Net Neutrality

[lucreti...@fl.it]

Guess all the Trumpy people are happy now that they can get their
hands on the net :( How could they? The Mozilla people put up a
good fight against it, I even contributed to the cause I felt it was
so important. I heard on BBC that the 'inventor' of the net is
really mad about it.

[HRM Resident]

It's hard to predict what this will do, but I suspect it's designed
to make things like Amazon, eBay and anyone else who bribed/bribes the
US FCC have their web sites load a hell of a lot faster . . . and those
who didn't bribe will run at a snail's pace. Expect Google searches to
become more "less neutral", if that's possible. It's just a
continuation of the gradual transfer of power and money to the
ultra-rich. Sigh. The US ought to look at what happened to other
empires who desperately tried to hang on when their time was up, and it
was someone else's turn to call the shots.

This isn't designed to help the average user. It's to make sure
people like Jeff Bezoz don't run out of gold rivets for their yachts.

--
HRM Resident

[Mike Spencer]

HRM Resident <hrm.res...@gmail.com> writes:

> It's hard to predict what this will do, but I suspect it's designed
> to make things like Amazon, eBay and anyone else who bribed/bribes the
> US FCC have their web sites load a hell of a lot faster . . . and those
> who didn't bribe will run at a snail's pace.

AIUI, it's the big, vertically integrated media/telecom companies that
want net neutrality to go away, that it is they who have been lobbying
or bribing to make it so. If you own the pipes, you're relegated to
carrying bits and you'd like to be able to demand fees from big media
suppliers -- transmitters of large gobbets of bits -- to expedite
their bits. If you're vertically integrated, own both pipes and media
production/delivery assets, you want to expedite your own media
delivery with less or no competition from other media suppliers.


--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[lucreti...@fl.it]

On 16 Dec 2017 16:47:55 -0400, Mike Spencer

Bugger them - they are going to do with the net what cable companies
did with cable.

[Mike Small]

Doesn't really affect Canadians does it? My cable bill (in the U.S.)
went up $10 last month. Not sure if they did it anticipating the ruling
or not. Think I'll drop them and tether with my phone instead.

--
Mike Small
sma...@sdf.org

[lucreti...@fl.it]

It will come - I can't believe that Bell is not licking their lips and
seeking ways to replace the loss from customers cutting the cable! We
have already been told that cost of Hulu, Netflix et al will go up in
accordance with the US. Like Papa Trudeau said, 'we sleep next to the
elephant' :(

[HRM Resident]

The exact quote was:

"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No
matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it
that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

(Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969)


I agree 100% with the premise. Already Netflix has popped their
monthly charge up $2 starting January 2018. What the rich want, the
rich get. Then their is some kind of revolution and the rich a replaced
by others who become rich and the cycle repeats itself! We are a weird
species!

If you want to see what REALLY coming, looks at the tax bill they
are pounding through their congress down there . . . and don't think for
one second that we won't have to do something similar in the future.
The mega-rich here need their tax breaks too, and they'd make sure they
get them.

--
HRM Resident

[lucreti...@fl.it]

How does Trump continue to get away with not producing his tax
returns? I saw someone in the Guardian say what I have wondered, is
it that he won't produce them because he is not wealthy? Is that why
he is such a litigating person etc.? OTOH if you build buildings and
don't pay the contractors, how could you not be wealthy? So many
questions, so few answers.

[HRM Resident]

I agree. Now, who in the entire world is going to force him to
release them?

I don't think he's even worth $1B, but my opinion is just one in
~7.5 billion people.

--
HRM Resident

[lucreti...@fl.it]

On Mon, 18 Dec 2017 09:55:18 -0400, HRM Resident

To think we used to talk in thousands now we throw billions around :)

[Mike Small]

HRM Resident <hrm.res...@gmail.com> writes:

>>> Doesn't really affect Canadians does it? My cable bill (in the U.S.)
>>> went up $10 last month. Not sure if they did it anticipating the ruling
>>> or not. Think I'll drop them and tether with my phone instead.
>>
>> It will come - I can't believe that Bell is not licking their lips and
>> seeking ways to replace the loss from customers cutting the cable! We
>> have already been told that cost of Hulu, Netflix et al will go up in
>> accordance with the US. Like Papa Trudeau said, 'we sleep next to the
>> elephant' :(
>>
>
>
> The exact quote was:
>
> "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No
> matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it
> that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
>
> (Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969)
>
>
> I agree 100% with the premise. Already Netflix has popped their
> monthly charge up $2 starting January 2018. What the rich want, the
> rich get. Then their is some kind of revolution and the rich a
> replaced by others who become rich and the cycle repeats itself! We
> are a weird species!

As I recall, when the Democrats changed the regulations to have the FCC
regulate internet providers like utilities (sort of), it was companies
like Netflix and Google they more or less did this for and some kind of
netflix/comcast showdown about peering that triggered it (and who was it
in the backbone, Cogent somewhere behind the scenes?). Or such was the
perception of many, including, apparently Ted Cruz:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/#item-7.

