NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: pcap files of the Comcast forgeries?
On 12/18/07, Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com> wrote:
> Exactly. When P2P software finds a fast connection or a big pipe, it milks
> it for all it can get. In fact,
FALSE. Speaking of the popular and contemporary software in use today,
they act like any other software that speaks to the native network
stack in this regard. There is nothing special that P2P does to try
to fill a pipe.
> some P2P software, such as Kazaa, attempts
> to turn turn well connected nodes into "supernodes," which consume many
> times the bandwidth of an ordinary node.
FALSE. Supernodes, Ultrapeers, Hubs (named differently depending on
the P2P network) do one, two, or both of two things: indexes some of
their leaves files, and/or provides a way for unfirewalled nodes to
notify firewalled nodes that the unfirewalled node has traffic for it.
Neither one causes intense traffic, and the user is in control of
choosing whether (and how much) to act in that capacity. Compared to
the traffic created by normal nodes, a normal node with hub overhead
is not even close to twice the normal traffic of a node, let alone
"many times the bandwidth of an ordinary node."
"Supernodes" are, in essence,
> "zombies" or "bots," because they are doing the bidding of the creators
> of the software at the expense of the user and his or her Internet
> provider, both of which lose computing power and bandwidth.
FALSE. They are willingly contributing their own bandwidth and
computational power to the peer to peer network. Again, P2P
applications do not do anything special in this regard. They do not
"hack" modems to use more bandwidth than the subscribers purchase from
the ISPs, nor do they offload any of the computational tasks to anyone
except for the users who have configured their clients to act in that
capacity.
> Intellectual property issues aside
FALSE. There are no intellectual property issues that do not also
exist for HTTP, TCP/IP, CAT-6, DOCSIS, or 2435 MHz.
, this is one of the biggest problems
> with P2P software: it is designed to take resources from third parties
> to accomplish the goals of the authors of the software. This is not
> something that anyone concerned with privacy or security should support.
IN YOUR MINORITY OPINION. However, I'm concerned with both privacy
and security. I have no special issues with P2P.
It's a great architecture and it is responsible for the Internet
today. After all, it was P2P that broke through the Mainframe model,
then interconnected disparate networks together to form this powerful
entity of free speech and commerce. We couldn't stop the P2P Internet
if we wanted to, nor should we.
> --Brett Glass
Robb Topolski
--
Robb Topolski (robb@funchords.com)
Hillsboro, Oregon USA
http://www.funchords.com/
[ It seems like we have people living in completely
different universes, or at least viewing the same
evidence through entirely different prisms. But
facts are facts. Either some particular P2P software
"milks [Internet circuits] for all it can get" under
certain conditions, or it doesn't. Let's try to be
specific here. I'd like to see any messages like these
to be replete with names and version numbers. *Which*
P2P software is abusive, or not? I'm tired of P2P
being lumped into one big clump as if it's all the
same package and has been unchanged since day one.
As far as the intellectual property arguments are
concerned, that's extremely hazardous ground for ISPs to be
dealing with. If ISPs wish to start making value-based
decisions about content, they are likely to find themselves
saddled with additional legal and financial exposure in a
wide variety of ways from which they are now nominally
protected.
It is undeniable that there are major, significant,
legal uses for P2P. As Robb noted above, if we
judged TCP/IP broadly based on what proportion of
packets were used for spam, phishes, or other illicit
activities, we might see calls to ban TCP/IP also.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]