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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

blog.mozilla.org

161–170 of 452 posts

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#162
It is really a pity that in the US, net neutrality was never established by law, but "just" on institutional level.

Here in the EU, things are much slower and the activists were somewhat envious how fast net neutrality was established in the US, while in the EU this is a really slow legislation process. But now it seems the this slower way is at least more sustainable. We still don't have real net neutrality in the EU, but the achievements we have so far are more durable, and can't be overthrown that quickly.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#163

I tried commenting on the proceeding at the FCC site but I keep getting service unavailable errors. The FCC site itself is up but conveniently we the public cannot comment on the issue.

I have attempted to comment, but the form won't let me select a state. When I submit the form, I get an error telling me that I must select a state.

Does anyone else have this issue?

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I pay my ISP to serve the content I want, not the content they want.

> not the content they want This is FUD. Any ISP that decided to break the internet is going to fail. All they'd do is offer other services as alternatives to the big dollar ones like YouTube. A last mile ISP does two core things. It arbitrages bandwidth for residential usage patterns and it deals with the last mile communications link. Net Neutrality forces a very specific arbitrage strategy on ISPs that severely li…

> Any ISP that decided to break the internet is going to fail

When there is a lack of competition then they don't fail and continue to become worse as people have no choice.

We don't need "innovation" for last-mile connectivity, cheap affordable access is all people want and the math works out fine. The problem is political with governmental regulations that make it incredibly difficult to get access to customers to serve them in the first place, and these blocking efforts are usually lobbied for and funded by the very ISPs that have no competition.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#165
post #39

http://gofccyourself.com (redirect) Edit: If it stays blank after redirect it's because it (FCC's site) can't handle the load, or [conspiracy theory].

The search page is now working again. I filled out the Express page but the submit form wouldn't do anything (background 503 error). It took 6 attempts to succeed.

Make sure to keep hitting submit to until you see the success page.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#166
Honest question, but is Net Neutrality the answer to these problems?

A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized.

Is the same true of the Internet? I absolutely agree that ISPs that are also in the entertainment business shouldn't be allowed to prioritize their own data, but that seems to me an anti-trust problem, not a net neutrality problem. I also agree that ISPs should be regulated like utilities, but even utilities are allowed to limit service to maintain their infrastructure (see: rolling blackouts).

Perhaps I simply do not understand NN and perhaps organizations haven't done a good job of explaining it, but I don't know that these problems are not best solved by the FTC, not the FCC.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#167

Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.” Not just harder. Infinitely more dangerous. Probably the scariest implications for NN being gutted are those around loss of anonymity through the Internet. ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing hi…

I'm not American, so please correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see any proof of this whole 'sell your internet history' complaint that seems to be blatently copied by everyone without any research. The way I understand it is that ISPs can sell anonymized data from groups of users. Like: people who visit news.ycombinator.com generally also visit stackoverflow. I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual…

> I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet history if the website uses HTTPS.

Your ISP can (and likely does) monitor your DNS queries, which (as far as I know) are not encrypted.

Personally I think the net neutrality stuff is a tad overblown. I'd vote for maintaining it, but I've never been particularly convinced by the whole "surveillance state/beyond-orwellian/ISP censoring your speech" arguments that get thrown around on HN, among other places.

I think the problems with ISPs are more practical: they overcharge, provide shitty service, have no incentive to upgrade their infrastructure, and clearly collude with one another. Therefore they need to be regulated.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#168

Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.” Not just harder. Infinitely more dangerous. Probably the scariest implications for NN being gutted are those around loss of anonymity through the Internet. ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing hi…

I'm not American, so please correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see any proof of this whole 'sell your internet history' complaint that seems to be blatently copied by everyone without any research. The way I understand it is that ISPs can sell anonymized data from groups of users. Like: people who visit news.ycombinator.com generally also visit stackoverflow. I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual…

>I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet history if the website uses HTTPS.

The ISP could monitor your DNS requests or the SNI[1] in the TLS handshake.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#170
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet history if the website uses HTTPS. Charge users extra fees for "premium service" unless they agree to let the ISP their traffic.

How does that change how HTTPS works?

It doesn't, but the ISP still know what pages you went to.

If they want to determine your political leanings your browsing history is enough.

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