Net Discrimination in Disguise
June 14th, 2006 by tkarrThere’s a pervasive myth that there has been no Internet content discrimination by the large phone and cable companies. “That is simply untrue, ” writes Matt Stoller of BlogPAC.
Stoller points to Cox Cable, which for three months has blocked their customers from accessing the online classifieds super-site, Craigslist. (Disclosure: the company’s founder, Craig Newmark, is a charter member of this coalition)
The cable giant has thus far dodged the discrimination bullet, claiming security software malfunctions, according to a report by Tom Foremski in the Silicon Valley Watcher:
. . . the problem of access had been going on since late February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox isusing from a company called Authentium. Cox has been collaborating with Authentium since April 2005 to develop the security software suite.
Back on February 23rd Authentium acknowledged that their software is blocking Craigslist but it still hasn’t fixed the problem, more than three months later. That’s a heck of long time to delete some text from their blacklist. And this company also supplies security software to other large ISPs.
Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive. Jim [Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist] wasn’t aware that Cox had its own classified ads service. “That changes things, ” he said.
A similar occurrence flared up just two weeks ago when MySpace users across Florida and Tennessee claimed that BellSouth was blocking access to the community Web portal.
These are exactly the kinds of scenarios that many people engaged in the Net Neutrality debate are concerned about, Foremski writes. “[T]hat the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for their internet users to access competing services.”
According to Craigslist program reports, customers have been experiencing suspicious ISP blockages for some time.
But a report in today’s Wall Street Journal downplays these concerns, quoting Cox spokesman David Grabert: “We don’t block or otherwise impede access to any legal Web site… Unfortunately, a few customers who experienced this difficulty drew the wrong conclusions about what was happening.”
If that’s the case, then, why has it taken Cox and their vendors three months to fix a known problem involving a competitive business?
The CEO at the “security software” company in question is equally opaque about the Craigslist blocking. Here’s his exchange with David Utter of WebPoNews.
Without net neutrality protections, the cable and telecom duopoly will have no incentive to give customers the choices they expect online, Stoller writes. “Already, it’s quite difficult to even know that this is happening because they are quite easy to disguise.”
June 15th, 2006 at 2:19 am
The ISPs do discriminate. Heck they use SORBS to harass me (and I never spamed). Then they block my email server port (25, 110) and I never abused, or spammed, and I am always with security (I try to secure as much as I possibly can). Why do the ISPs think they can control our connections and servers. Heck what happens if they next block my own personal web server. I have a dream and I hope the ISPs don’t mess it up. Boo SORBS. Boo controlling ISPs!
June 15th, 2006 at 6:51 am
The ISPs might not need a huge website blocking firewall to block us. I bet they will use SORBS, and other Blacklists to block websites that don’t pay. Did you know SORBS is already doing that. SORBS wants to charge a $50 fee for delisting so they could be getting ready for net control. Boo to you too SORBS
June 17th, 2006 at 1:48 am
Interesting news about Cox - I find it interesting because they are my ISP, and I just tried to access the aforementioned Craigslist. Funny, I had absolutely NO problem getting there.
I’ve had Cox for almost a year now, and have not had ANY problems accessing ANY site I’ve wanted to go to.
Oh, they also - very kindly I might add - delivered my password from this site directly to my mailbox within seconds after registering here. Those bastards! Damn them anyway! Right?
June 17th, 2006 at 4:03 am
dakimmel. Are you suggesting that Cox never blocked access to craigslist, even after their own executives and vendors have admitted that this was happening for several months? Or after it was widely reported by the media and hundreds of Cox cable users that such blockage was occuring?
Perhaps the public pressure finally got to them and they have now fixed their “security software malfunction.”
Also, we sent your password to your in box, not Cox. Under a non-neutral regime, Cox would be able to block or slow that delivery with impunity. Consider yourself lucky.
June 17th, 2006 at 5:33 am
Tim,
Cox is under a non-neutral regime and always has been - it’s cable, not telco, remember?
The larger point that you’re missing is that sometimes things happen due to incompetence and it’s best not to ascribe them to malice. I wonder if Craig’s HTML is all up to snuff, it seems like a pretty rough site.
Anyhow, spam filtering is a problem for ISPs and their customers on account of the Internet’s “neutral” e-mail architecture. ISPs that try to filter spam always encounter false positives. That’s the price we pay for spam neutrality.
