NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: FCC paths to Internet network management? (from IP)
[A few responses to messages on the list, concatenated for brevity. -BG] At 06:39 AM 11/29/2007, Seth Johnson wrote: >So you would say that all decentralized search engines should be >transparent or announce what they are? Absolutely. We already have the "robots.txt" convention for search engines, too. >Just what constitutes "obfuscation?" ?:-/ Trying to hide the nature of what you're doing. >Or dishonesty? Making an agreement and then breaking it. Lauren Weinstein writes: >At the risk of sounding a bit like Bob Frankston, I don't accept the >premise that ISPs have any intrinsic right to monitor my >applications and micromanage my use of the Internet, beyond flow >control as necessary to keep their networks healthy. Even the fact >that a user is choosing to run application A or application B can be >viewed as an element of content that should be none of the ISPs' >business. There goes QoS for VoIP and other real time applications. Want to lose the ability to do VoIP? It'd happen if the above were mandated. >"Disrupting other users" by this definition doesn't include the >simple running of protocols that make heavy use of subscribed >circuits. Yes, it does. BitTorrent, for example, tries to monopolize all the bandwidth you give it. By doing so, it disrupts the network. So, by the way, do GNUtella and eDonkey, though the mechanisms are different. Dan Doyle writes: >Privacy can be asymmetrical since to >guarantee my privacy, the public that is, I need transparency from >ISPs. No, you do not. As an ISP, our job is in fact to safeguard your privacy. But we must also enforce our terms of service. >The public's relationship to itself does not have to be >symmetrical with its relationship to enterprise. For instance, the >public is protected by the US constitution and enterprise is not. This is not correct. While I am a sole proprietor and am thus an individual protected by the Constitution, corporations likewise have Constitutional rights. Ed J. writes: >There should always be a very good reason, mutually acceptable to the network operator and its customers, for any blocking. How about that it was agreed to by contract and therefore was mutually accepted by both parties at the get-go? Barry Gold writes: >the world changes. It is up to ISPs to adapt -- whether by changing the way they provision their networks, managing user expectations, modifying their business model, or something else (possibly a combination of those three plus one or more somethings else). ISPs are indeed adapting. P2P mitigation is a vital adaptation which ISPs have made to retain quality of service. They pay tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement it, because it is effective and improves the customer experience (at least for customers who keep their words and abide by their contracts). --Brett Glass