FCC wants your thoughts on Net Neutrality

[dragon890x]

Net neutrality is a tricky thing.

My posts before are geared towards the general concept behind it.
True net neutrality is chaos.


Charging people for the connection to a specific location would be wrong, even though much of the internet is already regulated by the government, giving us little control.

Who's to say we don't already do it? (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, SomethingAwful, and other services that I understand are not an ISP)

However, we're smarter than what they'd like to believe.

There are ways around their barriers, and you'd better believe that we'll find them if the time comes.

It's honestly nothing to worry about.

[choof]

Originally Posted by dragon890x

True net neutrality is chaos.

Except we don't know this. The only time there was something that could be considered true net neutrality was in the early 90s, when the internet was still growing. We've never seen true net neutrality on a large scale.

Maybe in theory it is chaos, but "true" net neutrality might be better than giving ISPs free reign on how data is moved along the internet.

[dragon890x]

Originally Posted by choof

Maybe in theory it is chaos, but "true" net neutrality might be better than giving ISPs free reign on how data is moved along the internet.

Yeah, let's just hope for the best. :3

[Razor]

Comcast plans to switch over to data usage billing.

rip streaming twitch, playing games and watching netflix

[gold stinger]

Originally Posted by Razor

rip streaming twitch

I can't even fucking stream twitch because Bell wants to charge me 69.99 for 2.5mbps down / 0.5mbps up

IN THE MIDDLE OF TORONTO, NOT EVEN RURAL/SUBURBS.

asdadfksdfhkgskfjhkjdgksfgldhk

[Pseudo Enigma]

Originally Posted by gold stinger

I can't even fucking stream twitch because Bell wants to charge me 69.99 for 2.5mbps down / 0.5mbps up

IN THE MIDDLE OF TORONTO, NOT EVEN RURAL/SUBURBS.

asdadfksdfhkgskfjhkjdgksfgldhk

1: good/stable speeds
2: infinite download bandwidth (not upload?)

if you're in ontario, pick 1.

edit:

Originally Posted by devonin

The best description of the issue.

just watched this. Now I understand what is going on. But is this something a Canadian can take part in? Kinda sucks hearing about this stuff happening south of the border. If that's allowed there, then there's no telling what crazy shit they'll finally enforce up here. D:

[devonin]

Originally Posted by gold stinger

I can't even fucking stream twitch because Bell wants to charge me 69.99 for 2.5mbps down / 0.5mbps up

IN THE MIDDLE OF TORONTO, NOT EVEN RURAL/SUBURBS.

asdadfksdfhkgskfjhkjdgksfgldhk

Teksavvy: 25 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 300GB, 41.95. Same thing with unlimited bandwidth 59.95

[gold stinger]

That's why I really hate old buildings now

and on top of that my building is covered in construction in all directions. The only reason they didn't rip my building down is because there's an elementary school right next to it.

I've tried to convince my mom and brother to switch to Teksavvy or Start Communications but they have all been super stubborn about it because they don't like change.

[choof]

Originally Posted by Pseudo Enigma

just watched this. Now I understand what is going on. But is this something a Canadian can take part in? Kinda sucks hearing about this stuff happening south of the border. If that's allowed there, then there's no telling what crazy shit they'll finally enforce up here. D:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

[Cavernio]

I feel really dumb about a lot of this. I'm lost dragon890x, I simply do not understand what you're getting at, and I want to.

Regarding throttling certain types of data transfers, does an ISP know, beyond where the data is coming from, what is contained in data? Isn't this part of the reason, in Canada, why Rogers and probably Bell were throttling things like MMO data, because the 'profile' of it matched torrent data which they presumed was illegal or some such? Wasn't there an appeal a few years back that changed that in Canada so they couldn't?

In Canada, isn't it rather hard to control monopolies when basically Bell and Rogers own ALL the cabling and telecommunications towers etc. anyways? I thought that's why canadian cell plans, internet etc was so expensive compared to most other countries. Even Teksavvy itself uses Rogers infrastructure and even technicians. It buys bulk bandwidth (or whatever it is they buy) from Rogers at a lower price so it still makes a tidy profit selling it for a slightly lower price than Rogers itself does.

New Brunswick has no competition besides Bell or Rogers anymore unless you decide to use satellite, because all the smaller individual companies were offered presumably ridiculous amounts of money to sell to Bell. I had highspeed DSL before most of the world, but that company sold itself to Bell and no longer exists.
Speaking of which, I believe Bell's been legally broken down from being a monopoly at least twice if not 3 times since its conception.

[choof]

I got out of bed just so I could respond to this post.

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Regarding throttling certain types of data transfers, does an ISP know, beyond where the data is coming from, what is contained in data? Isn't this part of the reason, in Canada, why Rogers and probably Bell were throttling things like MMO data, because the 'profile' of it matched torrent data which they presumed was illegal or some such? Wasn't there an appeal a few years back that changed that in Canada so they couldn't?

There are a few ways you could do this.
One way is to look at the protocol of traffic. This is done specifically with the BitTorrent protocol. An ISP can look at BitTorrent packets and make the assumption that you are downloading things illegally, even if you're torrenting the latest stable build of Ubuntu.

Another way is to filter traffic based on destination. In Rift, when I initially log on, the MMO client will actually tell me what IP address I'm establishing a connection to (at least, which character server I'm connecting to). An ISP can also look at that, and filter packets.