June 17th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Are you suggesting that sites should be BLOCKED because their HTML is not “all up to snuff”?
June 17th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
No, but it’s an interesing idea.
June 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Has anyone here actually read the response from Authentium? Far from “opaque,” it pretty clearly (if technically) explains the problem and why this has nothing to do with blacklists:
“The network packets coming from the Craigslist.org web site were unusual in that they contained a zero-length TCP window that usually indicates a server is too busy to handle more data. The Authentium firewall driver responded by sending data only one byte at a time. This slowed down the web request and made the Craigslist.org web page load very slowly or not at all.”
From RFC 793 (which defines TCP/IP):
” Flow Control:
TCP provides a means for the receiver to govern the amount of data
sent by the sender. This is achieved by returning a “window” with
every ACK indicating a range of acceptable sequence numbers beyond
the last segment successfully received. The window indicates an
allowed number of octets that the sender may transmit before
receiving further permission.”
Returning a 0 means “please talk to me very slowly.” Literally it means “don’t talk to me at all” but because that’s nonsense, sites generally interpret it as “I’m overloaded; slow down.”
I’ve verified this response myself by connecting to craigslist:
15:52:00.751836 IP http://www.craigslist.org.http > lemming.ranjan.org.47734: S 1639327951:1639327951(0) ack 3799817961 win 0
Note the final “win 0″ that confirms exactly the problem that Authentium claims.
Summary: craigslist told Cox to please speak to it very slowly. Cox did, but for longer than craigslist explicitly requested. Fixing this for craigslist could break other sites, so some caution in shipping a fix is justified.
The fact that SaveTheInternet posted this as an “opaque” response without further comment raises a question of how much STI actually knows about how the Intenet works.
June 18th, 2006 at 1:03 am
Very little.
June 18th, 2006 at 1:20 am
[…] But the real story is that Craig Newmark’s administrators don’t know how to set up their sstem. Here’s a comment I found on Save the Internet that will probably be deleted pretty soon: Has anyone here actually read the response from Authentium? Far from “opaque,” it pretty clearly (if technically) explains the problem and why this has nothing to do with blacklists: […]
June 18th, 2006 at 10:23 am
I don’t see a way to characterize this one as simple ignorance. Matt Stoller falsely repeated the claim that Authentium had craigslist on a “blacklist” five days after Authentium posted the explanation as a comment on his own blog. Timothy Karr has pushed this on this blog, the Free Press Action HQ blog, and his own Media Citizen blog, also with the “blacklist” wording and also well after having the correct explanation in hand.
This is dishonest, plain and simple. If Karr and Stoller have any integrity, they will retract and apologize for lying.
June 18th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
hey, guys.
been sending people over here since i heard the ykos panel on net neutrality a week ago.
but i have an ethics question for you all:
are you ok with blogs that run ads from the telco’s which undermine net neutrality?
all the big ones are doing it. i refuse.
more than just principles, it seems like it’s ridiculous to make short term profit for something that could help lead to long-term inaccessability.
thoughts?
June 19th, 2006 at 12:07 am
On accepting advertising:
It’s a difficult question, especially because the ads are over-the-top misleading. But if you accept advertising, and clearly label it as such, then shouldn’t you take all comers on the theory that your readership has the intellectual ability to figure things out for themselves?
I’ve seen blogs that take the ads and then trash them in the editorial text. I even saw one blog that said they took “that ad” (I assume it was the “Hands Off the Internet” misdirection), so they could attend the YearlyKos convention.
New media gets the chance to decide things for itself, and we don’t have the limited spectrum arguments that brings government regulation to terrestrial broadcast media, but I am always suspect of media that refuses ads, and often when they do so, the ads gain a life of their own and get wider distribution in stories about the fact they were refused.
They hurt, and they anger, and they make me despair for the people who might be taken in. But a free flow of ideas is important. If people can’t understand this issue and know the right answer, they will get the Internet service they deserve.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:57 am
[…] A good example of this can also be found in an interesting situation facing Craigslist. You have probably heard of them, it is a classified ad website. Recently, some users of Craiglist who have COX as an internet provider have found that they cannot access the website. Why? Cox says their security blacklist software has them erroneously listed and are blocking the users. […]
June 19th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Tim, dare I say it? You’re busted.
