Net Neutrality Repeal General

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html Haven't seen an actual general thread for net neutrality, so here. As all U.S. lainons know, the F.C.C. has voted to repeal net neutrality on the 14th of December. The imperative nature of this issue warrants discussion. What is to be done about this? Do you believe this will be contested to the point where it will be retracted? Do you believe the innate tier-based access system will be enacted in the sense people have been illustrating? What do you believe this will mean for the security field?

> What is to be done about this? there is two things that can undo this congress can undo it, it will need a simple majority of 51, considering republicans control majority it will be a uphill battle but not impossible, as the majority (roughly 75% of voting republicans) support NN[1]. Some republican senators came forward to support NN, mainly Susan Collins[2]. Your best bet would be to keep calling your reps and senators to keep the pressure on them. Second way is in the court room, EFF, and other organizations are suing the FCC to keep NN[3]. That would be most likely be turned down 5-4 swaying toward turning down. Remember the charges about FCC not investigating the 2 Million fake comments using stolen identities were used against NN[4], Which could overturn it. Sources: [1]http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-of-voters-support-keeping-fccs-net-neutrality-rules [2]https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3j7ee/susan-collins-asks-fcc-to-preserve-net-neutrality-ajit-pai [3]http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364933-new-york-ag-to-sue-fcc-over-net-neutrality-repeal [4]https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/14/fake-net-neutrality-comments-stolen-identities/

>>3415 In my personal opinion, I believe that there is a case to be made that any restrictions on certain types of websites in the future would be violations of free speech, and as such, could be contested in the court system. That might not re-instate net neutrality, but it would at least protect consumers. As for what will probably happen, I imagine nothing at first. Yet slowly but surely, we will see the gradual erosion of our online freedoms in situations in which it benefits corporations.

Nobody is going to block website access for you. Before 2015 there NEVER was such thing as "Net Neutrality" in the whole history of the internet (and after that only in the US). Net Neutrality is not about censorship, it is about whether ISPs should be allowed to charge extra money from bandwidth hogs, which is a good thing. If you want a free and open internet you should fight for that instead of "Net Neutrality".

>>3418 Except for the fact that Verizon throttling websites was how internet became Title 2 (net neutrality) in the first place.

I wonder what this really means though. Most of the idiots shouting the loudest against this know the least, I mean they are posting complete nonsense all across the intertubes day and night, and then others get sick of reading it and scroll on by (Lainchan is mostly free of this info pollution thankfully). I guess we won't really know how bad it could be until a few years pass. The ISPs won't do anything suddenly or to existing accounts but maybe in five years you'll move to a new house and attempt to get a new subscription and then you'll see the new "options". Sigh.

>>3418 What will actually happen is they open the throttle wide for the hoopleheads to watch Game of Thrones and football (internet is the new cable TV) and during prime time you get bumped to a slower lane for... whatever it is you do online.

>>3419 Exceeding bandwidth capacities doesn't equal to throttling.

>>3423 They didn't exceed anything, they were extorted. there is tons of cases too Verizon blocked blocked, not throttled, BLOCKED google wallet to force people to use their own payment app. http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_google_wallet/index.htm Comcast owns hulu, they have a huge incentive to slow traffic to netflix or other streaming sites. This wouldn't be a huge deal if most ISP's and cable companies were not monopolies, but they are, they can force you to deal with it or give up the internet entirely. In modern day times the internet is a huge part of our lives. Most places of employment require online applications, most banking is online, and huge sections of the entire economy depend on it. Pai says that removing NN will have incentivize more companies, but there is no evidence to suggest that at all. plus avast majority of citizens and companies want NN. It's one of the few things that is bipartisan among both democrats and republicans.

>>3424 >They didn't exceed anything, they were extorted. Not really. Some ISPs like Comcast are willing to pay for the link upgrades and let Netflix free-ride while other companies simply refuse. >Verizon blocked blocked, not throttled, BLOCKED google wallet to force people to use their own payment app. Huh, I thought we were talking about Internet routing? How is Verizon's (in my opinion rather soykafty) smartphone business related to that? Do you criticize Apple for blocking every App from the App Store that isn't certified by them?

