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Linux News Urges Action on Net Neutrality
What's The Deal With Net Neutrality?Recently, readers started asking about LXer's position on Net Neutrality. Some people still aren't really sure what Net Neutrality is all about. Given the way Microsoft likes to co-opt the English language to define their software and standards as somehow "open", Net Neutrality struck me as one of those monopolist-coined phrases designed to trick me into supporting something I would later regret. Fortunately, that is not the case. Net Neutrality is something that every netizen would surely want. The bad news is, some are trying to turn freedom into profit. Anyone who knows me can just see the smoke starting to billow from my ears already. You see, right now, there is a bill in the House of Representatives, known as the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006", or HR 5252 designed to give the major telecable giants, like AT&T, BellSouth, Comcast, Time-Warner, Verizon, and others the ability to control Internet access, based on your ability to pay. How will this affect you and me? Well, currently, the web is run in a way that allows LXer.com - or for that matter, your blog - to load at the same speed as Microsoft.com or Google.com, depending on the webmaster's design skills. Under the COPE act, Google and Microsoft can pay big bucks to receive higher priority, thus lowering LXer.com's priority, and leaving it in the dust. According to Craig Aaron, of SaveTheInternet.com, the COPE Act has been passed out of committee, and is headed for the floor. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has introduced his own bill, HR 5417 in the Judiciary committee, and it is on a collision course with HR5252. What is considered likely to happen, at this point, is that HR 5417 may be amended to HR525, thus keeping Net Neutrality intact. Still, in the Senate, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has introduced the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006 (S2360). In plain English, the COPE Act in the House appears to be a mixed blessing. It protects community networks, but fails to protect network neutrality. How a Free and Open Internet Impacted My LifeIn 1995 I was a computer technophobe buying a computer for the first time. I got it January, and by March had signed up for CompuServe. In a very short time I discovered that, although I didn't own a car, I could communicate with people in different cities and states. I began to engage in discussions around social issues that concerned me. For the first time, I could share how a social issue impacted me in Charlotte, North Carolina, and get input from people in New York, Kansas, and Oregon. It really helped me to see the bigger picture. In time, I discovered the greater Internet and eventually the GNU/Linux operating system. Since I was not a computer expert, I started using the Internet to support what I was learning from books to help me solve computer problems. By 2004 I was a regular member of the SUSE Linux mailing list, where I got a good chunk of the information I used in writing my book, "Penguin in the Pew". Indeed, I even published my first-ever paperback - the second edition of "Penguin in the Pew". Along the way, I began building up contacts among hackers, users, journalists and news sites, and was invited to join LXer in October of last year. Today, I am Editor-in-Chief of one of the fastest growing technology news sites on the web, thanks in no small part to a free and open Internet. Even so, I'm a small fry. Where would GNU/Linux be today without a free and open Internet? More precisely, where would it be if Microsoft were able to pay enough money - or worse, organize a partnership among non-free software developers - to force users to wait three hours to load Linux On-Line, or debian.org, or SourceForge? It's actually worse than that. Small businesses, FOSS projects, non-profit and religious organizations - even educational organizations - could face an uphill struggle against those who can afford to pay for the fast lane. Save the Internet has paints a pretty disturbing picture of a telecable-domineered Internet. Knowledge Is PowerWhat would happen to the next Writely, or the next Scribus, or Abiword if the developers cannot afford fast lane fees? If you think this kind of abuse is far-fetched, then you haven't heard how AOL blocked e-mail mentioning http://www.dearaol.com. Two years ago in North Carolina, ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service. If American ISPs follow the behavior of those in Canada, such as Telus and Shaw, access to union sites could be blocked and people using competitor's services could experience downgraded service. Look, whether you use the Internet to engage in business, education, politics or religion, or you just want your fill of sex, hacking and multi-media, a free and open Internet is an absolute must. The battle lines seem to be drawn between the telecable giants and the rest of us. I mentioned the supporters of HR 5252 above. The supporters of HR 5417 include the OpenDocument Foundation, Free Culture (sister to the FOSS movement) and numerous others, along with Earthlink, Ebay, Google, Microsoft, and Skype. One would think that the mere agreement of Google and Microsoft on an issue ought to make Congress stand up and take notice. My Political Science teacher in high school taught us that knowledge is power. He was right, you know. But that power is pointless unless you exercise it by acting on what you know. Once I discovered what this whole Net Neutrality thing was all about, I fired off e-mails to my appropriate representives in the House and Senate. What about you? Are you willing to exercise your power? Using the Act Now link at www.savetheinternet.com will take you to a page where you can e-mail your representatives to let them know how you want them to represent you. LXer's publisher, Dave Whitinger, and the editorial team of LXer encourage you to take action today. We do not have much time to sit around, playing Tiddlywinks while the telecable giants shove us around through Congressional games. As I said above, the bill could come to a vote within the next week or two. SaveThe Internet.com's F.A.Q. explains where things stand as of yesterday. If you want, you can go straight to the Act Now page. Links
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LXer Feature: 2-June-06
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Comments (53)
Coercion.
