NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: ISPs and the "Secret Service"
[ I'm going to run this one in the interests of fair play since I did quote
from Brett's item that didn't go out on the list. But responses should go
direct to Brett and/or to the NNSquad Forum. As far as Brett's
specific comments below are concerned, I'll stand on my previous
statements.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]
At 07:11 PM 11/24/2007, Lauren Weinstein wrote:
>Greetings. I'm not sending to the list several messages that
>threatened to spin us off into Neverland again, despite an amusing
>anecdote from Brett Glass, where he speculates that he was apparently
>being mischaracterized as a likely P2P user (!) which caused his
>attempts to do a large download of GPS software via RoadRunner to
>fail repeatedly. He ended up having to go to a cybercafe, and since
>their router was having problems he updated its firmware and finally
>got his download. A happy ending.
The details of the story would probably interest the list. I think
that Lauren should have posted it. If anyone wants to see the message,
please e-mail me privately.
>Apropos, this might be a good time to note again a key reason why I
>instigated this project in the first place. In many ways, most
>consumer and low-end business Internet access packages are something
>of "secret services" from the standpoint of individual customers.
I firmly believe that they are "secret" only to the extent that the
providers feel that it is necessary to retard the "arms race" between
writers of abusive software and themselves.
>To an extent that is really quite remarkable, people really don't know
>what they're getting for their money,
They do. They're paying the ISP to exercise its judgment, not to tell
them every detail of the ways in which they are fighting the latest
worm, P2P software, or other malicious creation.
>and most ISPs seem perfectly
>happy to let their subscribers assume that any observed service
>oddities are due to problems in subscribers' hardware or software,
>not related to how the ISP network is provisioned.
Actually, most of the time they are. We know, because we get called.
We've helped users to remove nasty Trojan horses like "Storm" more and
more.
>Note that Internet access services at this level are sold almost
>entirely based on theoretical speed claims, with usually nary a
>mention of traffic shaping, throttling, blocking, jitter, warping,
>morphing, or other "active" ISP data management procedures that
>really can have dramatic impacts on end-user applications
>performance.
I disagree. There is a mention of these things in the fine print in
the ad. Granted, it'd be nice to see it in the large print, but many
if not most customers would misinterpret it as meaning that the
service was inferior rather than superior.
>The specific decisions of how these various actions will be applied
>to customer circuits are generally made by (from the customer point
>of view) faceless entities deep in giant corporations (yes, Brett, I
>know *you* are not a faceless entity in a giant corporation, but
>you're the exception).
I do not believe that I'm an exception. System administrators are real
people with a real problem: Stopping abuse whilst making their
companies' customers happy.
I also believe that Lauren, consciously or not, may have withheld
my posting so as to deny those administrators a human face and preserve
the illusion that such measures are undertaken by faceless corporations
rather than real people trying to do the right thing.
>Typically, only the most general description
>of such activities will be buried in the Terms of Service, and ISPs
>often consider the details to be proprietary. Subscribers pay
>anyway, because (1) they don't really know what's going on in these
>respects and (2) they don't have much choice anyway.
>
>In Brett's case, was the behavior he saw the result of purposeful
>decisions by RoadRunner, or was a misconfiguration or other technical
>problem to blame? Hard to really know for sure, and trying to dig
>out info like that could easily become a long-term hobby for the
>average consumer.
Actually, it's more a pursuit for those who want to defeat it.
>We can argue forever (but not on the list!) about which (if any) of
>these data "management" procedures are appropriate and reasonable.
>But my take is that keeping them secret is not acceptable.
Unfortunately, there is no way to expose them without tipping the
playing field strongly toward those who would degrade the service.
--Brett Glass