5 ms·

Defending the Open Internet

72 points by chebureki 12y ago

innoying 12y ago
Somewhat related, but I made a small site to help the average internet "user" understand what net neutrality is and why it's important: http://net-neutrality.io/ http://net-neutrality.io/ I'm not quite sure where to advertise it, does HN have any suggestions?
- _red 12y ago
  Forget the average user, can you explain in detail how you envision this to work and be administrated at a network level? So I'm a packet, leaving my computer...what happens now and what laws govern me? So for the NN supporters have been very high on rhetoric and appalling low on details, which is always a prescription for legislative disaster.
  - belorn 12y ago
    I will not permit considerations of market share, political affiliation, nationality, or social standing to interfere between my duty to send packages from A to B. - The ISP oath. Neither political storms nor greed nor trickery nor monopolies stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed routes. - Internet Service creed
  - TheCowboy 12y ago
    Accusing "NN supporters" of having nothing but hollow rhetoric is extremely disingenuous, and I find it hard to believe that even a casual reader of HN would not be able to find out more. There is plenty of information and details out there supporting this idea, how it could and should be implemented, along with this being, as the article says, a "generally accepted norm" for a long time now.
  - bandushrew 12y ago
    I love the implication that it is somehow incumbent on NN supporters to educate you about how the internet works.....and the additional implication that there is a single set of laws that govern it. If you actually understand neither the technical details, or the legal aspects, maybe you should take responsibility for educating yourself? or, at the very least, avoid making deprecating comments about those who know more than yourself?
- thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
  Hey Luke, I'd recommend applying for http://taskforce.is http://taskforce.is and sending Sina an email(his contact details are available on the application form). Ask for access to our mailing list and shoot off a group message, we have a wide ranged of politically devout developers.
vfclists 12y ago
The usual and expected hatchet job from a main stream media stalwart. Neglecting the fact the fact digging up the ground to place cable, which is what the customer is actually paying for is entirely different from wiring up interconnects at core exchanges, which costs virtually nothing in comparison. The customer pays the last mile provider to go fetch with the understanding that what they pay covers everything the provider is supposed to go fetch with some profit added on. Then the provider goes to stiff the content provider for a share of their income, or else throttles the content provider which is essentially robbing the customer of a service they've already paid for. Why can't the NY Times put it this plainly and simply?
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Maybe they have visions of a NYTimes "news channel" added to your internet service that you pay for and receive whether you want it or not. Greed or ignorance are generally my first guesses when trying to analyze what appears to be propaganda.
  - vfclists 12y ago
    It is mostly greed. If it is ignorance it is usually an editorial decision. I mean, you can't have idealistic and conscientious writers influencing public opinion against Big Co if you need their ad spending, can you?
- rayiner 12y ago
  I don't think your average customer assumes anything about what their service payment covers. I bet most think it just covers the wire into their house. Would the perceived regulatory need go away if cable companies made clear: "we reserve the right to charge the sources of data you download, not withstanding the service charges for your connection." I mean, its like Hulu Plus. The fact they charge a fee doesn't preclude them from charging advertisers to market to you.
- majormajor 12y ago
  Does net neutrality fix this issue? If Comcast wants the extra money they're trying to get from Netflix/Level 3/etc, but is politically prohibited from doing so, then can't they still just raise end-user's prices? That would look worse from a Comcast PR perspective, but with no competition—which lets them get away with letting the quality of service degrade—does that really matter? This (especially in terms of Netflix vs Comcast) seems like a massive distraction from the underlying competition issue. A distraction Comcast is probably happy to have.
rayiner 12y ago