32 earlier comments in the full thread.
I don't know if you read the Peggy Noonan piece I hyperlinked in some other discussion -- I don't remember which. You might like it. I think it might be linked from Drudge, if not, I think it came from the Wall Street Journal's Opinion section.
The French snake?
Nothing has changed. We are still, at best, voting for the leser evil.
I think the state of things says less about Hillary -- although she actually has shown a rather grown-up tendency to take this notion of governing seriously and to care a bit about the voters -- and more about the sorry state of the Democrats.
Let's be very clear: regardless of how you evaluate the 2000 Presidential election, over the last 6 years, they have more or less been creamed by -- can you believe this? -- George W. Bush.
That should be a wake-up call, but Hillary seems like one of the very few who didn't hit the snooze button.
I'm not doubting that Hillary is wide awake. Most effective predators are. I've seen her back some valid issues, and I've seen her following some that are pure garbage. Overall, I think she is just expedient.
Do I trust her? Absolutely not! As President? That thought terrifies me...
From the looks of things, I'd say they're also a minority. That is, more or less, an indictment of the voters (and non-voters, for that matter) about valuation of smart and clueful.
I have reservations about Hillary's candidacy. No 1. If she were nominated, I don't think her candidacy could withstand the onslaught of negative impressions engendered by her former time in the White House. No. 2, if she were elected, she would have a hard time because of No 1. A Republican congress would make hay wit their conservative constituents whatever she did. And heaven help her if she stepped out of line even once. They'd be snapping at her heels for impeachment.
That's not to say she wouldn't be a good smart president under different circumstances. I just don't see the odds in her favor right now. Don K.
PS. OK I did step through that door!! I will now turn around and sneak back out!!
Oops, you've hit one of my buttons. Republican does not equal Conservative.
I am a Conservative. I am not a Republican. GWB is a Republican, but his domestic policies (with the exception of tax cuts) are not Conservative.
Heh... well, that is one of the bigger problems with our two party system. The vast majority of Americans are neither raving left wingers, nor are they right wing nazis, yet that seems to be the choice presented to us. If you don't choose one side or the other, then you are anathema. This is further confused because left and right often 'claim' issues that may be entirely universal (like tax cuts). About the only thing that seems to be a truly equal opportunity issue in both parties is corruption.
As has been said many times, "it's not about guns, it's about _control_."
As far as electing JimF to President, I would ask everyone here instead to go back and read the Libertarian party platform. Notice, if you will, a deep understanding of economics, technology, the importance of a rational defense without "foreign entanglements", etc.
The last Libertarian presidential candidate, Michael Badnarik, is a computer consultant in Texas.
No kidding that "republican does not equal conservative". If you examine the Libertarian platform again, you will see the conservative values paramount. There are a large number of people who call Libertarians "disgruntled Republicans".
Hillary as President? There is only one good thing about that, and it's the same good thing that she had the last two terms of her Presidency: Opposition. Nothing would thrill me more than real opposition in congress and the media to the policies and actions of the present administration. It just isn't there.
Lastly, reading as DC cheers the idea of rolling back the size and scope of American government to its founding document is actually painful. That very idea was suggested over and over by Harry Browne, a two-time Libertarian party presidential candidate, as a way of welding the two aspects of the freedom movement: Anarchists and Minarchists, until someone could finally get in there and do something about it.
Once the US Fed.Gov was rolled back to what powers it has explicitly been granted, he would rent a stadium and we could all get together to argue and bicker about whether to cut more. Until then, arguing and bickering was rather pointless.
I remember the first time on LXer I suggested repeal rather than making new laws just because the news laws "favor" this particular forum's bias. What a trouncing I got! I'm very happy that JimF can make the same suggestion and not get pounded. It gives my anarcho-capitalist heart a little bit of cheer.
Marxism is not about centralized control by a small group. That's Stalinism. Marxism is that utopian fantasyland wherein each receives according to his needs and contributes according to his abilities. There is no market, nor any influence on human behavior save the desire to fit the utopia. Corporatism is the opposite fantasyland wherein a utopian marketplace solves all problems. Naturally, it requires the elimination of all inconvenient regulations on corporations in order for the magic to take place.
>Marxism is not about centralized control by a small group.
