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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

blog.mozilla.org

441–450 of 452 posts

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#441
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Agreed. Though I would prefer that we do whatever we can to identify and implement mechanisms to increase competition. I want new ISP options, and several of them, rather than just marginally better b…

How about forcing ISPs to lease the last mile to help bolster competition, they did something similar in the UK [1]. Not quite sure how that worked out for them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling#United_K...

Yes, I think that would be great!

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct. But only because - per Chaos Monkeys, Dragnet Nation, and the like - your data is already being captured, aggregated, and sold. If that's your concern, you're too late. On the other hand if your concern is specify to ISPs (as opposed to other entities you don't even know) then sure worry and complain. But at least your ISP has an incentive to not go too crazy, as the data they sell could be used to ma…

You can turn cookies off or similar, or you can choose to not use or employ such services. That the ISP can do this, without your consent - each DNS lookup, each TCP connection you're making - is a whole different thing. I think it is truly insane.

Fyi...They can, with reasonable accuracy, track you across multiple devices. And that was 3+ years ago. I'm sure it's only gotten better since.

I do agree. There are somethings you can do to mitigate things. But at some point you have to be you (e.g., FB, etc.) and as small and minor as such digital breadcrumbs might seem, they add up.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#443
That article makes little sense to me. For example:

> Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online.

Big companies are censoring your voice right now! Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and literally every other big provider is censoring online speech all the time. If it's so scary, why nobody cares? If it's not, what Mozilla is trying to say here?

> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. Without net neutrality, big Internet service providers can choose which services and content load quickly, and which move at a glacial pace.

Internet has been around for a while, and nothing like that happened, even though we didn't have current regulations in place until 2015, e.g. last two years. At which point we start asking for evidence and not just "they might do something evil"? Yes, there were shenanigans, and they were handled, way before 2015 regulations were in place.

> Net neutrality is fundamental to innovation

Again, innovation has been going on for decades without current regulations. What happened that suddenly it started requiring them?

> Net neutrality is fundamental to user choice. Without net neutrality, ISPs could decide you’ve watched too many cat videos in one day,

ISPs never did it, as far as we know, for all history of ISP existence. Why would they suddenly start now - because they want to get abandoned by users and fined by regulators (which did fine ISPs way before 2015)?

> In 2015, nearly four million people urged the FCC to protect the health of the Internet

Before 2015, the Internet was doing fine for decades. What happened between 2015 and 2017 that now we desperately need this regulation and couldn't survive without it like we did until 2015?

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#444
post #432
post #334

> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. so, I won't get 20 times faster youtube. fuck that net neutrality.

Your speed depends on the speed of your own connection, not on whether youtube has a special deal with your ISP. Net Neutrality means you are the customer of your ISP, rather than the content provider.

speed of my own connection is not sufficient to watch youtube video. youtube don't have any deal with my ISP. they just provide extra facilities on play store, youtube, facebook, dl.google.com (some isp on all google services) ubuntu mirror, local server, connection with user in our country etc.

you probably won't want to spent half of your salary to watch youtube and install a package faster.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention POTS goes everywhere and provides basically the same service to everyone at roughly the same price nationwide. And it works even if the power is out. If broadband stood still at the speed it's at right now (my not-impressive suburban area is 40-60mbps) but matched the consistency and affordability of POTS nationwide, we would be in a far better place than we are now.

It puts a smile on my face every time someone refers to 60Mbps as not impressive... I live in a rural area, that is true, but it isn't that under populated or that far from a city. And we can get 6Mbps tops, unless we go to Verizon and pay per gig. Oh wait, actually Verizon service is pretty terrible here too.

Yeah I knew some people would say "60mb is really fast" while some others would say "I can't live without 1gig". For more populated areas in the US, 60mbps is pretty average these days, and if we spread that around to everyone equally I think we'd all be better off.

My grandparents were on T-Mobile for their Internet access until T-Mobile focused their tower in the opposite direction and they had to switch back to satellite Internet. They lost the ability to reliably Skype with their great-granddaughter, which is an absolute shame.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#447
post #18

I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. This is a valid question and shouldn't be downvoted so others can learn from the discussion.

You don't understand why a talking point that's been attacked and discredited every single time it's been brought up, every single time net neutrality is rearing its head is downvoted? Why don't you just honestly say: "stop downvoting" instead of feigning this absurd obtuseness. There were 7 top level replies to the comment before you came along, hardly lacking discussion even with the downvotes.

> feigning this absurd obtuseness

Please don't post uncivilly, regardless of how disagreeable you find another comment.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn cookies off or similar, or you can choose to not use or employ such services. That the ISP can do this, without your consent - each DNS lookup, each TCP connection you're making - is a whole different thing. I think it is truly insane.

