NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Richard Bennett on Comcast and Fairness (from IP)
Yeah, yeah, I know, "The ability to encrypt data is insignificant next to the power of ISP Force ... " Well Darth, uh, I mean Nick, it's not a matter a faith, it's a matter of cause and effect and war without end. Sure, ISPs and their cohorts could choose to deploy ever more invasive technologies -- keyloggers perhaps, hmm? -- and users will counter with equally aggressive countermeasures -- an Internet arms race par excellence that would gladden the heart of Dr. Strangelove: "We must not have, an encryption gap!" What a waste of time, effort, and resources. You don't need to have taken a single economics course to realize that any product or service marketing relationship where the seller and buyer increasingly consider each other to be The Enemy with a capital "E" is most seriously dysfunctional. As far as encryption goes, all I'm essentially saying is that if ISPs keep pushing the envelope in their eagerness to inspect the content of user data, and/or manipulate/alter that data in various manners that many view as intrusive and inappropriate, this *will* rapidly speed the adoption of crypto, and accelerate all of the varied consequences that will result. Let's start wrapping this thread up fairly soon before we wear out the patience of the collective mind out there. --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator - - - > Lauren, I find your faith in this technological terror, err, > cryptography disturbing. > > EG, the strength of piracy on the Internet is the ease of getting the > pirated material, and the ease of distribution. Thus rather than > playing Whak-A-Mole on Torrent servers (which are largely offshore), > with ISP cooperation it becomes possible to play Whak-A-Mole on the > users... > > So the MP/RI-AA surfs the Torrent sites, and connects to the torrents > with a manipulated client, verifies that a particular torrent is a > copyright violation, maps the users of the torrent, and then sends an > automated list of the nodes to the ISP saying "This graph is bad, any > edge between two nodes in this graph should be killed", and you simply > RST-flood any edge in the graph which crosses your network. > > If this means dropping your bandwidth bill by 30-50% by kicking > deliberately-noncacheable > bittorrent traffic of your network, while making it easier to > negotiate a deal for your video on demand service at the same time, > and reduceing the likelyhood that Hollyweird will get even MORE > draconian legislation pushed through, you do it. > > > This won't stop closed-world pirates, but those are far less annoying > to the ISPs simply because there are so many fewer of them, and less > important to the MP/RI-AA because they are less likely to be users you > can convert to paying customers if you make the illegal content > sources unusable.