June 19th, 2006 at 10:11 am
You can say whatever you like, Richard. It wouldn’t make it any more accurate. Again, are you denying that Cox users couldn’t get to Craigslist for nearly three months? Are you denying that this blockage was due to a screening system put in place by Cox?
So Cox has a system that just so happens to block users from gaining access to Craigslist. According to a report at the Silicon Valley Watcher, Craigslist runs a competitive classifieds business with Cox. OK, perhaps a motive. Not yet proven.
The CEO of the vendor gives an “opaque” explanation as to why this happens. I’m entitled to my reading aren’t I, or does that make me a “flagrant liar.”
As for Cox. It’s clear that they could have fixed this problem sooner, especially after the several requests from Craigslist engineers to help address the problem.
Before you again go all hyperbolic about someone being “busted” for falsehoods, re-read the post and again see the point. And if you don’t, here it is again: Without net neutrality protections, the cable and telecom duopoly will have no incentive to give customers the free choices they expect online.
Their executives have already admitted their plans to discriminate in the press. This sort of discrimination is bad for the free and open Internet. The screw up between Cox and craigslist — as well as that that occurred earlier between BellSouth and MySpace users, suggest that discrimination may already be in play. Can you deny with 100% certainty that it hasn’t occurred? Are you saying we shouldn’t bring to light instances that raise the specter of discrimination?
Here is the point again: without net neutrality protections, the cable and telecom duopoly will have no incentive to give customers the free choices they expect online.
Agree or disagree?
June 19th, 2006 at 11:10 am
“Again, are you denying that Cox users couldn’t get to Craigslist for nearly three months? Are you denying that this blockage was due to a screening system put in place by Cox?”
I’m a Cox user, I’ve never been blocked–I’ve used Craigslist over the last few months to find somebody to do a home repair and to look at postings from increasingly desperate house “flippers.” Most of my friends and coworkers are Cox customers and several use Craigslist, but I didn’t hear of this issue until you and Matt Stoller raised the cry of conspiracy. Cox and Authentium have made solutions available to their customers (disable the Security Suite or install the beta). I’d guess that only a relatively small percentage of the Cox user base has been affected.
I wouldn’t say that the “blockage was due to a screening system”–it’s due to a combination of behavior of a firewall driver and an apparent misuse of the TCP protocol by craigslist.
“The CEO of the vendor gives an “opaque” explanation as to why this happens. I’m entitled to my reading aren’t I, or does that make me a “flagrant liar.””
What makes you a liar is that you continued to call this a “blacklist” even after it was clear that it wasn’t, and you’re continuing right now to claim conspiracy and have still made no admission of error. If you truly found the clear explanation from Authentium “opaque,” that means you aren’t qualified to pontificate on technical matters involving the Internet, and maybe you should have somebody with technical knowledge review what you write before you stick your foot in it again in the future.
So when can we expect you to show some integrity and come clean on this?
“As for Cox. It’s clear that they could have fixed this problem sooner, especially after the several requests from Craigslist engineers to help address the problem.”
How many different versions of Windows does Authentium support? Do they have other licensees besides Cox? What kind of testing do they go through for a production release? When did they make a beta available? (March.) You didn’t ask any of those questions, did you? Did it even occur to you to ask them?
“Here is the point again: without net neutrality protections, the cable and telecom duopoly will have no incentive to give customers the free choices they expect online.”
I disagree. Businesses have an incentive to keep their customers happy and continuing to buy service from them if there’s anywhere else they can go. This underscores the importance of competition–I’d like to see more than just cable and telco, but even with just two they seem to compete rather than collude. And fortunately, I live in a city (Phoenix) where there are more than two broadband options.
June 19th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Consider yourself lucky, Lippard. For the vast majority of Americans, real competition doesn’t exist in the Internet marketplace. Were every American to have a dozen choices of broadband network providers, Net Neutrality would become a minor issue. Most users would switch to those services that don’t discriminate, letting the real marketplace determine the best Internet for everyone.
As it is however, the cable and phone duoply control 98% of Internet boadband connections in the country. In nearly half of US markets customers have only one broadband choice. When the largest of these providers announce their plans to discriminate, then, what real choices do we have left.
