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I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

latimes.com

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Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#111

Post by extra88 »

dingo_bat wrote: post #61
extra88 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those appear to be economists, not Internet domain specialists. Less than half agree or strongly agree and in the weighted chart, a whopping 41% are Uncertain, which suggests they recognize that they don't know much about the subject. Many of the comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully.

> 41% are Uncertain, which suggests they recognize that they don't know much about the subject > comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully So according to this reasoning no matter what answer you give, you don't understand the issue. > Those appear to be economists, not Internet domain specialists. NN is about regulating the internet. Economists are experts in t…

>> comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully > So according to this reasoning no matter what answer you give, you don't understand the issue.

I'm not referring to their responses, I'm referring to the comments quoted in the table below the charts. Some indicate clear ignorance of the subject. Others acknowledge pitfalls while handwaving them away.

This comment is ignorant and hand-wavy:"Seems like those who cause congestion should pay more. I know some worry that ISPs will play favorites, but that should be preventable." The question posed is whether content providers should pay ISPs, but this first sentence talks about those who cause congestion, it's the ISP's customer causing the congestion! Then he acknowledges ISPs playing favorites but assumes it's preventable. It is preventable, by having regulations that require net neutrality, what else is there?

Some economists are experts in the domain of regulation. These economists were not picked for that specific domain knowledge and clearly not more specifically the sub-domain of regulation of this kind of service (utility or at least utility-like).

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#112

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

visarga wrote: post #40
brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably a little bit ignorant of how the internet works to make this comment. The big players are already peering with residential ISPs. That means there's a fiber line that connects Google to Comcast, to use an example. They pay for these arrangements. The little guys have to use transit. They don't have enough clout or money to peer. Without net neutrality, ISPs could start severely degrading those connect…

Users need to get directly involved in protecting the content they desire. In the long run we need a cross between TOR and bittorrent to create a distributed cache to avoid throttling. Local "metropolitan" bandwidth is very fast, hard drives have expanded 10x in 10 years. An alternative is to use WiFi mesh networks.

"a cross between TOR and bittorrent to create a distributed cache to avoid throttling"

That arguably describes Freenet, which I think actually predates both Tor and BitTorrent. It's languished in semi-obscurity for a variety of reasons: performance issues, a dearth of popular content, the possibility that your node caches illegal/unsavory data (this is implied by its approach to resisting censorship, which has been harshly criticized but which has no established alternative besides abandoning censorship-resistance as a goal)...

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#113

Post by jquery »

rectang wrote: post #99
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If murder hadn't happened in a certain area yet, would it be 'too preemptive' to outlaw it?" But even with murder, the law doesn't stop murders before they happen, but rather only acts retroactively (and that is for good reason). > "Fast lanes DO exist in other countries right now." But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem.

But the beneficiaries of your "net freedom" are a handful of regional monopoly ISPs who are protected by regulations that realistically won't ever be rolled back.

Pre-2015 - keep the govt out of our internet! 2017 - save us government we need your kind regulations!

No thanks. It’s amazing what a little bit of polishing a turd and renaming it will do.

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#114

Post by jquery »

ep103 wrote: post #107
jquery wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that. Reddit would have me believe anyone who is for market solutions to internet concerns is some sort of total anarchist who wants to burn down everything we have. I want to note that NN is something we've only never quite had for 2 years, and for the rest of the history of the internet we did not have.

That's not actually true. NN is something we've had since the foundation of the internet. The FCC has only been enforcing it the current legal framework for the last two years. Prior to 2 years ago, the FCC enforced NN without stipulating that ISPs were classified as "Title 2" communications services. Because ISPs really, really didn't want to be classified as Title 2s, whenever the FCC asked them to change their pra…

Tl;dr we didn’t have NN but we didn’t need it and now we do because.

The FTC and FCC can still enforce anticompetitive regulations. This is so much FUD.

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#115

Post by unityByFreedom »

jquery wrote: post #97
frogcoder wrote: post #77

This is how China "blocking" web site from most of the world other than China. When many sites are blocked out right, many more are accessible but painfully slow. On the other hand, if you go to any major Chinese site, it would be lightning fast. By doing this, those foreign sites are rendered almost useless.

China has net neutrality. You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers.

> China has net neutrality.

China most definitely does not. Even if they did, it'd be unenforced. State-run tech services would get preferential treatment. Actually, that's how it works now.

> I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers.

The FTC won't stop ISPs from slowing access to content they don't own. ISPs are communications services and rightly monitored by the Federal Communications Commission.

> You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues.

I don't think the above commenter was claiming NN is a solution to censorship, rather that without it, content is more silo-ed and access becomes more difficult, adding to the censorship problem. Censorship is a human problem that tech can help with.

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#117

Post by dengnan »

jquery wrote: post #97
frogcoder wrote: post #77

This is how China "blocking" web site from most of the world other than China. When many sites are blocked out right, many more are accessible but painfully slow. On the other hand, if you go to any major Chinese site, it would be lightning fast. By doing this, those foreign sites are rendered almost useless.

China has net neutrality. You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers.

I am a Chinese and I am curious starting when we had net neutrality? Every major sites has to pay all major ISPs to connect into their network so that all ISPs' customers can access the site. When you rent a server, you need to make sure that the server is connected to at least two of the major networks otherwise ISPs will throttle traffic from other competitors. It is also true that connecting servers outside the country is terribly slow if it even accessible

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#118

Post by ep103 »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #64
throwaway5752 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a dope if you don't vote. It's impolite to mention this, but it is not a political problem, but a Republican problem. A Democratic administration's FCC enacted Net Neutrality, a Republican one is attempting to dismantle it. Vote for Democrats at every level of government, in every election possible. This will change some day, but today the Republican party has lost its mind and morals. To be clear, I'm not cal…

It's worth noting that Ajit was installed by Obama

A lot of people are asking this on the various forums, but is misunderstands what actually happened.

Many of the major regulatory bodies work in the same way. At the top of the body, there is a board of political appointees. For the FCC, there are 5 commissioners.

Of these 5 Commissioners, 2 are always Democrats, and 2 are always Republicans. That last one, the chair of the committee is always the current sitting President's choice.

This is done this way, to keep some stability among the various administration heads across washington.

So during Obama's term, a Republican chair opened up on the commission when Meredith Baker resigned to lobby for NBC. That meant a Republican needed to be appointed to the commission, so Obama asked Mitch McConnell for Mitch's recommendation, and Mitch chose Ajit Pai.

When Trump took office, the sitting chair of the commission Thomas Wheeler (Obama's nominee) resigned, and Trump elevated Ajit Pai. Trump then filled Ajit Pai's Republican seat with another Republican, and now the board is majority Republican.

So Ajit Pai was not Obama's recommendation. Ajit Pai was Mitch McConnel's choice for the then open Republican Chair on the FCC Commission. Its a little strange, but this is traditionally how its always been done.

Now as to your other question: this last sentence is just conjecture, but we know from the Russia investigations that Trump had a tendency to demand loyalty pledges from his appointees, so I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised to find that Ajit Pai is marching so steadfastly towards this single policy agenda, despite all of the obvious flack and harm it is incurring on him and the nation in general.

Re: I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

#119

Post by visarga »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #67
visarga wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users need to get directly involved in protecting the content they desire. In the long run we need a cross between TOR and bittorrent to create a distributed cache to avoid throttling. Local "metropolitan" bandwidth is very fast, hard drives have expanded 10x in 10 years. An alternative is to use WiFi mesh networks.

What makes you think this peer-to-peer network wouldn't be throttled?

It has many peers. Even if it's throttled on each one, they could distribute the load.
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