His campaign for Kansas state rep, and he’s clearly inspired by the XKCD online comic.
Throw him $8.34.
He’s using paypal….He should get on act blue.
Category: Internet
FCC Chair: Comcast Violated Regulations
Their throttling of BitTorrent clients violated FCC regulations.
It appears that a fine is unlikely.
Of course, if I were FCC chair, penalties would involve a cricket bat, a taser, veal gravy, and hungry ferrets to the senior management and IT staff…which is why I am not FCC chair.
Microsoft Publishes Vista Compatibility Tool to Debunk Complaints
It was launched today, and it appears that its Vista Compatibility Center is ALREADY BROKEN.
At least it was when I checked the link.
This is a Wicked Good Idea
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA, or “T”) is putting free WiFi on its commuter boats.
This follows a successful test on the Worcester-Framingham commuter rail line.
Having relied on the “T” for a bit over a year, 1982-1983, I’m surprised that they came up with something this sensible.
Public Ownership of Our Communications Infrastructure: It Just Works Better.
Harold Feld, a specialist in telco and spectrum issues with an eye toward public access, points me to an interesting bit of information, that while the UK, with its largely free market (by Europe’s standards) broadband market place lags behind the rest of Europe, the town of Nuenen, population 7500, provides its residents with 100mbs connectivity, with triple play access (internet, phone, TV) for €39/month (about $60), on a municipally owned network.
What’s more:
If a community-funded ISP sounds like a wacky European socialist plot, consider this: OnsNet generated an operating profit of about €1 million on revenues of €4 million in the past financial year – and that’s after a massive upgrade in which it wired the entire community with dual-fibre capability. What has your ISP done for you lately?
Faster, better, and cheaper than what you can get in the UK, where they require that the last mile wiring and internet service must be separate, which in turn is faster, better and cheaper than what you can get in the US, where the only rule is maximize the next quarter’s profits.
The idea that an unregulated market in broadband to the home creates innovation is simply wrong. We have had nearly 20 years of this policy now, starting with ISDN, and the US has the worst broadband service in the industrialized world.
The goal of a company is to make a profit, and the easiest way for incumbents to make profit is to create barriers to entry, not by providing better of cheaper service.
Google Developing Network Neutrality Sniffing Tools
Well, this is one way to ensure that it’s difficult for the ISPs to claim that they are not messing with your traffic, as Comcast clearly is.
Heavy Internet Users Targeted
So, now the cable companies are looking toward an “application agnostic” way of limiting bandwidth, see here and here, combined with metered service, where you are charged for bandwidth over a certain level.
The basic problem here, and it’s a Google search away, is that in the rush to get to broadband quickly, the cable companies came up with an inadequate network architecture, so they are afflicted with problems that do not hit DSL of fiber (FIOS).
The real solution is fixing their networks.
Dang, No Lawsuit Against MediaDefender
You may recall that I wrote about MediaDefender’s terrorist DDOS attack on internet TV station Revision3 last Friday.
As promised, I sent Revision3 an email saying that if they wanted to sue, and set up a legal fund, I’d throw in a few bucks.
Well they got back to me, and they are not suing, at least not now.
reprinted with permission
Jim Louderback <@@@@@@@@> Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:24 PM
To: @@@@@@@@@Ha, that’s a good idea. Probably won’t do it, but I appreciate the thoughts!
jim
–snipped forward form support email—
—– Forwarded Message —–
From: “Matthew Saroff” <@@@@@@@@>
To: @@@@@@@@
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 12:10:55 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: The MediaDefender DDOS Attack, Will You Set Up a Legal Fund?Have you considered putting up a link for a legal fund to sue those folks?
If you did, I’d throw in a few bucks.
—
Matthew Saroff
Standard Disclaimer Applies
Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, I Gotta Blog
http://40yrs.blogspot.com
Enough is Bloody Enough!
Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of Barack Obama. He want to the bottom of my preferred nominee list in October, so I understand the imperative that some pro-Clinton bloggers feel on this issue.