Fyi...They can, with reasonable accuracy, track you across multiple devices. And that was 3+ years ago. I'm sure it's only gotten better since. I do agree. There are somethings you can do to mitigate things. But at some point you have to be you (e.g., FB, etc.) and as small and minor as such digital breadcrumbs might seem, they add up.

Using Facebook is a rather large bread "crumb" though. Not using it is easy enough and you're making it easier for your other privacy-conscious friends to do the right thing.

I don't know anyone who would fault me for not being on Facebook (yes I know this has a strong selection bias). Only time was at a convenience store, looking a bit puzzled I had to scan my ID-card in some device (to buy cigarettes[0]), the guy explained this was announced on Facebook, I (completely neutral, matter-of-factly, already having complied with the ID-device thing) replied I don't have an account on Facebook which he took as a cue to start some anti-privacy diatribe at me. My guess he was probably having a bad day, possibly from other people giving him a much harder time about the ID thing. I finished the transaction, excused myself because I (really) had to catch a bus, and wished him a very nice day.

My point is, when I look around, it seems like Facebook is going the way of the cigarettes. The majority of people (that I know) know of at least one or two scandalous things that are deeply wrong about the way Facebook treats privacy and manipulates its users. Of those people, a good chunk hate it, really want to quit, but feel they can't due to social pressure or addiction. Just like cigarettes. Others make excuses about convenience, little vices, relaxing. Just like cigarettes.

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember that you could smoke in trains, bars, in restaurants while people were still eating 2 metres next to you. As late as the early 90s. And only after those bans people started to dare to ask if you could maybe smoke outside, in home situations, even if they're the guests and it's your home (I was younger and inconsiderater).

If you don't remember you maybe also don't remember how thoroughly ingrained the social act of smoking was in society. Only a few decades ago, nobody could imagine where we are today. Smoking was just so normal, even if you didn't really, you would occasionally, your friends would offer, people just liked it too much, were addicted too much.

The almost-entirely-non-smoking-everywhere society we have today was seen as an impossibility. We could never get there, we couldn't change or impose, people wanted it too much. And it was a hard transition before it got momentum, but it did in the end. I personally, as a smoker, welcomed these bans, because I figured it would make it easier for me to quit (hint: if you're addicted, you still have to quit by yourself. those bans maybe helped me the first 5% of quitting).

The point is, it may seem impossible to imagine a way out of this anti-privacy swamp. But it's not too late. Just remember the cigarettes and how far we got. DON'T let anyone tell you it's useless to refrain from using surveillance tech X just because "you're going to be tracked any way because P, Q and R" (being your phone, CCTV and the NSA). The fight is NOT lost, not at all. It's just getting started, now that people are slowly realizing they don't actually really want this, they are mostly made to want this, and more and more people want it to stop, and it would help if only everybody else would stop shoving it in their face.

Just because it seems impossible now doesn't mean we should roll over, curl up and stop voicing your dissent, ever.

Then maybe our kids (or other people's kids--who didn't ask for this either) can grow up in a society where they're not quite as pervasively tracked and surveilled as our generation.

If it helps maybe to imagine the next impossible thing, imagine everybody securely wiping the exabytes of private data they've collected on us so far. I really can't see that happening either and it kind of gives me hope in a weird "wishing on a star" kind of way, because other important things used to seem just as impossible.

[0] I've quit since. It's hard. Very hard. Unfathomably harder for some people than others. I will never judge an addict in my life.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fyi...They can, with reasonable accuracy, track you across multiple devices. And that was 3+ years ago. I'm sure it's only gotten better since. I do agree. There are somethings you can do to mitigate things. But at some point you have to be you (e.g., FB, etc.) and as small and minor as such digital breadcrumbs might seem, they add up.

Using Facebook is a rather large bread "crumb" though. Not using it is easy enough and you're making it easier for your other privacy-conscious friends to do the right thing. I don't know anyone who would fault me for not being on Facebook (yes I know this has a strong selection bias). Only time was at a convenience store, looking a bit puzzled I had to scan my ID-card in some device (to buy cigarettes[0]), the guy e…

But NOT being on FB is also a signal. A signal I presume can be detected and noted somewhere. Frankly, I don't think staying off FB is enough. And not being there, should you make the evening news for some strange reason, will mean you're labeled as antisocial, loner, etc.

Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again

#450
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards." In other words, Facebook and Twitter.

No. More like if you are on Comcast, you can't access Twitter. If you're on AT&T, you can't access Facebook. When you sign up for your ISP, you get to choose between Amazon and Netflix, and you can't change your mind without paying someone to come out and lay new line if you're even one of the tiny few lucky enough to have more than one ISP that serves your home.

I don't know if this particular legislation would allow this, but this the path that I fear we're heading down.

The flyer you'll be getting from the company who owns the line coming to your house: https://imgur.com/muJfxMQ

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