It annoys me that people invoke Chinese dissidents, MIT OpenCourseware, and Wikipedia in the context of an issue that, to date, only involves for-profit companies. I don't get how people can work up a moralistic fervor over a dispute between two giant highly profitable industries. Its not that I don't believe that the internet is a tool to deliver education to the underserved, or give voice to the politically marginalized, its that there is no indication that these aspects of the internet are at all threatened. Maybe I'm cynical, but I'm skeptical when these for-profit enterprises cloak themselves in internet utopianism to lobby for policies that have the primary or even sole effect of giving themselves a bigger slice of consumer entertainment dollars. And if core values are threatened, why not have laws narrowly tailored to that danger? Why not just make it illegal for ISP's to discriminate against websites based on politics, race, etc? Surely that'd be easier to get passed, and people would be happy, if that's what this all was really about.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >an issue that, to date, only involves for-profit companies. Because that isn't what this is. The arguments between these massive companies are deciding the future of peer-to-peer communications on the internet. If the ones who own the wires win, the internet will be officially divided into two classes: servers and clients. Netflix will still be as fast as it ever was (if not faster) if it pays, and if it doesn't, the wire-owners' new replacements will be just as fast as Netflix was. All of the current players will be making massive content and distribution deals with each other, and the internet will become cable TV. There's no technical reason that the internet has to be structured that way. This is all just massive incumbents locking out all small fry, and consequently all newcomers. The scale this is being played out in is so large that Netflix is really the newcomer in the situation; this is not just a matter of protecting an oligarchy of entertainment providers, but even a war between content producers and content distributors that has implications that affect how fast the traffic between you and your mother will be, and what programs you will be allowed to use to produce and receive that traffic. Ultimately it's a defense of a primitive accumulation. Some people own the wires because they were first. We can either let them manipulate the market so all of their vendors have razor-thin margins and all of their consumers have the most constrained agreements and highest prices, or restrict the right of the owners to shape and filter traffic for business purposes.
KaiserPro 12y ago
Arghh. This simply isn't how the internet works. Everyone pays for bandwidth, You all pay an ISP for x amount of bits per second, and y amount of transit. You pay more, for more. Unless you live in the US and you've been fucked by the incumbent monopoly. If you're netflix, you pay a tier 1 carrier for bandwidth. as you get bigger you pay for an CDN. Bigger still, you make your own. (YMMV of course.) to make it super cost effective, you negotiate your own peering agreement directly, as its cheaper than using cogent/level3 + akami and the like. (hence why google has so much dark fiber.) The whole two tier internet business, has always been the case. Thats why there is both UDP and TCP. Thats why there is a priority header. Thats why there is QoS. Yes people say that peering is free. They are simply wrong. To peer you need bandwith, which requires cables in the ground. Places like LONAP and LINX exist for mutual benefit. However at LINX private interchange traffic has been much larger than "public" interchange for years
- SkynetSystems 12y ago
  You pay more, for more, if it costs more to give you more. In this case it is not costing these internet service providers a single dime to fulfill Netflix's bandwidth. Do you think the same companies would be willing to offer a vastly reduced rate to the millions of older subscribers who only take an internet package to keep in touch with their kids on Facebook and Skype and maybe read some news? No, they won't. They are only interested in increasing costs for everyone, without actually delivering anything more. This is artificial scarcity and extortion, exactly the same thing the mobile companies like Verizon are doing. Prove to us that their networks are currently at maximum capacity and that Netflix's bandwidth is taxing their network beyond that capacity. Less we forget, these companies built their networks with money stolen from tax payers in returned for broken promises.
- bdamm 12y ago
  I agree with your general message; this freedom for all is confusing to me because it's not at all natural for the operating companies. Your statement about UDP is wrong though. TCP vs UDP is not a two-tier mechanism for quality. UDP delivers more effective throughput in most cases, as long as the application doesn't need the features that TCP provides. Consider that most TCP connections start with a UDP exchange for the DNS resolution. Even in conditions where you own all the bandwidth you may wish to use UDP.
pessimizer 12y ago
We need a chairman of the FCC that is old enough that they'll retire afterwards. Nobody wants to be the one who pulls the trigger on common carrier because they all plan to work at telecom, cable companies, and radio networks after they step down. Of course, there's still speaking fees.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Tom Wheeler is 66. Before becoming FCC chairman, he was managing director at a VC fund that funded early stage companies. He has also founded several companies. He was also on the board of directors of EarthLink, which is a competitive ISP with interests adverse to the entrenched cable companies. Aside from a stint at NCTA in the 80's, long before they were in the IsP business, his business background is far more skewed in favor of Internet companies.
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
Honest question: has bandwidth providing costs actually grown very much, or are ISPs just profit hungry and try to rip off everything they can? Because if it's the first one, something should actually be changed for them to compensate.