Well, I expect I'll seriously lose credibility referencing Ted Cruz, but
he's only parroting others and for his own purposes. Also don't get me
wrong, I tend to think cable internet companies should be regulated as
utilities, if that's the model we have to have (as opposed to
municipalities providing the internet, contracting to telecom companies
for the infrastructure, and allowing services to be sold ontop, which
would be my preference, ideally with some nonprofit entity like Chebucto
Community Net having some presence providing a baseline for what should
be made available for on top services), but I'm a little unclear what
that ruling accomplished. For example, it doesn't do anything to prevent
my email provider getting blocked periodically by the likes of hotmail
and yahoo with little recourse. The FCC can't help the sorts of internet
related issues I'm most hit with or make it possible for me to use
sites, even some government sites, using my preferred software and
operating systems. It appears mostly only to work at the level of
resolution where the behemoths live.

Also, there never has been any real neutrality in a strict sense. For
example, CDNs were entirely exempted or not considered unfair. So the
messages I keep getting about little mom and pop shops not being able to
compete with large retailers who pay to have fast web sites, well that
wasn't true before except to the degree the very inexpensive CDNs can
work for the load they need. And I can't see how such CDNs could offer
much in the way of protection against DDOS attacks. That strikes me as
the largest inequality for web hosts and their small business, nonprofit
or individual clients, that making your corner of the internet robust
against attack is a big business. Add in the problem of securing the
servers, well, I don't see how there conceivably could be complete
equality, except to the degree a person can develop his or her own
expertise, being rich in knowledge without being rich in funds. But what
are the limits of your personal skill vs. what can be bought with $$$$$.
Granted, that doesn't mean you can't make the laws as helpful as
possible, so count me in for having the Democrats back in power and
changing the rules back again. At the same time given the other stuff
that's going on if it's as true as some think that this issue will
galvanize younger voters then I'll gladly trade the internet if that
means republicans aren't elected again for a long time.

What's the Canadian context for this? I look up the CRTC on wikipedia
and all it says is they regulate the amount of Canadian content as they
used to do for radio and tv when I lived there (but not movie theaters,
which I thought odd, and how did you ever get to see Canadian movies
after Wormwood closed). Canada I gather has at least as bad or perhaps
worse ISP choices as the U.S. What does network neutrality mean there as
far as what Rogers, Telus etc do? My impression when my mom was moving
in the summer is that, at least judged by their customer service, the
ISP picture in Dartmouth is as bad and perhaps far worse than it is even
here in Boston where apartment buildings often only have one choice of
provider (the convenience of monopoly is you don't have to deal with
competitors trying to sabotage each other as you switch
providers ;) ). Changing providers seemed like a nightmare, but I haven't
heard whether telus or rogers use their last mile infra to favour their
own content or those of their partners. I think Telus and/or rogers
don't own CTV, so I guess that part of the picture at least is better up
there.

>
> If you want to see what REALLY coming, looks at the tax bill they
> are pounding through their congress down there . . . and don't think
> for one second that we won't have to do something similar in the
> future. The mega-rich here need their tax breaks too, and they'd make
> sure they get them.

I was going to ask my Dad, but I suspect there's a serious Canadian
angle to this re. foreign investment, multinational (car?) companies who
import parts from one unit across the border and use a certain deduction
for that, and relative corporate tax rates. But I don't have a head for
economics, and I'm sure ctv and cbc are covering this well.

You at least still kind of have reasonable television and radio news
programs. For the later discussion in this thread about how Trump gets
away with everything, just note the size of the viewing audience of
pravda, I mean fox news. It's a shame the tax returns aren't out, but
just knowing what business he's in is enough to see how much he'll
personally benefit from this new tax plan. But you won't see that on
Fox. A fairly substantial number of people seem to even buy this line
that there was something untoward about how Mueller got the Trump team
transition emails.

So media here is heavily compromised. That's I think why you see leaders
get away with things you might think would not fly in Canada (or
not?). The newspapers here, some of them, still more or less do their
jobs, but I'm not sure readership is large enough for that to make large
enough of a difference. Crossing my fingers that the judiciary remains
uncaptured long enough to throw this guy out. Failing that, I gather his
diet is so bad he'll probably blow a gasket one of these years
anyway. But perhaps that will only be enough to see more clearly how
Trump is only a symptom and not the disease itself. Also, an alarming
fact: though he doesn't seem to know how to hire for executive
departments, he's assigning judges of his liking to courts at record
pace. This will be his legacy I guess, supposing nothing bigger comes
like killing millions of Koreans as he'd threatened to do or nuking some
planet or other.

--
Mike Small
sma...@sdf.org

[HRM Resident]

On 18/12/17 02:28 PM, Mike Small wrote, in part:

> Also, an alarming
> fact: though he doesn't seem to know how to hire for executive
> departments, he's assigning judges of his liking to courts at record
> pace. This will be his legacy I guess, supposing nothing bigger comes
> like killing millions of Koreans as he'd threatened to do or nuking some
> planet or other.
>

One of them didn't go over so well:

<http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/opinions/trump-judge-nominee-petersen-bad-day-callan-opinion/index.html>

I heard he was so embarrassed he removed himself from consideration.

As regards to Korea, watch out. Leaders who are temperamentally
unfit to govern often start wars. Why? Because most citizens rally
around their "leader" during wartime. It's a tried and true method of
making people forget about you constant screw-ups.

--
HRM Resident