Again, the craigslist blocking wasn’t first reported by me or Matt Stoller. We were merely responding to a number of news reports. I then looked at numerous network reports which indeed confirmed this. I also communicated with network engineers at craigslist who said they were trying to resolve the problem. It was also confirmed by Cox executives in interviews they gave to media. Sounds like a preponderence of evidence to me.
So now you’re denying that this problem ever existed. Hmmm . . .
June 19th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
lippard->”I’m a Cox user, I’ve never been blocked–I’ve used Craigslist over the last few months to find somebody to do a home repair and to look at postings from increasingly desperate house “flippers.”
…
lippard->”I wouldn’t say that the “blockage was due to a screening system”–it’s due to a combination of behavior of a firewall driver and an apparent misuse of the TCP protocol by craigslist.”
I assume you’re the Jim Lippard who is debating this same issue over at Bennett’s “The Original Blog,’ where you reveal that the reason you haven’t experienced this issue is that you don’t run Cox’s firewall. To me, “screening system” is a very good analogy for “firewall” for most Internet users who don’t have a deep understanding of TCP/IP routing.
This whole issue is reminiscent of the technobabble the telcos used to convince regulators that allowing the public to hook their own devices (such as extension phones) to the public switched network, would cause its immediate and total collapse. They were able to maintain this charade for 20 years before we could get AT&T’s chief engineer on the stand where he was compelled to tell the truth.
What is clear here, is that there are many examples of non-neutrality hurting end users; at least one had to be corrected by FCC intervention, and that agency no longer has that power. Yet the monopoly boosters have seized on the Cox issue, tried to blame Craigslist when both parties are misconfigured (win 0 has become a term of art, since its literal interpretation is meaningless), and then started shouting “liar.”
In fact, Cox may be a better example of this whole problem, because it reveals how this may work in practice. The ISPs don’t publish a blacklist, AOL doesn’t issue an edict that it will pass no mail that is critical of its business practices, BellSouth doesn’t post a “No MySpace” manifesto on its switchhouse doors.
They tweak their systems so that the the packets are discarded deep in their infrastructure and when called on it, try to make the explanation as obtuse as possible, or claim its a “security” issue, or worse, claim its “proprietary” and that they won’t discuss it.
We can argue over the fine points of Internet protocol all we want, and you can puff yourself up and condescend,” maybe you should have somebody with technical knowledge review what you write…” but in fact there are some of us out here who not only understand the “opaque” explanations, but have seen how they’ve been used in the past by the telcos in noncompetitive ways.
June 19th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Tim Karr wrote: “So now you’re denying that this problem ever existed. Hmmm . . .” No, how on earth do you get that? I’m denying that there was ever a problem for me or for the people I know who use Cox and Craigslist. The scope of the problem is those people who use the Authentium software, who haven’t installed the corrected beta that’s been available since March, who use Craigslist or any other sites that behave the way Craigslist does.
You can try to blame others for your misreporting, but the fact remains that you attributed this to a Cox “blacklist” even after you knew otherwise, and still haven’t corrected yourself on that.
PBCLiberal: “Screening system” combined with “blacklist” sounds like something other than “firewall” to me, it sounds like something designed to block particular sites, like a web content filter. The term “firewall” is the household term for a firewall, isn’t it? Who uses the Internet today that hasn’t heard of a firewall?
If you still think this is evidence of Cox malice and want to argue that way, I think you only discredit yourself. I don’t see a shred of evidence here that anyone at Cox or Authentium made any attempt to be obtuse or hide what’s going on. I do see evidence that Timothy Karr and Matt Stoller have used it to push their agenda without regard for factual accuracy.
I agree with you about the “no AT&T equipment connected to our network” issue from the 1960s, but I don’t see the analogy here. Cox’s provided software is optional. I also will go further and say that the incumbent local telcos have largely stifled innovation rather than promoting it–I’m not a fan. BTW, I think the proposed new provisions to the Stevens bill are reasonable (an unbundled Internet requirement and a nondiscrimination requirement).
June 19th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
“AOL doesn’t issue an edict that it will pass no mail that is critical of its business practices”
For details of the dearaol.com filtering, see:
http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/15/details-on-how/
and, on AOL’s filtering processes for bulk mail in general, see:
http://postmaster.aol.com/
Again, you can attribute this to malicious conspiracy, but I think you undermine your credibility by doing so.
