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

richsnapp.com

221–230 of 294 posts

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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC. Magically, you'll almost immediately get a phone call from someone fairly high up in the company (typically executive relations or similar) that has the power to fix things and will make it right. The sad truth is that these telcos will systematically screw millions of customers with shady fees and fraudulent billing…

"The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC" This , I had to do this with Comcast because of their craptastic service ,BS, and invalid billing. Trying to cancel them I kept being passed around to ALL the wrong people and departments, hung up on, refusal to give confirmation that the service was actually cancelled. Finally figured the only way they would cancel…

Another way to deal with Comcast is to go in to their local customer service office. The people there are real, live in the same town, etc and generally can solve any issue and will do so with no BS. At least that's my experience.

When I've tried dealing with someone in their call center, it's been much more frustrating.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The quickest way to resolve all of these billing shenanigans: file a consumer complaint with the FCC" This , I had to do this with Comcast because of their craptastic service ,BS, and invalid billing. Trying to cancel them I kept being passed around to ALL the wrong people and departments, hung up on, refusal to give confirmation that the service was actually cancelled. Finally figured the only way they would cancel…

Another way to deal with Comcast is to go in to their local customer service office. The people there are real, live in the same town, etc and generally can solve any issue and will do so with no BS. At least that's my experience. When I've tried dealing with someone in their call center, it's been much more frustrating.

Unfortunately sometimes they’re woefully understaffed. When we lived in New Haven they never had a line less than 20 deep and it was clear that they just needed not to skimp on staffing because the people were working as quickly as they could.

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

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I "find reasonable" only applied to the sentence that contained it. Receiving accidental packages has nothing to do with "reasonable". If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package . That's my core point. If you receive a package that is intended for you, but it was a bona fide mistake on the company's part, you'd have to ask a lawyer as to w…

> If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package. That's my core point. If it was addressed to you, whether intended or not, the law expressly states it is yours; the relevant code section has no mental state precondition.

That's simply not true. An accidental package is not "unordered merchandise".

If it's got your address on it, but someone else's name, it's not your package and you're not entitled to it (in fact, you can't even open it).

If it's got your name and address on it, but the company meant to send it to someone else named dragonwriter instead of you, it's also not your package and you're not entitled to it.

If you order item A and the company accidentally sends you item B instead, that's not "unordered merchandise", that's a mistake, and you're not entitled to treat item B as a gift.

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package. That's my core point. If it was addressed to you, whether intended or not, the law expressly states it is yours; the relevant code section has no mental state precondition.

That's simply not true. An accidental package is not "unordered merchandise". If it's got your address on it, but someone else's name, it's not your package and you're not entitled to it (in fact, you can't even open it). If it's got your name and address on it, but the company meant to send it to someone else named dragonwriter instead of you, it's also not your package and you're not entitled to it. If you order it…

Is that a moral distinction? Then both are right. It's not 'yours', but the law says otherwise.

The reason is, the common con game where criminals would send expensive items to someone, often a recently deceased person, and demand payment. The surviving family would assume that good ol' Dad had ordered it and pay up.

The item was usually junk but with a high price tag. So the con had little to lose.

Anyway, items mailed to you without being explicitely ordered are yours to keep, legally.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I "find reasonable" only applied to the sentence that contained it. Receiving accidental packages has nothing to do with "reasonable". If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package . That's my core point. If you receive a package that is intended for you, but it was a bona fide mistake on the company's part, you'd have to ask a lawyer as to w…

> If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package. That's my core point. If it was addressed to you, whether intended or not, the law expressly states it is yours; the relevant code section has no mental state precondition.

What usually happens in my neighborhood is the demented postman delivers my neighbors packages and letters to me. This is a different situation of course and I always hand carry it to the correct address.

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they aren't guiltless either How is the bill's author/sponsor at all to blame for centurylink doing this? They could just as well be doing this without the bill existing.

It isn't, but hackernews is full of people who have fully bought into the idea that all government things are bad.

There’s been a huge propaganda campaign since the 1930s trying to roll back the New Deal. So many familiar faces and concepts owe their familiarity to a stream of corporate money which started flowing to Christian libertarian pastors, magazines, etc. and, later, televangelists and movements pushing for Eisenhower-era introductions of public displays of business-friendly Christianity. Kevin Kruse wrote a great book outlining the history:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22928900

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

#227
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…

When we lived in Carson City, Nevada, I met an attorney who worked for the legislature to draft laws based on whatever idea they came up with. He was supposed to try to keep things Constitutional, decide whether to put in severability clauses, etc. All states and the federal government hire attorneys like this.

So, if there’s a drafting error, it may not technically be the politician’s fault, but it’s not Comcast’s either.

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately even QUIC and DNS over HTTPS can't save us from the ISPs (and Enterprise ITs) that think TLS/SSL proxies are a good idea, and especially sadly things like QUIC and DNS over HTTPS may push more ISPs towards that line of thinking.

That would still require a custom cert installed on the end user device, which may not be feasible in the case of some iot devices and generally a pain for most users in general, especially as more websites pin their certificates.

Pain for the users has never stopped enterprises from doing it, sadly.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would still require a custom cert installed on the end user device, which may not be feasible in the case of some iot devices and generally a pain for most users in general, especially as more websites pin their certificates.

Pain for the users has never stopped enterprises from doing it, sadly.

That is often handled by group policy. I'm not entirely aure how pinni is handled, maybe it's disabled in ie or chrome via group policy too?
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