>>3424 >This wouldn't be a huge deal if most ISP's and cable companies were not monopolies, but they are, they can force you to deal with it or give up the internet entirely. Except people still bittorrent in Europe, people still Google Tiananmen Square in China, people still access child pornography despite it being outlawed literally everywhere in the world. You guys rage about how unreasonable the other side is being and you don't realize how embarrassingly ridiculous you yourselves sound?

>>3426 > Do you criticize Apple No, no one on this website would dare do such a thing.

>>3418 I find it disgusting that there are people on the internet that are actually defending the repeal of net neutrality. This has nothing to do with making sure bandwidth hogs "pay their fair share". Anyone who has ever paid their own fuarrrking internet bill should know that you pay for bandwidth every month, advertised in the form of a speed ceiling (up to 25Mbps down, for instance). This means that, at any given time, you will get a maximum of 25 Mbps download speed, meaning you're free to use 25 Mbps of any sort of traffic. The same applies for companies and universities, but their lines advertise much higher bandwidths, like 10 Gbps. Netflix ALREADY PAYS for a ceiling on the traffic they receive. Additionally, each of their customers pays their ISP to route their traffic back and forth (within their allotted bandwidth). Net neutrality makes it so that these companies cannot dictate bandwidths per particular service/application type. By repealing these regulations, ISPs can now dictate speed ceilings and bandwidths per service or application. For example, instead of 25 Mbps down, you could now be defaulted to 256 kbps down for non-essential internet services, 1 Mbps for non-essential video services, and 25 Mbps for your ISP's priority services (like Hulu or Xfinity streaming if you have Comcast as an ISP). Your ISP can now choose which websites and services they should prioritize based on their business interests, which generally do not favor you in the slightest. Imagine Comcast's default plan blocking InfoWars, Drudge Report, and Fox News, while only allowing CNN or NBC. The vast majority of their users won't complain about this. This is private censorship, and this makes our internet no better than Russia or China. And no, the internet was not fine pre-net neutrality. The whole reason that these rules were put in place was due to ISPs beginning to figure out that they could control the booming free internet according to their corporate interests. Netflix was throttled by Verizon (You can find sources other than Netflix for this), Google Wallet was blocked by Verizon, and "Unlimited" data plans (i.e. no total traffic caps per month) were throttling people at some arbitrary data usage cap. In fact, repealing the laws are worse than simply not having them, because now they know that they can do what they want. Welcome to the era of private censorship. I hope you enjoyed having access to information without an agenda.

>>3414 It would appear to me at least, that net neutrality has been mostly a argument between two poisons. One, the vial of corporate interest, comes with private censorship and virtually unlimited private control of the surface web. The other, government regulation and political control of the surface web. Both come with unfavorable agenda's that ignore the individual and ultimately will seek to erode the power of the individual user to communicate and create freely across existing internet infrastructure. In the same way the air waves in the 30's were promptly regulated and have become primarily controlled by government interests and business interests, I suspect that such a demise awaits our current internet infrastructure as well. Regardless of the state of "net neutrality", essentially a farce to make people choose two non-options that fail to represent their interests as individuals, I suspect that the super users and "bandwidth hogs" will find another way to circumvent this nonsense and partner with business people and entrepreneurs to create a new infrastructure, one that will not be subject to the old rules, and the old powers. Here is to the future, where necessity is the mother of invention and frustration the father of action. Some links to examine that seem to point to the new infrastructure being built in response to the rumblings of coming doom for the current infrastructure. To become the new, we must first, slough off the old. https://ipfs.io/ https://blockstack.org/ https://lbry.io/ https://www.ethereum.org/

>>3429 >This means that, at any given time, you will get a maximum of 25 Mbps download speed, meaning you're free to use 25 Mbps of any sort of traffic. That's what's advertised, but what it really means is that you get to use infrastructure that was designed to withstand bursts of 25 Mbps multiple times a day, not a constant load of 25 Mbps. So if you have a protocol like bittorrent suddenly appear out of nowhere and people are running clients seeding at 25 Mbps 24/7, this is something that the infrastructure you paid for wasn't built for. If you actually want a connection that guarantees 25 Mbps all day, every day, you're going to pay orders of magnitude more than for a typical home internet bill. Check out this conversation (between two people who support NN) for a more detailed explanation of these sorts of arguments against NN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKD-lBrZ_Gg. >Netflix was throttled by Verizon This is also addressed in the video above, and it turns out the situation wasn't as simple as Verizon wanting to get an undeserved share of what Netflix was making.