June 19th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
lippard->If you still think this is evidence of Cox malice and want to argue that way, I think you only discredit yourself.
The only people who have used the term “malice” on this thread, are Richard Bennett and you, so I’d counsel that you take your own advice. I’d also respectfully suggest that we stop the namecalling. My particular favorite is Mr. Bennett’s characterization (today on his blog) of net neutrality supporters as “screaming neuts.”
Maybe my 40 years of working with regulated communications monopolies hasn’t made me sufficiently cynical, but I think this was an unfortunate accident at Cox. Its unfortunate because it clearly demonstrates how business issues could drive inequality. I don’t believe Cox set out to block Craigslist…at least not before this issue is resolved. I do think there was no compelling reason inside the organization to fix it quickly, which is a powerful argument for my side.
It doesn’t reveal malice. It reveals why these large, typically understaffed companies cannot operate in what we used to call the “public interest, convenience and necessity,” without either regulations requiring them to do so, or enough competition that they are forced to spend the money to adequately support their own systems.
I am also grinning from ear to ear that Ted Stevens has actually waffled on this. I though the money and the power and the technobabble of the duopolists was going to make this a slamdunk. Today, I’m not so sure.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Please re-read the first sentence in this post, PBCliberal: Matt Stoller says Cox “discriminates” against Craig’s List.
Cox doesn’t block Craig’s List, they’ve bent over backward to work around the bugs in the Craig’s List software configuration.
This isn’t malice or discrimination, it’s lying for political gain.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Cox’s vendor (Authentium) has acknowledged it has a problem, and has vowed to fix it and even released a beta, yet your posts contunally repeat the misstatement that this is Craig’s problem alone. I am not sure, in a strict read of RFC793, that returning an ACK with a zero-length window is impermissible under the standard. I will agree that it is poor net practice, especially if you do it under all circumstances.
June 19th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
There were two problems, one on Craig’s side and one on Authentium’s side. Authentium has fixed theirs, and Craig hasn’t fixed his.
Is that clear?
All along, Craig’s has had the power to make the whole problem go away by fixing their bug, but insead of doing that they whine about Cox and seek new laws.
June 19th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
[…] There is a post at Save The Internet, that alleges Cox Communications of blocking Craigslist for almost three months. The security company Authentium, who handles security for Cox Communications reportedly explained with technical details why users can not reach Craigslist website. It looks like there is problem with the computers that hosts the craigslist website. Here is the reply from rnapier, strongly suggesting that the behaviour is normal and as per the specification. . […]
June 20th, 2006 at 12:52 am
On the Craigslist-Authentium-Cox controversy…
In the Craigslist-Authentium-Cox kerfuffle, neutrality advocates are out of their depth….
June 20th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
FYI — Craigslist on this issue:
http://www.cnewmark.com/archives/000623.html
June 20th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Craig always sticks to his story, even when he’s been soundly debunked.
One last time: Cox Cable doesn’t block access to Craig’s List and never has.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
See Authentium’s response to Craig Newmark’s outrageous lies:
http://www.zdnet.com/5208-12517-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=22215&messageID=422699
Tim, you owe your readers a retraction.
June 20th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Bennett->”One last time: Cox Cable doesn’t block access to Craig’s List and never has.”
Cox provides software that causes its customers’ computers to block access to Craig’s website, and apparently continues to hand out this flawed software to new customers and will do so until at least August. It will hand out software that works correctly only when its customers contact Cox and specifically request it.
The bottom line is that the service provided by Cox cable when used in the manner Cox recommends blocks access to Craig’s List under most circumstances, and that the company has been nonresponsive. It is a classic case of what can happen without net neutrality, which is probably why you have become so shrill in trying to deny clear history of this issue.
One of the wonderful things about the internet–and one of the things we most need to protect, is that the standards are open, and conversations, such as the email exchange between Authenticum and Craigslist can travel around the globe in milliseconds, with no gatekeeper protecting service providers against the truth.
June 20th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Yeah, the Internet is neutral, and that’s how we know Craig Newmark isn’t telling the truth.
Have you no shame?
June 21st, 2006 at 9:05 am
The post stands on its merits. Read it again. Do you deny that Cox customers were blocked from access to craigslist? Or are you merely questioning my right to highlight this fact as possible evidence of discrimination?