72 points by chebureki 12y ago

Somewhat related, but I made a small site to help the average internet "user" understand what net neutrality is and why it's important: http://net-neutrality.io/ http://net-neutrality.io/ I'm not quite sure where to advertise it, does HN have any suggestions?

_red 12y ago
Forget the average user, can you explain in detail how you envision this to work and be administrated at a network level? So I'm a packet, leaving my computer...what happens now and what laws govern me? So for the NN supporters have been very high on rhetoric and appalling low on details, which is always a prescription for legislative disaster.
- belorn 12y ago
  I will not permit considerations of market share, political affiliation, nationality, or social standing to interfere between my duty to send packages from A to B. - The ISP oath. Neither political storms nor greed nor trickery nor monopolies stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed routes. - Internet Service creed
- TheCowboy 12y ago
  Accusing "NN supporters" of having nothing but hollow rhetoric is extremely disingenuous, and I find it hard to believe that even a casual reader of HN would not be able to find out more. There is plenty of information and details out there supporting this idea, how it could and should be implemented, along with this being, as the article says, a "generally accepted norm" for a long time now.
- bandushrew 12y ago
  I love the implication that it is somehow incumbent on NN supporters to educate you about how the internet works.....and the additional implication that there is a single set of laws that govern it. If you actually understand neither the technical details, or the legal aspects, maybe you should take responsibility for educating yourself? or, at the very least, avoid making deprecating comments about those who know more than yourself?
thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
Hey Luke, I'd recommend applying for http://taskforce.is http://taskforce.is and sending Sina an email(his contact details are available on the application form). Ask for access to our mailing list and shoot off a group message, we have a wide ranged of politically devout developers.

vfclists 12y ago

The usual and expected hatchet job from a main stream media stalwart. Neglecting the fact the fact digging up the ground to place cable, which is what the customer is actually paying for is entirely different from wiring up interconnects at core exchanges, which costs virtually nothing in comparison. The customer pays the last mile provider to go fetch with the understanding that what they pay covers everything the provider is supposed to go fetch with some profit added on. Then the provider goes to stiff the content provider for a share of their income, or else throttles the content provider which is essentially robbing the customer of a service they've already paid for. Why can't the NY Times put it this plainly and simply?

wavefunction 12y ago
Maybe they have visions of a NYTimes "news channel" added to your internet service that you pay for and receive whether you want it or not. Greed or ignorance are generally my first guesses when trying to analyze what appears to be propaganda.
- vfclists 12y ago
  It is mostly greed. If it is ignorance it is usually an editorial decision. I mean, you can't have idealistic and conscientious writers influencing public opinion against Big Co if you need their ad spending, can you?
rayiner 12y ago
I don't think your average customer assumes anything about what their service payment covers. I bet most think it just covers the wire into their house. Would the perceived regulatory need go away if cable companies made clear: "we reserve the right to charge the sources of data you download, not withstanding the service charges for your connection." I mean, its like Hulu Plus. The fact they charge a fee doesn't preclude them from charging advertisers to market to you.
majormajor 12y ago
Does net neutrality fix this issue? If Comcast wants the extra money they're trying to get from Netflix/Level 3/etc, but is politically prohibited from doing so, then can't they still just raise end-user's prices? That would look worse from a Comcast PR perspective, but with no competition—which lets them get away with letting the quality of service degrade—does that really matter? This (especially in terms of Netflix vs Comcast) seems like a massive distraction from the underlying competition issue. A distraction Comcast is probably happy to have.

rayiner 12y ago

It annoys me that people invoke Chinese dissidents, MIT OpenCourseware, and Wikipedia in the context of an issue that, to date, only involves for-profit companies. I don't get how people can work up a moralistic fervor over a dispute between two giant highly profitable industries. Its not that I don't believe that the internet is a tool to deliver education to the underserved, or give voice to the politically marginalized, its that there is no indication that these aspects of the internet are at all threatened. Maybe I'm cynical, but I'm skeptical when these for-profit enterprises cloak themselves in internet utopianism to lobby for policies that have the primary or even sole effect of giving themselves a bigger slice of consumer entertainment dollars. And if core values are threatened, why not have laws narrowly tailored to that danger? Why not just make it illegal for ISP's to discriminate against websites based on politics, race, etc? Surely that'd be easier to get passed, and people would be happy, if that's what this all was really about.