>>3424 >This wouldn't be a huge deal if most ISP's and cable companies were not monopolies, but they are, Not that this shouldn't be troubling, but US antitrust laws prevent monopolies in one business from using their power as a monopoly to get ahead in another business. If Comcast throttles Netflix so that Hulu does better, Comcast is looking at a huge lawsuit. Which isn't to say that it's not going to happen, since historically these types of companies haven't cared so much about doing something that violates those laws, and generally, they profit more violating the law and paying the lawsuit damages later anyway.

>>3429 >This is private censorship, and this makes our internet no better than Russia or China. That's a fuarrrking leap. Censorship in Russia and China and politically motivated and universally cover the whole country. American ISPs disjointedly blocking out or slowing down one or two sites for financial reasons is not the same thing at all.

>>3427 >Except people still bittorrent in Europe, people still Google Tiananmen Square in China, people still access child pornography despite it being outlawed literally everywhere in the world. It's not that we can't get around it, it's that big corporations deciding for us what we have access to. the argument "Well people will just invent away around it" isn't the standard you want to set. We couldn't have to build versions of Tor and /g/net out of fear of not having access to the full internet.

>>3432 > but US antitrust laws prevent monopolies in one business from using their power as a monopoly except for the fact that is a oligopoly, dividing the country and staying out of each others way. So there's no monopoly, but there is... another example is plane travel, because there is only a handful of companies they can easily meet together and agree to charge bag fee's so everyone makes more money at the expense of customers. When there is only a few companies it's easy to work together to screw over consumers. >If Comcast throttles Netflix so that Hulu does better, Comcast is looking at a huge lawsuit. Except, removing net neutrality makes that legal. that's why it's such a big deal!

>>3431 >Check out this conversation (between two people who support NN) for a more detailed explanation of these sorts of arguments against NN >If you actually want a connection that guarantees 25 Mbps all day, every day, you're going to pay orders of magnitude more than for a typical home internet bill. This already exists, the point of NN is they cannot dictate what you use it for. If someone is using a large amount of data, they already have to pay a higher plan. It shouldn't matter what they use it for (assuming it's legal). The fact that they still support NN states that the good still out ways the bad. The biggest problem I'm seeing is that they (ISP's) want to charge more without building more infrastructure (despite getting large amounts of tax money to build in rural areas)

We already have an idea of what broadband will look like without net neutrality: cell phone data. Worst case: your uplink is metered now, and different websites count for different usage rates on this meter (plus things like bittorrent are throttled if you don't take added precautions). The last bit doesn't matter too much to me because I don't use any of the sites that would be given paid fast lanes anyway. So maybe my internet's slower, but I'd probably also not have to pay as much. Maybe I'd set up a cache to speed things up and use less data, and I'd have to make some changes to the way I use bittorrent. Basically, I think the net neutrality repeal is going to be waaaay worse for the netflix-feeding-tube normal users than any of us. That's the worst case scenario anyway. More likely congress will just make net neutrality an actual law once the dems get back in power... or the states will make their own regulations. Actually, I'm kind of glad that things went as they did because it puts the democrats on the "states rights" side of the debate for once... which is frankly hilarious. >>3435 >Except, removing net neutrality makes that legal. That's not necessarily true. It could very well be found in violation of existing anti-trust laws.