Technically true, but practice seems to dictate otherwise. In the absence of a market, you need a mechanism to take its place -- as history shows, badly.
That mechanism tends to be a very small group relative to the number of decision makers in a market economy.
Does that makes you feel more at home?
;)
Don't know about anybody else, but I certainly feel more at home.
Of course, as a resident whacko right-wing kook, I may not be representative...
I'm a right-wing kook, but I don't live here.
That's pretty much the point; it doesn't work in the real world. Like corporatism, it makes for cozy mental fantasies, but makes life miserable when real people are forced to live in it. Marxism was just a decoy used while setting up a small control group. Corporatism is now being used as a decoy. It gets the simple-minded to rally behind the poor, downtrodden multi-national corporation as it seeks relief from all that gubmint repression.
Everything is beautiful in theory -- if it's your theory.
I come to have more respect for democracy -- in all of its imperfect flavors all the time.
It sucks. It's messy. Leaders pander. The people often want stupid things. It can take too long to do anything, invest power in bureaucrats who can smugly outlast the people ostensibly wielding the true power, etc.
Everything about is either inefficient, silly, or scary.
Maybe that's why it works so much better than everything else.
Now -- I know I'm mixing apples and oranges here: political systems and economic, but they seem to mix in real life, too. After all, a market economy is a sort of economic democracy: suppliers responding to the votes of consumers.
So...as nothing works the way it does in the school book, please allow a little slip'nslide. ;0)
Dino, democracy does have one redeeming feature: It is inefficient. Government grows slowly so long as there is opposition. Unfortunately, democracy in all its incarnations has led to factions battling over the spoils.
There's a great statement somewhere, written in the 19th century, about "democracies last about 200 years, fail because of loose fiscal policy, and always lead to dictatorships." I find that most interesting because the US has no foreign enemies who could endanger the country, yet we are reaching a crisis point in terms of fiscal policy. The US dollar is at the melt down point.
Being "libertarian", I'm far more "right" than the "right", far more "left" than the "left". Here's how it works: The more authoritarian you get, the more of both left and right policies are enacted, but just all those policies that restrict peoples actions.
The more freedom oriented you get, the more policies of both left and right are enacted, but just all those policies that do _not_ restrict peoples actions.
Guns? Sure! Drugs? Sure! Communism/Capitalism? Go right ahead, interact with each other in any way you want so long as no one initiates force against anyone else.
Taxes are out, because in order to collect them some group has to have greater rights than the other group. The "right" to extract, under threat of force, the money from someone else's pocket.
Dino is absolutely correct about the mixing of economic and political models, because they indeed do mix. Someone who espouses free-market principles will tend to want to "live and let live", the essence of the libertine or anarchist position.
The Corporate/State alliance, or whatever the flavor of socialism is this week, is the opposite. It is authoritarian at its core, because if you leave people alone they will trade in mutually agreeable terms. The free-market is what you get when you don't interfere with peoples decisions.
As far as pure communism, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need", who decides what that ability is, what that need is? That is why every experiment in "communism" has failed. When Lenin tried abolishing money and making all production "common", the cities emptied as people went off looking for food, and otherwise starving to death. The greater the purity of the "communism", the faster disaster strikes.
Here's one of my favorite examples:
http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=106&year=2005&mon...
The Government and Telecoms have found out what we already know, that the Internet is the single most effective and direct way of discovering information and self expression yet created. To not have control over its access and content is to admit that they are not in control.
In order for any government to perpetuate itself it must have control over what its 'subjects' have access too. A public that has access to information that the government has no control over will eventually become un-governable. "Control" at its core is about resistance to change. To stay in charge is to endeavor to keep things as they are.
Why else would there be a need to create laws that give control of its access and content to the entities that the government already works with to control what we are allowed to see and hear with existing technology?
corporate welfare, again
You pay for a connection to the Internet, approximately according to the bandwidth capability you want. You pull data from the Internet at the rate allowed by your "pipe", regardless of where the data originates.
If you connect to Bubba's Brakes & Bricks, you may receive data up to as fast as your pipe and Bubba's paid-for pipe allow. The same holds true if you connect to MegaMonstroCorp, which has likewise purchased a certain sized pipe to the Internet.
The telcos want to put restrictors at the Internet backbone end of everyone's pipes. With this, Bubba may have paid for a big pipe to the Internet, but unless he pays again, his data will not get to your pipe at the same rate as MegaMonstroCorp, which, of course, has paid the extortion money to get its packets past the restrictors ahead of little competitor Bubba.
After decades of subsidies by taxpayers, the wired communications corporations want taxpayers to subsidize this double-dipping by way of federal law.
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