pessimizer 12y ago
>an issue that, to date, only involves for-profit companies. Because that isn't what this is. The arguments between these massive companies are deciding the future of peer-to-peer communications on the internet. If the ones who own the wires win, the internet will be officially divided into two classes: servers and clients. Netflix will still be as fast as it ever was (if not faster) if it pays, and if it doesn't, the wire-owners' new replacements will be just as fast as Netflix was. All of the current players will be making massive content and distribution deals with each other, and the internet will become cable TV. There's no technical reason that the internet has to be structured that way. This is all just massive incumbents locking out all small fry, and consequently all newcomers. The scale this is being played out in is so large that Netflix is really the newcomer in the situation; this is not just a matter of protecting an oligarchy of entertainment providers, but even a war between content producers and content distributors that has implications that affect how fast the traffic between you and your mother will be, and what programs you will be allowed to use to produce and receive that traffic. Ultimately it's a defense of a primitive accumulation. Some people own the wires because they were first. We can either let them manipulate the market so all of their vendors have razor-thin margins and all of their consumers have the most constrained agreements and highest prices, or restrict the right of the owners to shape and filter traffic for business purposes.

KaiserPro 12y ago

Arghh. This simply isn't how the internet works. Everyone pays for bandwidth, You all pay an ISP for x amount of bits per second, and y amount of transit. You pay more, for more. Unless you live in the US and you've been fucked by the incumbent monopoly. If you're netflix, you pay a tier 1 carrier for bandwidth. as you get bigger you pay for an CDN. Bigger still, you make your own. (YMMV of course.) to make it super cost effective, you negotiate your own peering agreement directly, as its cheaper than using cogent/level3 + akami and the like. (hence why google has so much dark fiber.) The whole two tier internet business, has always been the case. Thats why there is both UDP and TCP. Thats why there is a priority header. Thats why there is QoS. Yes people say that peering is free. They are simply wrong. To peer you need bandwith, which requires cables in the ground. Places like LONAP and LINX exist for mutual benefit. However at LINX private interchange traffic has been much larger than "public" interchange for years

SkynetSystems 12y ago
You pay more, for more, if it costs more to give you more. In this case it is not costing these internet service providers a single dime to fulfill Netflix's bandwidth. Do you think the same companies would be willing to offer a vastly reduced rate to the millions of older subscribers who only take an internet package to keep in touch with their kids on Facebook and Skype and maybe read some news? No, they won't. They are only interested in increasing costs for everyone, without actually delivering anything more. This is artificial scarcity and extortion, exactly the same thing the mobile companies like Verizon are doing. Prove to us that their networks are currently at maximum capacity and that Netflix's bandwidth is taxing their network beyond that capacity. Less we forget, these companies built their networks with money stolen from tax payers in returned for broken promises.
bdamm 12y ago
I agree with your general message; this freedom for all is confusing to me because it's not at all natural for the operating companies. Your statement about UDP is wrong though. TCP vs UDP is not a two-tier mechanism for quality. UDP delivers more effective throughput in most cases, as long as the application doesn't need the features that TCP provides. Consider that most TCP connections start with a UDP exchange for the DNS resolution. Even in conditions where you own all the bandwidth you may wish to use UDP.

pessimizer 12y ago

We need a chairman of the FCC that is old enough that they'll retire afterwards. Nobody wants to be the one who pulls the trigger on common carrier because they all plan to work at telecom, cable companies, and radio networks after they step down. Of course, there's still speaking fees.

rayiner 12y ago
Tom Wheeler is 66. Before becoming FCC chairman, he was managing director at a VC fund that funded early stage companies. He has also founded several companies. He was also on the board of directors of EarthLink, which is a competitive ISP with interests adverse to the entrenched cable companies. Aside from a stint at NCTA in the 80's, long before they were in the IsP business, his business background is far more skewed in favor of Internet companies.

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

Honest question: has bandwidth providing costs actually grown very much, or are ISPs just profit hungry and try to rip off everything they can? Because if it's the first one, something should actually be changed for them to compensate.