>>3433 They are more similar than you think. It's a small group of corporations with power that seek to control the flow of information of millions of Americans. 46.1 million American households (at least 10% of the population) doesn't have an alternative choice for an internet connection with at least 25 Mbps. They only have one ISP that will offer these speeds. Now, these ISPs can control what information you see by selecting which sets of information are prioritized and which sets are either blocked or locked behind an additional monthly paywall. Be honest. If your ISP suddenly blocked 4chan, lainchan, and anything else that wasn't normal person soykaf, would you seriously cancel your internet plan? More than likely you'd just groan and bitch about it and move on to the freely available services, ones that they've approved. They are effectively shaping where you get your information from. You are no longer in control of what you see.

>>3435 >except for the fact that is a oligopoly, dividing the country and staying out of each others way. Look into case law regarding antitrust lawsuits and you'll find that this isn't a valid defense. >Except, removing net neutrality makes that legal. that's why it's such a big deal! You missed the entire point of the post: it is illegal, regardless of whether or not net neutrality is repealed, for monopolies to use their monopoly for gains in another business domain. That means that if Comcast uses its monopoly to throttle Netflix to increase Hulu profits, it is illegal. That is antitrust law 101, and has nothing to do with net neutrality. >another example is plane travel, because there is only a handful of companies they can easily meet together and agree to charge bag fee's so everyone makes more money at the expense of customers. When there is only a few companies it's easy to work together to screw over consumers. That's called price fixing and it's also illegal for companies to partake in under antitrust laws that have nothing to do with net neutrality.

I'm so glad I'm not living in the U.S.A. I recently learned that Comcast even inject their own ads into your browser and even steam with MITMAs. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140908/07191228453/comcast-using-packet-injection-to-push-its-own-ads-via-wifi-apparently-oblivious-to-security-concerns.shtml https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/comcast-still-uses-mitm-javascript-injection-serve-unwanted-ads-messages/ I wonder how they fill find new ways to fuarrrk you over with the repeal of NN.

>>3439 >They are more similar than you think. This is just hyperbole purported by clueless net neutrality advocates (yes, there is rampant ignorance and bad faith on both sides). >It's a small group of corporations with power that seek to control the flow of information of millions of Americans. It is different because * they are not aligned. Comcast blocks 4chan? Switch to Verizon. Or go to Starbucks. China does DPI on every packet crossing the country. * they are private not government. Use a VPN, they can't stop you. Citizens evading bans in China can go to jail. * they are motivated by money not politics. >Be honest. If your ISP suddenly blocked 4chan, lainchan, and anything else that wasn't normal person soykaf, would you seriously cancel your internet plan? I would continue using Tor and continue not giving a soykaf. >More than likely you'd just groan and bitch about it and move on to the freely available services, ones that they've approved. Where do you think you are? Your helpless technophobe strawman won't work here. If you are worried about hoopleheads who can't use a computer, their access to information is already controlled by Google and Facebook and Reddit and Twitter, net neutrality won't make a big difference to them either.

>>3444 The problem isn't just that they can block stuff but I think you're being dense on purpose. > Comcast blocks 4chan? Switch to Verizon. Or go to Starbucks. ...sure, I'll go to Starbucks just to browse 4chan when I'm paying for internet at home already. Did you think about that at all before you typed it? > their access to information is already controlled by Google and Facebook and Reddit and Twitter, net neutrality won't make a big difference to them either. You ARE catching on then.

>>3445 >The problem isn't just that they can block stuff but I think you're being dense on purpose. Elaborate. >...sure, I'll go to Starbucks just to browse 4chan when I'm paying for internet at home already. Did you think about that at all before you typed it? You said that US will turn into China. It's not like China because in China the same sites are censored across all ISPs and Starbucks. In America nobody is forcing you to use 1 single ISP and nobody is stopping you from using a VPN. Your arguments in favor of net neutrality are greatly exaggerated.

