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CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

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Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#61

Post by behringer »

kingbirdy wrote: post #37
fpgaminer wrote: post #13

Hmmm, so if I were on CenturyLink and in the "SOL" category the following could have happened. Attempting to email my state senators to express a political opinion? Freedom of speech: Blocked. Buying from a company online, located in another state? Interstate commerce: Blocked. Trying to run an online business? Blocked. Trying to contact my kids? Blocked. My elderly grandmother is dying and family was trying to Skype…

Your constitutional protections are protections from the government, not businesses.

But in this case they were blocked due to government regulation.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#62

Post by macspoofing »

pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

>So, the fault here lies with the politician.

No it isn't. Though DNS hijacking is certainly compatible with the text of this law, so is email communication. Century Link isn't stupid.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#63

Post by jjuhl »

gronne wrote: post #40
jay-anderson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing laws feels a bit like a monkey's paw. No matter how well written a law is they often have unintended consequences or are implemented manners that weren't imagined. I don't think the bill's author/sponsor is fully to blame (they aren't guiltless either). Centurylink certain did not have to implement this requirement in the way it was done. The most depressing aspect to this is the lack competition. The author…

However: This particular law was not well written.

Are they ever?

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#64

Post by pytyper2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #20
pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

> So, the fault here lies with the politician. I disagree: the claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false. It's true that it is permitted by the state law (just as it would be permitted without any specific law on the topic at all), and even arguable that it is one means of complying with the law. (Though since the notification is not presented to some us…

If the politician does not take responsibility (accept fault) who will? Taking responsibility for the text of at least the law the sponsor has proposed and helped pass is the minimum responsibility I would expect from a legislator. What else do we elect them for? The legislator wrote a law that allowed too much interpretation, that is the fault of the legislator.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#65

Post by theptip »

pwg wrote: post #47
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, the fault here lies with the politician. I disagree: the claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false. It's true that it is permitted by the state law (just as it would be permitted without any specific law on the topic at all), and even arguable that it is one means of complying with the law. (Though since the notification is not presented to some us…

> claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false Agreed - also not the point I was making. > it's not any lawmaker’s fault that CenturyLink chose to implement pretty much the most user-hostile method imaginable Oh but it is the lawmaker's fault. It is the lawmaker's fault by writing a law that was so broadly worded as to allow Century Link to be able to perfo…

> If the law maker had written a more narrow law

It shouldn't be the lawmaker's job to specify how businesses go about doing their business. The law was written generically enough that any sensible option would satisfy it; email, postal letter, addendum to your bill, or some other "electronic communication" that the lawmakers aren't qualified to specify. This is how laws should be written.

There's absolutely no justification to CenturyLink choosing DNS hijacking over a simple email in this case, and "the law made me do it" is a particularly weak excuse.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#66

Post by pytyper2 »

bashinator wrote: post #51
pwg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false Agreed - also not the point I was making. > it's not any lawmaker’s fault that CenturyLink chose to implement pretty much the most user-hostile method imaginable Oh but it is the lawmaker's fault. It is the lawmaker's fault by writing a law that was so broadly worded as to allow Century Link to be able to perfo…

It looks to me like the use of the word "may" in the actual law lends a degree of flexibility to the implementation. A service provider *may* provide the notice [...] That does not seem like a hard requirement. Or is this a case where legalese differs from commonly-understood grammar?

Depends on what the meaning of "is" is...

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#67

Post by [deleted] »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #55

Why is this so surprising? You pay for your internet from this service provider and this is the trust you're putting in this private company. All your communication that goes down this channel is subject to their rules, and unless you encyrpt it they can do what they like. I think these kind of crappy implementations just surface a bigger problem underneath. If you don't choose your own DNS servers, if you don't have…

[deleted]

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#68

Post by peteradio »

jjuhl wrote: post #46
peteradio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws should be written specifically. It should be expected that they will go obsolete and it should be routine to expunge/replace laws as tech changes. If they meant email they should have put email.

Have you ever engaged with politicians much? I think not. What you wrote is very naive. Yes, laws should be specific, but they never will be.

I used the word "should" 4 times, never stating any expectation. What is naive about that? I realize how fucked is our current system of laws and lawmaking.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#69

Post by pwg »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #8
pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

But given the options, it's absolutely CenturyLink's fault for choosing the option they did.

Agreed, it is CL's fault for choosing the option the choose.

It is the politicians fault for writing a law that was so broad that it allowed CL the potential leeway to be able to choose the awful option they selected.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#70

Post by mkhalil »

pwg wrote: post #47
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, the fault here lies with the politician. I disagree: the claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false. It's true that it is permitted by the state law (just as it would be permitted without any specific law on the topic at all), and even arguable that it is one means of complying with the law. (Though since the notification is not presented to some us…

> claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false Agreed - also not the point I was making. > it's not any lawmaker’s fault that CenturyLink chose to implement pretty much the most user-hostile method imaginable Oh but it is the lawmaker's fault. It is the lawmaker's fault by writing a law that was so broadly worded as to allow Century Link to be able to perfo…

> under cover of being within the wording of the law. > then CL using this method would have been in clear violation of the law

DNS spoofing by an ISP a clear violation of the law? Since when?

Just because the law makers don't say email doesn't mean they mean to hijack DNS.

If someone asked you to pick up some food for them on the way home, are you doing to bring leftovers from two weeks ago because they didn't specify from where and exactly what they wanted?

Blaming this on the lawmakers doesn't make sense. ISP had a broad way to use "electronic communications" and they chose a HORRIBLE one.

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