In Canada, isn't it rather hard to control monopolies when basically Bell and Rogers own ALL the cabling and telecommunications towers etc. anyways? I thought that's why canadian cell plans, internet etc was so expensive compared to most other countries. Even Teksavvy itself uses Rogers infrastructure and even technicians. It buys bulk bandwidth (or whatever it is they buy) from Rogers at a lower price so it still makes a tidy profit selling it for a slightly lower price than Rogers itself does.

This is a large part of what net neutrality aims to control.

[dragon890x]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

I'm lost dragon890x, I simply do not understand what you're getting at, and I want to.

I gave my thoughts on net neutrality.



When attempting to catch people who are illegally torrenting, most will look for connections that are not encrypted in any way, or users who are openly broadcasting their location.
If you are not taking measures to hide yourself, your information is wide open for everyone who is active within the torrent to see.

I'll give you a story of something my friend went through not too long ago.

He started running a seed box and didn't setup encryption. Not even a week later, a letter came in from his ISP stating that they received a message which claims he is distributing copyrighted material. The message demands for it to be taken down, and for a prompt payment of $250 to be sent in the mail.

My friend replied claiming that a software update reset the admin credentials on his torrent portal to (admin/admin). Due to the credentials being reset, someone other than himself was able to log in and setup a torrent without his permission. He mentioned that the demand for payment seems like a method of extortion, and he has no intentions of paying. The most he would do is remove the torrent. His ISP dropped the case.

[choof]

Your friend is an idiot for setting up a seedbox without encryption.
Just saying.

[Pseudo Enigma]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

In Canada, isn't it rather hard to control monopolies when basically Bell and Rogers own ALL the cabling and telecommunications towers etc. anyways? I thought that's why canadian cell plans, internet etc was so expensive compared to most other countries. Even Teksavvy itself uses Rogers infrastructure and even technicians. It buys bulk bandwidth (or whatever it is they buy) from Rogers at a lower price so it still makes a tidy profit selling it for a slightly lower price than Rogers itself does.

What I get from what's happening in the states is that if the FCC is allowed to do what it wants, something like the equivalent of Rogers and Bell merging would be allowed. At this point, I'd already say we have monopolies going on with Rogers and Bell. Between the two of them, they control all other internet companies. As I said in the thread Choof linked at the beginning of the discussion, it is impossible to find an internet company that doesn't deal with Rogers or Bell. I'd go so far to say that they're the same company, but are getting around the rule by pretending they are two different companies altogether.

I'm not sure how it works in the states, but I assume it hasn't gotten that far yet. That's why it's important to end it down there before it starts. Or I might be full of shit.

probably

[rushyrulz]

Originally Posted by article

The Federal Communications Commission approved a proposal for a controversial set of new net neutrality rules this morning that advocates say could undermine the very principals

How am I supposed to take this article seriously?

[reuben_tate]

The principal is your pal.

Anyways, the video that Devonin posted was very informative and I thought the analogy they were using was pretty neat. They make a point in the video that they are allowed to control the flow of data based on its content but they are not held legally liable for the content in the data that is being sent. To me, that is just silly.

I think one of the big issues is that in many places, ISP's either control the market in an monopolistic or oligopolistic manner. Unfortunately, the barriers to entry in the ISP market is quite high. I'm not sure what the best solution to this problem is, but it is definitely something to be concerned about.

[rushyrulz]

Originally Posted by gold stinger

If were going to be talking about criminals on the internet and such in question, why don't the NSA do something about it?

Oh yeah that's right, they can't keep up, and they only deal with big cases, one at a time. (At least, from the results they are pouring out that make it to public eye...)

Murica

[Arntonach]

I'd so love net neturality right about now, what with comcast holding us hostage until we deleted torrent data (an ocremix torrent no less :/ ) to random outages we can't complain about. It'd be nice if some of the original competetion came back, but small town woes. ;-;

[gold stinger]

If y'all getting held hostage by comcast, wouldn't people make some loops through their security? Maybe getting someone you trust to download the torrent, and then uploading a .zip/.7z/.rar to a different location so it isn't registered as a torrent?

I'm sure some folk even on this forum with decent internet would be willing to reach out to you and provide that help given the situation, or elsewhere on the internet. God knows I would, but Bell is giving me crap internet, and can barely get proper speeds to the internet myself. Takes me hours beyond hours to download a torrent with a reasonable size in the 1-5 gigabyte range.

edit: ironically got this just now in the form of DNS Hijack.

It's great to be almost unable to afford crappy internet.

[Pseudo Enigma]

Originally Posted by gold stinger

I'm sure some folk even on this forum with decent internet would be willing to reach out to you and provide that help given the situation, or elsewhere on the internet. God knows I would, but Bell is giving me crap internet, and can barely get proper speeds to the internet myself. Takes me hours beyond hours to download a torrent with a reasonable size in the 1-5 gigabyte range.

the fuck? I guess individual companies like Comwave/Teksavvy etc don't have this problem. Worst I've encountered with Comwave is suddenly the internet slows down to a shitty speed for a few hours making it impossible to use anything but messaging clients.

I'd say get off Bell, but if you do be prepared to be slapped with $200 in fees for loopholes. I can't even remember what my mom did to deserve hers. Same with Rogers ($1000?). If you really can get off it, do it.

Edit: actually what makes me most mad about internet here is the fact that we get next to no upload speeds or bandwidth for it. It sucks not being able to seed good torrents.