>>3446 In America nobody is forcing you to use 1 single ISP You keep repeating that argument even tho it's debunked. More than 1/3 don't have an option, they are forced by a monopoly. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://qz.com/186881/nearly-one-in-three-americans-have-no-choice-when-it-comes-to-their-internet/

>>3447 >You keep repeating that argument even tho it's debunked. I can't read your fuarrrking mind. >https://qz.com/186881/nearly-one-in-three-americans-have-no-choice-when-it-comes-to-their-internet/ Only the title and the pie chart say that. I don't understand where this number comes from. The rest of the article is about something else entirely. Pretty dubious source to be honest. >https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ >More than 10.6 million US households have no access to wired Internet service with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, and an additional 46.1 million households live in areas with just one provider offering those speeds, a new analysis has found. This is about speed not choice. Saying people don't have a choice is a bit disingenuous. We did have internet before 25Mps you know, Second of all 50 million, what is this, 16% of the US population? Stop comparing yourself to China, it's embarrassing.

>>3447 >all >3GHz CPUs have Intel ME >everyone has no choice but to use ME >forced monopoly That's not logic that's bullsoykaf.

>>3417 it could very easily be argued that net neutrality is not freedom of speech, as it's not the government doing any censorship.

ITT: people freaking out because of a minor loss of freedom vs. people saying it's okay to lose your freedom.

>>3449 >everyone has no choice but to use Intel Wrong

>>3449 how do you not know the difference between a product and a service? >>3450 It can be argued, but it isn't a good one. >>3451 >not seeing this as a snowball affect for complete control of the internet.

>>3452 AMD has the same soykaf, the only difference is that AMD is so irrelevant nobody has bothered to look into TrustZone yet.

>>3454 You can always buy pre-ME processors. Or use something else like ARM. The point is that saying speed is the only thing that matters therefor nobody has a choice but to use the fastest processors and all the fastest processors have the same defect is arguing in pretty bad faith.

>>3454 >assuming I was implying you should use AMD WRONG try again?

The optimist in me thinks that if an ISP were proven to throttle connections, it would lead to some irate customer to make their own local ISP that doesn't throttle or ban software/websites. It's definitely something that interests me, but I'd imagine starting your own ISP would be expensive and the right kind of person needs to do it too. What would be the point of a new ISP if it's ran by religious nuts who outright ban sites like porn sites or anything that goes against their favorite religion? It would be kinda cool for a bunch of Lains to make an ISP though.

My personal take is this, in i think it was 2013, the FCC ruled that the internet was a service, not a requirement to survive like food or shelter, so if we look at it like a utility (which is what it really is) you can compare it to electricity. yes you don't NEED electricity to survive, in fact many people get by without it, but electricity is publicly regulated for a reason. imagine that you pay your electrical bill, but someone else paid 15% more to get the best service, so now 50% of society has to deal with rolling blackouts or brownouts like some 3rd world infrastructure all because someone paid an extra few bucks so he would have power to mine bitcoin and gave the whole city a big fuarrrk YOU. the result is that one person can use the money to pay for increasing ffees, as infrastructure is cut back for profit. and as can be seen with experiments for facbook, even when people got pissed that the facebook app kept crashing (bugs were intentionally written to break the app for experimental reasons) there was still a 100% rate of return on users who just kept on trying to get back into the app if i remember correctly. I dont know how bad it may get, but pirate networks and meshnets may eventually become a widespread concept In a 3rd world country where infrastructure is not available, this is a realistic scenario based on supply and demand. in a first world country like the united states, it is a purely profit based artificially inflated demand while supply (of in the NN case, bandwidth) is allocated based on willingness to bend over to the demands of the cable company. I am all for free market economics, but the internet industry is going the way of the TV industry simply because they can. where this becomes an issue in my opinion, is when 5g gets widely implemented, which promises widespread WIFI type services to customers, but companies will need to install their equipment all over public areas, like public roads, streetlamps, and buildings to provide coverage. with this in mind, it would be logical that they would whine about having been there first if any competitor tries to install any sort of network infrastructure anywhere near their equipment. >>3418 another part of it was the ability to sell privileged information to advertisers. with the analogy of the power company, it is understandable that if you are running a business where your information goes to a 3rd party (not your power company) then you are doing so with the understanding or even an agreement that they can use your information as they please (this is like netflix and facebook creating targeted advertising etc. when you use their services) now imagine if you power company had the ability to see what you were using power for, in order to estimate demand, and determined that you regularly plug in 500 sex toys to daisy chained power strips like you aren't supposed to do with Christmas lights. would it be reasonable for them (who are doing it to solely to provide the service t o you that you pay for) to turn around and sell that information without you knowing to other sex toy companies and the public if they pay to find out what you are using all the power for?