Do you deny that executives at the largest phone companies have stated their plans to disriminate in favor of the content providers that would pay their added fee? Do you want me to show you these quotes, again?
Go on read the post. The story is accurate. It seems you want a retraction merely because you disagree with it. Hate to break it to you, Richard, but that’s not the way things work.
Have you retracted any of the falsehoods or misconstrued facts you’ve scattered throughout the comment threads of this blog and elsewhere. Where’s your “evidence” that SavetheInternet receives corporate support? Cough it up. Or that MoveOn’s biggest funder is Google? Both are claims you made here. Both are untrue.
You’ve repreatedly claimed that no prior government regulation existed to ensure net neutrality. Really? Where’s your evidence?
Have I asked you to retract any of these untruths? No. We have graciously provided you a platform where you can rant against anything to do with Net Neutrality. We merely poit out out the many instances when you are wrong. All in the democratic spirit of debate.
So rant away . . .
June 21st, 2006 at 11:14 am
From Craig Newmark’s blog:
“The whole thing was exacerbated by folks talking about ‘net neutrality, mostly, an effort to preserve the level playing field that the ‘net represents, which is just fairness. The message from some is that blocking
sites is something that big telecoms might do and in all the confusion, that message turned into an incorrect message that an ISP actually did. To repeat, none of this was deliberate. However, it does illustrate a downside of journalism via blogs; stuff is published, then maybe fact-checked.”
‘Nuf said.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Tim, you didn’t just note that some of Cox’s customers had a firewall bug back in February, you said the situation was evidence of discrimination: “There’s a pervasive myth that there has been no Internet content discrimination by the large phone and cable companies. “That is simply untrue, ” writes Matt Stoller of BlogPAC.”
The only pervasive myth is the one that had Cox discriminating against Craig’s List. That’s what you need to correct.
Save The Internet is funded by several organizations, chiefly your employer Free Press!. These organzations are funded by members and by foundations, as I understand it. Are any of the Big Six content merchants among them? How would I know, I’m just an engineer, not a journalist.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:18 pm
No, Tim quoted Mat Stoller of BlogPAC making that claim. Tim’s claim was that Cox was blocking Craigslist, which is substantially correct. Technically, Cox was providing software and recommending that it be installed and enabled on their customers’ computers that blocked Craigslist.
While we’re in full disclosure mode, Mr. Bennett, are any of your clients megatelcos or cable internet providers?
Are you aware that Mr. Ray Dickenson, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Authentium, has posted on your blog: Craig is not a liar, and he didn’t issue a retraction.? Perhaps you should be setting your own house in order by doing some correcting of your own?
In my case, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am a stockholder and principal in a company that will be adversly impacted by ISPs employing the “Tony Soprano Business Model” against internet video download sites. And yes, we pay for our bandwidth at rates substantially higher than almost all of our end users.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Tim said Cox was “discriminating” against Craig’s List, and that’s a lie.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:15 am
WARNING!
I received a telephone call yesterday from “Anonymous” (big surprise) looking for “consumer opinions” on the Net Neutrality issue.
They do indeed speak with forked tongues–the question was phrased like this:
“Who do you think should pay to ensure that Net Neutrality is protected? If you think big corporations should pay, Press 1; if you think consumers should pay, Press 2.”
Sneaky, sneaky. I wish I could file a Do Not Call Registry complaint, but the caller ID number is anonymous and they don’t mention who they’re calling for. Bastards.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Yes, we know there is such a thing as polling.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Timothy Karr: “You’ve repreatedly claimed that no prior government regulation existed to ensure net neutrality. Really? Where’s your evidence?”
There have been common carriage requirements on telcos, but there has been no regulation on Internet service providers to enforce any kind of net neutrality; ISPs are not common carriers.
You’ve repeatedly claimed that net neutrality has been enforced by law for 70+ years. I’ve previously said that I thought you were confusing telco common carriage with Internet net neutrality, and you denied it, but when I asked what the heck you were talking about, you never responded.
You’re the one claiming that there have been regulations in place to enforce network neutrality–if so, cite them. If they were already in place, why would you also be arguing for new network neutrality regulations? What I think you’re really want to be arguing is against the removal of common carriage for DSL, in which case you’d have something of substance to argue about. But you’ve said that’s not what you’re talking about.
