[GPSCC-chat] Fwd: Fwd: Why Do You Need Net Neutrality?

[Seth Alan Woolley]

Cameron,

The distinction here is one of legitimate vs non-legitimate traffic.

Neutrality of all legal traffic is what is proposed.

Illegal traffic is still illegal.  That international law is not robust
enough to block spam (and Cayman phone fraud) is tragic but not fixed 
by blocking it except under the direction of the end user, who is free 
to make choices about what content to see and not see.  Spam is the cost of
communication.  Spam is everywhere if you are in a public forum.  People
have a chance to portray their message freely and you can choose to
accept it or not.  We have to deliberate on what communications we want
to restrict for everybody carefully and provide a decentralized (power)
way of doing it.  For example, people may be asked to sign up to
parental filters, but the ISP shouldn't consider it an extra cost to 
_not_ have one.  In the same vein, ISPs shouldn't consider it an extra
cost to deliver traffic to a competitor of theirs or provide cheaper
service to only approved (paid) endpoints.  That is the crux of net
neutrality, and scaring people into thinking they will get swindled (or
killed) if the state doesn't protect them is part of what the right 
loves to joke about while at the same time adoring (those scary 
terrorists!).  Opposition to Net Neutrality is very similar in my mind.

For example, IRC is a rather spam-heavy protocol, but some networks have
server-side ignoring implemented that is controlled by each client.
Many DDoS protection companies use upstream connection management to 
handle attacks in a similar fashion.

The Internet does route around damage on its own because it is
decentralized and centralized only at client request.  Net Neutrality 
ensures it remains so.

Ridiculing others for not having an informed opinion isn't going to
support your point.  If Microsoft abuses his email in a way he doesn't
approve, he will stop using them on his own.  

I see a lot of "tech savvy" people using gmail instead of hotmail, but
the fact of the matter is that gmail is the worst privacy invader of
them all.  They introduced the idea of "we'll scan your email and figure
out a demographic match by computer and deliver ads to you".

They also never make data openness a priority.  Never.  Google is the
tivoization of otherwise public data.  

Seth

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 08:02:46AM -0700, Cameron L. Spitzer wrote:
> 
> >   I think the question is who should we take advice from
> > and what do you advocate.
> 
> We should take advice from everyone and no-one.  It's irresponsible
> to delegate these things.  We should instead be educating ourselves
> so we can form our own informed opinions.  That's really where
> Greens and other progressives have fallen down.  It's part of
> the "I'm not technical" crap we pull on ourselves and each other.
> 
> I don't believe the current FCC rulemaking matters.  The cable TV
> companies have pretty much taken over the last mile, with the
> telco monopolies owning most of the rest.  If the FCC declares
> the cable Internet companies common carriers, the Fascist courts
> will call it a "taking" and throw it out.
> We should be working on two fronts.  We should be working, long
> term, for a new monopoly law.  The Sherman Act was written to
> bust the 19th Century railroad and grain trusts.  It doesn't work
> against software and communications monopolies.  Locally, we
> should be learning how the Comcast and AT&T easements and
> rights-of-way work in our cities, in our neighborhoods.
> Find out what those green and beige boxes on the corner do,
> and who got paid off to let them do it.
> 
> The other front is keeping the Internet working, which is the
> job of every Internet user.  The snug.bug address belongs
> to the Microsoft Corporation.  Do you really trust NYSE:MSFT
> with your email?  Educate yourself so you can pick a more
> trustworthy vendor, and move.  In the medium term, Comcast
> and AT&T will be attempting some censorship and other
> manipulation.  Educate yourself so you can route the stuff
> you care about around that damage.  Start looking for
> a trustworthy web proxy, and learning how to build one yourself.
> For any hope to win this thing, which is ultimately the
> battle for democracy itself, we have to own our own tools.
> "I'm not technical" is a foolish indulgence, and we have
> to outgrow it.  That's where the effort should be going.
> 
> -Cameron
> 
> 
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