>>3459 >The optimist in me thinks that if an ISP were proven to throttle connections, it would lead to some irate customer to make their own local ISP that doesn't throttle or ban software/websites. unfortuantely, even when other megacorps have tried, the telecom companies took them to court and had their operations shut down, the problem is that the handful of telecoms specific to the US have assumed absolute control of all services and have even essentially written themselves into law to prevent competition

I'm more scared of the long-term effects of Title 2 than I am of the short-term "sky is falling" shiIIing for Net Neutrality which is so obvious it's saddening

>>3463 Nice try, Ajit Pai

>>3454 >AMD is irrelevant for anyone not willing to spend top dollar on a processor, AMD is the way to go.

warning the GOP is trying to pass a fake NN bill that would make the FCC's repeal worse. https://futurism.com/gop-revealed-bill-replace-net-neutrality-not-good/

>>3498 Honestly at this point I don't trust the government to do anything good at all. Burn that motherfucker down.

>>3516 Okay, longpost incoming. There's a lot of bullsoykaf to unpack here. >Title II…= internet becomes gov't utility = Obamanet = not good First, stop trying to turn NN into a partisan issue. Second, why are any of these things bad? Are you saying the internet shouldn't be a utility? >FTC Regulation = no monopolies…, no price-fixing, no unfair soykaf = good How does the FTC Regulation eliminate local ISP monopolies? Not saying you're wrong, just asking for an explanation. And what "price-fixing" and "unfair soykaf" are you referring to here? >Open Internet Rules / Bright Line Rules = no throttling, no blocking, no paid-priority = very good Well, those rules aren't within the FCC's authority, so I'm not sure why that's relevant now. >2005 Open Internet announced as FCC policy (by Republican chairman) Stop trying to make NN a partisan issue. >fun fat the two judges who fuarrrked open-internet were appointed by clinton, the third dissenter was reagan Stop trying to make NN a partisan issue. Also, Silberman (the dissenter to whom you refer) agreed that the Open Internet Order was outside the FCC's authority; his dissent was that the FCC has the authority to overturn state restrictions on municipal broadband. >This basically says "hey all ur free speech is only allowed if big gov't gets to turn the internet into its utility" Reclassifying the internet as a utility was the means by which the FCC retained the power to enforce NN. And again, you provide no argument for why the internet shouldn't be a utility. >If the ISPs collectively conspire to paywall a content-provider, they are all subject to FTC anti-trust penetration. Okay, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about the only ISP with serviceable speeds in my community throttling/blocking sites. What happens then? >…new policy is…business-friendly in hopes to increase competition How will the new policy increase competition? I keep hearing this claim, but nothing to substantiate it. >Title-II strangles investments, but this repeal attracts it. Actually, ISPs themselves say Title II didn't negatively impact their investment (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/title-ii-hasnt-hurt-network-investment-according-to-the-isps-themselves/), and like the competition claim, I've heard no argument to support these rules promoting investment. >Remember all the Congressmen who wanted to sell out our personal information earlier this year? This FCC repeal will block that, because of FTC consumer privacy regulations don't allow it. Which regulations? Can you cite them? What power does the FTC have to enforce them?

>>3459 Then those ISPs would be derezzed.

>>3516 >lets put obama's name in it, everyone will suddenly hate it. How the fuarrrk is this so effective? You can get almost any republican to ride bikes by saying obama likes cars. btw everything there isn't true, their isn't a shred of evidence to it. https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/18/the-fcc-disproved-its-own-claim-that-net-neutrality-was-an-obama-plot/

>>3532 They did the opposite, infowars kept talking about "Obama's war on cars"

>>3526 dude, it's a facebook image. It's for gullible saps, whether anything in it is true is irrelevant.

We did it!