So what, exactly, is your position?
I’ve put forth a version of network neutrality (”Lippard Network Neutrality”) that I think is reasonable, and I’ve been specific. Shouldn’t advocates of network neutrality do the same?
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 am
In 2005, the 6-to-3 decision in the NCTA v. Brand X case changed the face of the Internet. The ruling ended a long legal fight between cable companies (like Comcast, Time Warner and Cox) and independent Internet service providers, or ISPs (like Earthlink and Brand X). The case was about whether cable operators should be required to sell access to other service providers that want to send information (data, voice, video and audio) through their networks.
In 2002, the FCC ruled that cable companies would not be required to do so. That meant cable companies could sell cable modem service and block all competitive ISPs. They could also use unfettered power over the network to discriminate against different kinds of information on the Internet or interfere with the speed and quality of downloading from different Web sites. A federal appeals court overturned the 2002 FCC decision, citing Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which subjects all providers of “telecommunications services” to mandatory common-carrier regulation. The Supreme Court Brand X decision reversed that decision, siding with the FCC and the cable companies.
Phone companies were — up to then — required to maintain “open access” standards. These prior government regulations did exist and ensured Net Neutrality in their information services. However, as we improve broadband services, a new specter has arisen: that of QOS guarantees and how ISPs dole them out. (We’ll get to this and your suggested compromise but for now back to 2005).
After Brand X, the phone companies then successfully petitioned the FCC for the same treatment as the cable companies. They’re now asking Congress to do the same. If they succeed, the cozy duopoly of cable and DSL that controls more than 98 percent of the broadband market will be entrenched.
This could mean the demise of all competitive ISPs and stunt the growth of the new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) industry that depends on network access; it also will instill Net discrimination in a way that fundamentally undermines the end-to-end architecture of the Internet. The ruling also could endanger Community Internet and municipal broadband projects nationwide by cutting them off from “backhaul” connections to the wider Internet.
These Net Neutrality supporting regulations were in place until they were taken away in 2005. The only enforceable Net Neutrality requirements that now exist are those that the FCC grandfathered in as a condition of mergers between massive ISPs. These conditions will soon expire opening the road for possible wholesale Net discrimination.
As for you suggestion. We agree that QOS guarantees are necessary for certain types of services — medical, emergency response, etc. Our position is in line with Paul Misener’s comments during a recent debate with Mike McCurry:
“We don’t think that that’s wrong for the network operators to be able to prioritize certain types of content. So if they want to prioritize telemedicine over data files that makes perfect sense. Let them do it. We’re not opposed to that. The [Net Neutrality] rules that we propose would not do that. Our concern is discriminating among the source or ownership of that content. So if the network operators are put in a position of favoring the Mayo Clinic over Johns Hopkins, that’s a problem. That’s the discrimination. That’s when the network operators become the HMO.”
This discrimination would turn the Internet on its head, ceding control to large corporations that seek to impose an old media model (top down) in place of the bottom-up Internet that has become a force for innovation, economic growth and democratic participation today.
Discrimination based on the source or ownership of the content is the problem. If you want to discriminate and favor telemedicine over data files, that’s fine. But don’t pick Google over Yahoo! or the Mayo Clinic over Johns Hopkins based on which company pays you most. We need to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
In a true free market this wouldn’t be a problem as customers would flee the gated Internet planned by the major phone and cable companies. But AT&T, Verizon and other major ISPs have successfully legislated their way to virtual monopoly control of the local broadband markets.
As to your and Richard’s suggestions that I lied in the above post: Nuts!.
Nowhere did I attribute this to a Cox “Blacklist” as you claim. Richard seems to have skipped his Journalism 101 course. Either that or he’s willfully blinkering himself to the words in the post in a desperate bid to paint me as a corporate-sponsored liar. Nice try.
Again, read the post. You’re both attributing things to it that simply aren’t there. Here are the Cliff Notes:
1. It’s a myth that Net discrimination doesn’t exist. Richard you have admitted as much in your own posts. Perhaps you should also re-read your own writing. It’s also a fact that executives of major ISPs have stated their intention to discriminate.
