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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

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Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#281

Post by Dylan16807 »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #215
grandalf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of your comments will require a bit more in-depth a response. I will do so later on today. Enjoying the discussion.

Comcast is nearly the worst internet provider and the worst company that has ever received my money. The only worse experience I've ever had is with AT&T. Comcast is also a huge content provider of crap I'd never watch: NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, E!, CNBC World. I watch a couple of shows from USA (Mr Robot) and SyFy(The Expanse) that I prefer to purchase by the season. I don't want to live in a world where those statio…

> deal with the 25ms latency

Even on that metric there's not a lot of downside vs. typical monopoly/duopoly ISPs. I have 20ms of last-mile latency on ATT.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#282

Post by marknutter »

nocman wrote: post #120
marknutter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ISPs and utility companies are natural monopolies. When you move to a new location, you're stuck with the ISPs that service that location; often just 1 ISP. This is simply not true. With the wide availability of cellular service that provides broadband speeds pretty much everyone in the country has multiple choices of ISP.

If you live near a city this is often true (at least in the US). However, there are at least two problems with this: 1) often the broadband provided by mobile services is capped and/or much more expensive than the services provided by the 1 or at best 2 non-mobile ISPs you have access to. 2) in rural areas, often you do NOT have access to anything close to the same level of broadband speeds. There are a lot of places…

Why do all people need insanely fast broadband speeds and data download limits? I think the fact that a small percentage of the population wants those speeds should not dictate what the larger percentage of the population has to pay for. NN hurts low-income internet users.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#283

Post by jimktrains2 »

tps5 wrote: post #167
apexalpha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> > 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.

HTTPS does expose the domain name in plain-text through SNI. Yes, DNS is not encrypted.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#284

Post by SkyMarshal »

Looking at Comcast's webpage on this:

http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-supports...

They're arguing that Title II Classification is not the same as Net Neutrality, with the following statement:

"Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality rules. Title II is not net neutrality. Getting rid of Title II does not mean that we are repealing net neutrality protections for American consumers.

We want to be very clear: As Brian Roberts, our Chairman and CEO stated, and as Dave Watson, President and CEO of Comcast Cable writes in his blog post today, we have and will continue to support strong, legally enforceable net neutrality protections that ensure a free and Open Internet* for our customers, with consumers able to access any and all the lawful content they want at any time. Our business practices ensure these protections for our customers and will continue to do so."*

So if Title II goes away, where do those strong, legally enforceable net neutrality protections come from? Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in the first place, it's the only effectively strong, legally enforceable way of protecting net neutrality (vs other methods with loopholes)?

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#285

Post by lightbyte »

bmelton wrote: post #187
apexalpha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The common response to this is that ISPs have access to everything you do (which is true), and that they could sell that (which is false). The regulations being overturned here are ones that have only recently taken effect, and non-anonymized, non-aggregate selling of ISP data is still outlawed by the Cable Communications Act of 1984, which protects subscriber privacy is 47USC § 551[1]. Put simply, neither the most r…

"Anonymized" aggregate data is not as anonymous as you might think. This study [1] was able to accurately de-anonymize users based on internet history and public social media 70% of the time.

[1] http://randomwalker.info/publications/browsing-history-deano...

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#286

Post by rybosome »

vivekd wrote: post #260
zmarty wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have no problem with net neutrality, how about we just let it be?

Because legislating every conceivable fear and every instance of mass panic will lead to an overly complex and overly burdensome legal system that hampers legitimate activity. In the words of Cicero, "more laws, less justice" When we start having problems with net neutrality, we can legislate against it. As we don't have any such issues, and there is no evidence that we are in imminent threat of net neutrality being…

Do you trust the Trump administration and Ajit Pai to listen to the public at that point? I sure as fuck don't. You're right that I don't know of any instances of the sort of censorship people are afraid of, but once they start happening, I have zero faith that the (current) government will protect consumers' rights.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#287

Post by lightbyte »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #284

Looking at Comcast's webpage on this: http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-supports... They're arguing that Title II Classification is not the same as Net Neutrality, with the following statement: "Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality rules. Title II is not net neutrality. Getting rid of Title II does not mean that we are repealing net neutrality protections for Americ…

>Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in the first place

Yes, Verizon v FCC [1] ruled that Title II classification is required for any sort of NN regulation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#289

Post by narrowrail »

ckozlowski wrote: post #171
apexalpha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a fair question to ask! I wrote my representative on this issue actually. I'll let you read for yourself: "On October 27, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a proposed rule that seeks to expand its regulatory jurisdiction, create a two-tiered privacy regime for different types of Internet companies, and impose data restrictions on Internet service providers. These types of regulations have…

This is well-written, but I worry it will be scanned by a staffer and replied to with a canned response. I'd be interested in hearing about any response if you care to update?

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#290

Post by lightbyte »

stinkytaco wrote: post #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 bu…

>This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized.

Bits on the wire are not a scarce resource.

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