There has clearly been a lot of misogyny in the campaign, both on the part of the blogosphere and the MSM, and calling both groups out on this is justified.
Furthermore, the sort of Teflon he has experienced with the MSM is something appropriate to discuss.
That being said, there are differences in how this is handled, with folks like BTD and Jerylyn being generally fairly well reasoned and calm, with Taylor Marsh being over the top with alarming regularly, though not universally, and Larry Johnson being completely batsh%$ insane to the degree that he is quoting former Nixon dirty trickster, and wife swapper, Roger Stone.
It’s OK not to like Obama, and to see him as either weak or lacking in candor (or both).
I do, and have ever since he threw gays under the bus in South Carolina.
But this does not mean that you pick up anything scrawled on a bathroom wall, and run with it.
RIAA Employed Terrorist Takes Down Web TV Network
MediaDefender, a criminal software firm employed by media companies to engage in illegal attacks on sites that they deem infringing, just took down the completely legal web broadcasting firm Revision3, which is, conveniently enough, a direct competitor to MediaDefender’s parent company.
It Revision3 uses BitTorrent to distribute its programming, but only its own stuff, but MediaDefender hacked in using a back door to place their own material on the server, and when this back door was shut down after it was discovered, a massive (8000/second) DDOS attack occurred.
At this point they say that they lack the resources to sue, but I’ve sent them an email saying that I would throw in a few bucks for a legal fund.
New York Times Comes Out For Net Neutrality
I think that this OP/Ed is a pretty good indication that this discussion has entered the mainstream, which is good, and the fact that the “Paper of Record” has come out in favor of network neutrality is better.
More Proof of Cable Bandwidth Twiddling
I would appreciate some information on just how F%$#ed up the cable broadband providers networks are, because we now have the results of a study on BitTorrent blocking, and it’s only the cable providers doing it, and they (Comcast, Cox, and Starhub, a cable/internet provider in Singapore)are doing it regardless of network load, and they are the only ISPs to do this in the world.
A brief technical rundown why the cable network architectures providers’ suck is here.
Basically, the technology is not there, but instead of being open with their customers regarding limits, they are engaging in stealth filtering, and not particularly good stealth filtering at that.
I’m surprised, given the sterling reputation for customer service of the cable companies.
Once Again, Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Spammer?
Yep, it’s Spamford Wallace, yet again, and he has finally lost the lawsuit that MySpace filed against him, by default. I wrote about this suit 9 months ago.
He apparently refused to respond to the court, so there was a default judgment.
If I were a judge, I’d have had his ass thrown in jail for contempt.
If I were a juror in the trial of his murderer, I might vote to convict.
FBI Wants to to Seize Control of the Backbone to See if You Gamble or Watch Pr0n
Really, I’m serious on this, though this could come as no surprise. It is the organizational imperative for law enforcement to ask for permission to spy on everyone all the time without oversight, as FBI Chief Mueller states:
I think legislation has to be developed that balances on one hand, the privacy rights of the individual who are receiving the information, but on the other hand, given the technology, the necessity of having some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point as opposed to the point where it is diffuse on the Internet
(Emphasis Ars Technica)
Obvious issue that the US does not own the internet, and it appears from his statements that he wants to be able to shut down the traffic with no judicial review, whether it be a BBS that they determine to be “terrorist”, or illegal betting in the form of an office “March Madness” pool, or fantasy baseball.
They will also be able to monitor what you buy at an online bookstore, and the content of your emails.
What’s more, in an increasingly politicized Justice Department, the possibilities for selective prosecution just boggle the mind.
Good Post on Comcast Torrent Blocking
FWIW, it’s clear that they are lying through their asses to the FCC, in that it’s clear that they are blocking torrents continuously, and not just during high bandwidth times, as they have claimed.
Harold Feld’s Tales of the Sausage Factory. Go read it.
Internet Law: Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com
The background here is fairly simple. The Communications Decency Act (CDA)grants a safe harbor for online providers of an “interactive computer service” from things that others might post.