2. Cox users were blocked from accessing craigslist for as long as three months. Are you suggesting that no Cox users had this problem? I can show you hundreds that did, backed by the company’s own admission of this.
3. Discrimination or not? Whom to believe. I wrote: “The cable giant has thus far dodged the discrimination bullet, claiming security software malfunctions, according to a report by Tom Foremski.” So your saying that I lied about the Foremki report? Are you suggesting that this report doesn’t exist? Where’s the lie?
4. When questions “Lie” I ask: “Why has it taken Cox and their vendors three months to fix a known problem involving a competitive business?” Seems a legitimate question. Or is asking questions a “lie”?
5. One side of the story. I then characterize the Authentium response about the “software security problem” as “opaque.” My opinion. Their response is just one side of the story. You take it to be the immutable truth — descended upon high to blast any question that discrimination had a role in this instance.
Your entitled to your opinion as well. I’m not calling you a liar for having one. But you’ve gone way off the reservation here to suggest that this post was intended to deceive. It stands on its own merits. Any J-school newbie could tell you that. I even gave space for Cox’s response.
The jury is still out on the Cox story. It’s wrong to suggest that this is an open and shut case where discrimination had no role. You may disagree with that assertion. That’s fine. (And we’ve graciously given you ample space to air your views via this blog). But your argument disintegrates when you try to ascribe “lies” and “malfeasance” to a legitimately attributed post.
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
The Jury is in.
The title of this post is: “Net Discrimination in Disguise.” You offered Craig’s List as an example of a service that had been victim of “discrimination”. We now know what happened, and Cox was not part of the problem. In fact, Craig himself praises Cox for helping to get the problem - an end-to-end problem, not a network problem - resolved.
Where did you report on any of this. Tim?
I think most of us don’t have a problem with the idea of banning arrangements that harm people’s health, but the real question is how to do it. The traditional telecom regulatory framework isn’t helpful because the Internet is not a telephone network and has never been regulated like one. The parts of the Internet Access network that use telephone lines have only been regulated at the level of telephone service, not at the level of packet management.
There is no regulatory framework for packet switching, you see, and that really should be the issue. We need to develop one, not simply try and force-fit packet-switching into the 1934 Communications Act.
June 24th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Richard:
[quote]
“Net neutrality” is a simple concept, all it really means is “consumer pays.”
[/quote]
You are playing with words. You’re clearly insinuating that consumers will pay more.
And yes, I disagree with what you are saying… for the countless reasons all over this website, this blog and in my other responses to you. For the reasons in PCB Liberal’s responses and also Tim’s responses.
-d
June 24th, 2006 at 2:44 am
woops, ment for another thread. sorry.
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August 3rd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Tim, re your June 23 comment:
As I thought, you’re talking about common carriage/interconnection requirements for telco transmission facilities. That has nothing to do with IP interconnection, peering, or filtering, and it has historically only applied to the telcos not the cable companies. If that’s what you mean by “net neutrality,” then net neutrality is not a feature of the Internet, it has nothing to do with regulations on ISPs, and most of the arguments you make are completely misguided.
BTW, Cox made a change on their end to stop using a TCP window size of zero.
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August 23rd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
[…] My fellow blogger George Ou dug around the blogosphere and, if a firewall manufacturer’s explanation for what’s going wrong is right, it looks like several Net neutrality activists should be eating crow instead of making hay. Writes Ou: It appears that the Net neutrality proponents have been caught in a flagrant lie in their effort to scare the public (thanks to The Original Blog and The Lippard Blog for pointing this out). MyDD.com and SaveTheInternet.com along with many other Net neutrality activist sites have accused Cox Communications of deliberately blocking the website Craigslist by quoting a report from our own Tom Foremski. This alleged blockage of Craigslist was supposedly an example of what would happen without the passage of an extreme version of Net neutrality being pushed by Congressman Markey and Senator Snowe and big Internet companies such as Google. The only problem with this accusation is that it is flat out wrong, yet SaveTheInternet.com and MyDD.com are flagrantly lying about it. Even though they have been repeatedly notified of the real situation, they refuse to retract their stories and continue peddling the lie. […]
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
[…] public (thanks to The Original Blog and The Lippard Blog for pointing this out). MyDD.com and SaveTheInternet.com along with many other Net neutrality activist sites have accused Cox Communications of deliberately […]