeds. Why not write to your Congressperson instead or think of something that doesn't adversely affect a ton of people who don't have anything to do with the net neutrality debate?

TheCraiggers 12y ago
That's one way of looking at it. The other way is that we treat the FCC as an entity. We make it tough for that entity to do everything in order to put pressure on the top. It's not like the employees have zero power there. And while it may indeed be near-zero power, I still feel that they have more power as an employee of the FCC than I do as a member of the faceless public. Maybe this will empower a scared employee to come forward and speak out. Or maybe you're right and they do have zero power there, but maybe they'll understand what's at stake and call their representative. Also, it's not like we're throttling these employee's home connections. We're not slowing down their daughter's access to Wikipedia at home, we're slowing down their connection to Facebook while at work.
protonfish 12y ago
That's like saying you shouldn't fight a war by attacking the soldiers.
talmand 12y ago
Writing your rep in Congress is a waste of time with as many form letters they receive pretty much demanding everything under the sun. You would be just easily ignored noise. If this type of bandwidth throttling limit is to work it would have to target a much larger group than the FCC. The entire federal government might be a start. But management might like that as it would likely lead to increased productivity. One would have to focus on that list of people outside of work somehow. Maybe a day of slow loading YouTube videos for all the customers of certain ISPs with a banner explaining what's going on. All in all, I don't think anything like this could work unless you're willing to accidentally suck in a lot of people that are not involved.

rynop 12y ago

I'd be willing to bet Tom Wheeler and the "higher ups" of the FCC are not at the office a majority of the time. It would be sweet if businesses in the service industry (like lets say Manny's) had pics of the top X guys at the FCC in their kitchen. See one of them walk in - just delay their service ;) Here is Tom Wheeler http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr

rynop 12y ago
Looks like they already made a page with pics for us: http://www.fcc.gov/leadership http://www.fcc.gov/leadership
DannyBee 12y ago
Why would you bet they aren't in the office. A friend of mine who interned at the FCC says the commissioners are almost always around in their offices. It's not like the FCC pays amazingly well and these guys are sitting on beaches. The commissioners each earn $155,500 a year (they are level IV on the executive schedule).

JohnnyLee 12y ago

I think the focus on the FCC is too narrow. In my opinion throttling all .gov addresses would be more effective. Including .edu addresses would affect a population with plenty of time on their hands and who aren't afraid to let everyone know about their problems.

Fomite 12y ago
And a bunch of people who don't have time on their hands (staff and faculty) who will probably just go "Fuck you guys, now you're getting in the way of work."
- Pfhreak 12y ago
  Isn't that the idea?
  - Fomite 12y ago
    Not if they can't particularly help effect change. "Random departmental secretary trying to book flights" isn't going to write their congressman over your clever code. All you've done is make their day worse.

Datsundere 12y ago

If only popular social media did this now. I bet the people over there check their facebook/twitter every 10 seconds.

iLoch 12y ago
No way, they're too busy checking LinkedIn.

dahart 12y ago

The pictures comment lead me to Tom's list of speeches, the latest of which directly contradicts the claims being made here. Are we sure the FCC is the bad guy? http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks-ncta http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks-nct... "Let me be clear. If someone acts to divide the Internet between “haves” and “have-nots,” we will use every power at our disposal to stop it." "Prioritizing some traffic by forcing the rest of the traffic into a congested lane won’t be permitted under any proposed Open Internet rule. We will not allow some companies to force Internet users into a slow lane so that others with special privileges can have superior service."

inh3 12y ago
"Actions speak louder than words." The FCC could put the money where their mouth is by re-classifying ISPs as "Title II - Common Carriers."
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > "Actions speak louder than words." I think the FCC's repeated adoption of pro-neutrality regulations are very clear actions. The people who keep knocking them down are the federal courts, and then the FCC keeps setting up new ones framed slightly differently but aimed at achieving the same ends. So, yeah, actions speak louder than words -- and the FCC's actions on net neutrality are pretty consistently in favor of it (just as the words of the majority of commissioners, including the current chair, are.) The whole "fast lane" idea is based on a couple news outlets reporting of claims of anonymous sources with unspecified qualifications about their interpretation of the content of an unreleased proposal (note also that the original articles weren't actually consistent on their claims, either, as one claimed that the proposal would include a provision allowing for "fast lanes", and one suggesting that the proposal would allow it implicitly because it didn't address the practice at all), claims which have been emphatically denied on the record by Wheeler, whose proposal it is. Once they've actually published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment, there will be a chance for informed discussion.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago

lukecampbell 12y ago

I don't think the entire FCC, and all of their employees are really out to get you and I. A few maybe but I think it's somewhat too broad an approach to punish the few by punishing everyone associated with the FCC. Their IT staff probably doesn't deserve this either.

sp332 12y ago
It's a temporary protest, not a punishment.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Does it come with a message that says tongue in cheek that you're on the "slow lane", and they should upgrade to the fast lane? Otherwise they may just think that site is slow.

m0dest 12y ago

I could see this backfiring. If this gains any momentum at all, the media response from the ISPs will be obvious: "We appreciate that web developers are embracing their right to throttle certain customers. We're very happy that the FCC has decided to grant ISPs those same privileges."

thisjustinm 12y ago

I like this concept but think about how the user at the FCC will perceive this. When your internet is slow who do you blame? 1 - The site, i.e. "Yahoo must be getting a lot of traffic today." 2 - Your ISP. ie. "Comcast must be overloaded in my area right now." 3 - Your equipment. i.e. "Maybe I need to restart my wifi / PC" And then, somewhere way down that list you maybe, just maybe think - "I wonder if there is an organized effort by a small group of developers to set up their sites in such a way that my particular IP here at the FCC is having its speed throttled." I agree that we need to spread the word about what is at stake with Net Neutrality but I'm not sure if this is the best way.

Fuxy 12y ago
Write a bit of code that tells them why the website is slow. Shouldn't be that difficult I get the same thing with cookies because i have a UK ip. Well not the throttling part but the banner part.
Florin_Andrei 12y ago
They know already. Their techies know. They are on Reddit and HN just like everyone else.

BastianHof 12y ago

How do we know these are actually FCC ips?

dsjoerg 12y ago

Way to stick it to the man... er, well, the man's crony's underlings.

bdamm 12y ago

This is a foolish, dangerous game to play. You know, there are probably just as many people in the government who are trying to win the fight for the people. What you really want is to identify the browsers of actual users in decision making capability, and target them. Surely, with the level of user tracking going on these days, this is a feasible concept.

BWStearns 12y ago

Maybe add the congress and senate addresses? I know that they're not immediately responsible for the decision but they're a good group of influencers.

Vanayad 12y ago

Wouldn't it be awesome to have the major website/companies (like Facebook, Google, MS, Amazon, etc) have a landing page when accessing their site in a style like they did with SOPA but now the whole webpage is unavailable for ~1 minute "due to slowed down traffic" or something. I think that would get the attention of people. (Of course, this should run just for a limited time )

hartator 12y ago

Am I the only one who think that childish? You aren't even sure that will target the right people and not some kind of public worker who just doing some job!

nokcha 12y ago
>You aren't even sure that will target the right people Indeed. The FCC tried to promulgate a rule requiring net neutrality, but a Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC lacked statutory authority to do so [1]. So the FCC is powerless unless and until Congress revises the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or otherwise grants the necessary legal authority to the FCC. [1] http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D93...

m1 12y ago

Apache port: https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a

ksolanki 12y ago

This doesn't seem very productive. As Gandhi once said, "Hate the sin not the sinner". This is not even punishing the sinner, who are not your everyday public workers but likely some lobbying corp.

ForHackernews 12y ago
Edit: Nevermind, I guess he did say it--although he's not the originator of the quote.
- ksolanki 12y ago
  Pretty sure Gandhi said that (I have read his biography 3 times!), but should point out that this is nothing much to do with Hinduism.

justizin 12y ago

the irony of using network management techniques to protest the lack of a law which could outlaw this very type of network management is pretty thick. pure net neutrality could make it illegal to have software which treats any ip addresses differently. there are some real issues to think through, but most of what's happening right now is emotionally driven banality.