So, for example, if someone other than me posted in the comments that Frau Blücher of deliberately scaring horses, I could not be held responsible in a libel suit.
What happened here is that Roomates.com is a roomate get together service, and when one logs in, you are asked about things like race, sex, sexual preference, religion, whether one has children, etc.
The problem here is that advertising using these categories an unambiguously clear violation of the fair housing act, and they were sued by the fair housing councils of San Diego and the San Fernando Valley.
Roomates.com claimed that they were immune under the CDA because the users of the service, and not Roomates.com entered the data, but the 9th circuit court of appeals called bullsh$#.
They said that Roomates.com required in order to participate, and as such, it was generating the illegal content itself.
I agree wholeheartedly with Eugene Volokh, who says that they made the right call. They were deliberately creating discriminatory ads, and deliberately facilitating these ads, as opposed to the hand wringing of publius of Obsidian Wings and Susan Crawford.
The analogy here is the difference between a bookstore carrying a publication that infringes on the Fair Housing Act, and the publication that actually carries those illegal ads.
The internet should not be a magic wand to excuse illegal behavior. Publius argues
….. that litigation if often done in bad faith. As any real litigator will tell you, the point of litigation isn’t necessarily to vindicate a right, but to harass an opponent with discovery, document productions, and other expensive tactics. So long as a claim is plausible, you can inflict real damage (and maybe get a favorable settlement) even if you think you will ultimately lose.
Every bookstore operator operates the same way. The books you host do not open you up to law suits, but the store newsletter does.
The internet is not a license to break the law, and we have case law distinguishing between hosted content and user generated content, and this was clearly the latter. Roomates.com is guilty as hell.
California Mulls Tax on Internet Sales
It looks unlikely that the tax on downloaded purchases will pass, but as state revenues implode, we will see a lot more of this, along with aggressive pursuit of people who are already evading sales tax through online sales.
I expect 2009 to be a banner year for lawsuits filed against Amazon, eBay, etc. for customer purchase information, so that sales taxes due can be pursued.
What Technically Competent ISPs Do to Provide Service
Verizon is investing resources in a technology called P4P, a PEER TO PEER technology which promises to reduce the burden on ISPs with regard to the distribution of commercial and licensed high bandwidth products.
This is what Bit-Torrent was designed to do. It was developed for things like Linux distros, and the idea was that when you released an upgrade, you would get the downloaders to share amongst themselves, so your server would not be vomiting blood.
Ars spoke with Verizon senior technologist and P4P workgroup co-chair Doug Pasko, who tells us that Verizon observed download performance improvements of approximately 200 percent during tests conducted with Pando. The performance boost can climb as high as 600 percent in some cases. Verizon believes that P2P technology is moving into the mainstream and is being legitimized for large-scale commercial content delivery. The company sees P4P as a way to enable broader commercial adoption of P2P tech while unclogging the tubes and relieving network congestion.
Since the efficacy of the P4P protocol largely relies on the availability of network topology information, Verizon and the P4P workgroup aim to make the new protocol an industrywide standard and convince other carriers to share their own data and participate. “Quite frankly, any carrier should benefit from this,” Pasko told Ars. The initiative has drawn support from a number of ISPs, including Comcast, which is currently facing scrutiny for impeding peer-to-peer traffic on its own network.
This is not to say that Verizon is not evil, after all they are the phone company, but they are not evil and stupid as ComCast is.
Your Tax Dollars At Work
Yes, the TLA (three letter acronym) intelligence agencies have defeated terror world wide, so now they are going to start monitoring massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) like Wizard of Warcraft.
Jeebus.
Net Neutrality as Anti-Trust
The Judiciary Committee has had hearings on this.
It’s a good sign, but I think that it’s more inside baseball than anything else. Specifically, has been before Ed Markey’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and in order to get it in front of the Justice Committee, they are looking at putting it in antitrust legislation.
The fact that two committees are now competing to get this passed is a good sign for network neutrality legislation.