[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by idiffer

um...what exactly does that article want to say "in plain language"? i read only "blah blah blah". i mean, really, you expect ISP's to just invent smth to differentiate between legal and nonlegal content in a consistent bug free manner in the near future???

I don't take all those mentions of "lawful" all that seriously. They could, in theory, perform some kind of deep packet inspection to see exactly what you download (kinda like reading your mail), but, legal ramifications and public outcry aside, I doubt they want the hassle. It'd cost them money, it might make them liable when something goes wrong, and so on.

No, I think they put those there to leave themselves some wiggle room if the government or copyright holders want them to blacklist certain sites. They want to be able to say yes, which would technically be some kind of net neutrality violation. As for how - easy, just drop whatever datagram carries the blacklisted addresses (like reading the address on the envelop and deciding whether to deliver the letter or trash it).

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

No, I'm talking about a "second Internet," created through point-to-point wireless connections. It's been brought up in theoretical discussions about totalitarian government restrictions on the "true" Internet. Not talking about stealing software or the neighbor's wifi.

Yeah, and if you can do that on the cheap, become an ISP. There's a lot of money to be made in rural areas for something like that.

The truth of the matter is that we don't build and maintain expensive infrastructure for the fun of it. We do it because we need them. The technology for wireless broadband exists, but the initial investments being what they are, it'd be prohibitively expensive for the first adopters. Oh, I doubt they government would let you pull something like that on a big scale - not without paying for the frequency range.

It's not legal vs. non-legal that they really want to differentiate (though I'm sure content gatekeepers would love to do that, but a packet is a packet is a packet and it's hard to tell the difference between them).

The fear is that with "differentiation of services" they could potentially charge you the same way cable companies do--if you want sites that stress their bandwidth more (i.e. streaming video) you'd have to pay more. Like adding on the movie channel package to your cable TV.

Yeah, god forbid that you pay for what you consume. (I don't know the pricing scheme in the states, but I have to confess - in France, we don't. We all pay the same price for our internet (bundled with phone, and "cable" TV). I haven't looked at the ISP accounts, but it's likely those who download a lot are thus sponsored by those who only have internet for email and some light surfing. However, I don't see anything shocking about the idea of the guys using more of the system resources putting more money toward its maintenance and expansion than those who'd just have soon have stayed with dialup speeds.) The problem is elsewhere.

This is bad for freedom on the Internet because it'd give certain sites--and thus certain viewpoints and opinions and socio-political leanings--greater priority and visibility than others. Net neutrality in America is focused on making sure all data is treated equally, so that all speech is treated equally and in accordance to the First Amendment.

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think the First Amendment gives you the right to your own personal soapbox. It just says you won't be molested if you buy or rent one and use it.

ISPs and content providers don't like this because they consider the Internet to be their property and they should be able to do with it what they want. When it actually belongs to everyone.

No, it really doesn't. A lot of people own bits of it, but most people don't own any of it. The internet is made of a series of tubes, or rather, lots of cables, routers, and servers. All of which have to be paid for and maintained. It's also made of more intangible things (like websites. It just code and data, but it doesn't fall from the sky. Except maybe in the case of sites on the weather.)

While ISPs would likely restrict/charge more for sites that put greater stresses on their networks (to increase profits and reduce costs) the fear is that access could easily be denied to, say, an independent Internet blogger who posts about the ISP's shady business practices. The ISP could use this system to prevent anyone from ever seeing it.

That's veering uncomfortably close to conspiracy theory.


I think it much more likely that it's going to be about money a lot more than about politics. For example, Google and Verizon will sign an agreement, and Youtube will always be much faster than its competition. They won't be blocked, just... slower. As for your blog about how your ISP sucks... nobody will care.